history tv, we hear from diana walker, a former white house photographer. she talks about her career and her behind the access --behind the scenes access. she is the author of "the bigger picture: thirty years of portraits portraits, and "hillary" portraits by diana walker. her photos were archived along with other national photographers. is march 8, 2013. im here are the american center of national history with the diana walker to talk about her archive at the center. it started as a targeted interview. tell me how you got started as one of the white house photographers for time.

diana: i started freelancing in the 1970's and i went to work for a small washington magazine. charlie peters, the editor, said to me, "we don't have much money " spend on photography. i thought, oh dear. he said we can only pay you $25 for every picture we use, but the good news is if you work for us on a freelance basis i can get you your credentials to shoot on the hill and at the white house. i said you've got a deal. this will be great. i began to freelance around

washington and the business of washington is politics. i started photographing for "the monthly" and i would photograph a lot of things on set for them. at the same time, that built up my portfolio. i went to see "time" and a lot of places. they would either give me work or they wouldn't. i went to see "time" and they started giving me work. one of the assets i had in my hand was my credential to go to the white house. "time" often, photographers who worked for them, might not be there when all of a sudden they relate get a call from a writer

or they would hear of the radio that the president was going to announce something that day in they didn't have someone over there. annie callahan could call me up and send me over there because i had the credential to do that. me while iluable to was working. i started working quite a lot for "time" doing all kinds of different assignments. realized i wasor working more than a lot of his contract photographers were and asked if i would like to be on contract with "time?" and that was in 1979. the first thing they did was to send me over to the white house carter,graph rosalynn

because the president was dealing with a american hostage situation. hostages were taken in our and held, and he was determined to get them out. he said i will stay here in the rose garden and rosalynn will do any traveling for me. that's what happened. the "time" photographer who was photographing president carter goted in washington, and i hitched to mrs. carter and we went all over the world. that's how i started photographing at the white house. >> you stayed on and got better access. going forward from that. tell me about when you first started getting behind-the-scenes access.

diana: when ronald reagan was elected president i continued to go over to the white house for "time" when they needed extra coverage. i would go to photograph mrs. reagan particularly. "time" was interested in her "just say no" program. i was sent there quite a lot in the first four years. dinner call standard and -- dirk halstead -- and david connerly was photographing reagan. i did the mondale campaign for 17 months straight and at the end of that, my chief said, how would you like to cover the white house?

that is when i started with the beginning of reagan's second term. i covered the white house through clinton. "time" became interested in the idea of shooting behind-the-scenes. they were always interested in it. if something came up, i remember dirk did a marvelous photograph of mrs. reagan and her dog. giving the dog a bath. that was great behind-the-scenes. "time" became interested in behind the scenes during the administration of george herbert walker bush. they asked me if i would be

their stealth weapon, if i would begin to ask for behind-the-scenes access. i did. george bush, his press secretary , gave me the opportunity to go behind the scenes with bush early in his administration. as time went on, i did more and more of it. indeed, i was with george bush behind-the-scenes at his convention in 1992. i was told that i could be with him on election day too. and it was funny because marlon

fitzwater took me aside close to the election and said diana, i promised you you could be behind the scenes. and he said, i am going to have to say no this time. it is such a tight election and if anything went wrong, i cannot take a risk of having a first press person in so close the last couple of days of this election. i have so much respect for why. the reasoning was absolutely correct. i was sorry about it. i wasn't with him behind the scenes. lost,in houston when he

but i wasn't behind the scenes. then, with walter isaacson becoming the managing editor of "time" during the clinton years -- he was very interested in behind-the-scenes. when he took over in the middle of clinton's term, he said if you ask for it and they give it to you, i will run it. that was great, because i had that guarantee. there is nothing worse than asking for behind-the-scenes and then not running it. it seemed unfair to me. to the president, frankly. they ran it each time i did it. the president clinton enjoyed the results. , when i goy editors

behind the scenes i am not going to have a reporter there. i am not having a reporter there and i am going to just produce the pictures. he said that is exactly the way we want you to do it. when i asked to be behind the scenes, the president himself had to sign off on it. it was quite good for them too. this is a two-way street. it is great for the publication to have a behind-the-scenes -- you but it is also are being used by the white house, too. they are deciding when you will be behind-the-scenes and what you are going to see. i felt i should accept their offers to be behind-the-scenes every time they offered because any time you see the president

of the united states behind the scenes, you learn something about the president and you see something. i can be there for you. you cannot be there. everything i see is important. it is important, what does the president look like when he is writing his speech? when i saw a diet coke on the desk or i saw he worked with a yellow pad. anything that i saw i knew it would be important to someone some time. i started doing it a lot. i did it with vice president gore, when he ran for president. i got access to be behind-the-scenes most of the

times i was with him. i did the same thing with john kerry and with hillary in 2008. the most productive behind-the-scenes work i did was with clinton. we made sure he was given a nice book of all the photographs afterwards. he told me later, he said it was fun. it was good. we enjoyed the results but i had no illusions they -- they knew what they were doing when they let me in.

they knew if the president was preparing for whatever he was doing, they knew that next week it would run and it would run with just captions for the pictures. no writer would have anything to do with it. it was a photo essay. they liked it, and obviously we did. a long answer to a simple question. >> i love long answers. i am going to follow up, you mentioned that "time" hired you as a stealth weapon. what does that mean? they asked me to go behind the scenes -- i just made that up. what i was meaning was that they came to me, my editor david, and said we want you to do behind-the-scenes.

said weitor did, and want you to do behind the scenes. what it meant for me was i could creep around and make pictures quietly. they knew i would never intrude where i was. it would be easier for me to describe to you how i worked rather than what they meant when they asked me to do it. it would be better and easier for me to tell you how i did it and tell you that is the way they wanted me to do it, i guess. what i did was, it was important to me to have them realize that i was trustworthy.

that i was not going to go back and tell the writers at "time" what i heard. it was very funny because i had been there a long time by the time clinton was president. i knew a lot of people who worked in the white house because they had worked for carter. there is a continuation, wins, thearty players in the white house disappear. they go do something else, and then they come back the next time. i knew most of the players in the clinton white house and they knew they could trust me. it is funny because it was not totally my character.

i do not hear when i am taking pictures. the picture of walter cronkite and ronald reagan, i do not know what they are saying. i do not know what the joke was because i was working. when i work, i cannot hear. i am not hearing. what i am doing is i am looking through a rangefinder to find a likeness. i'm looking through a rangefinder and i'm trying to frame the picture and think about the picture. consider where my light is. where it is coming from. what my shutter speed and lens opening should be. and doing that, i cannot multitask. i cannot hear what is happening. when anybody asked me what i

heard, i said, i am sorry, i do not hear when i am taking pictures. which is absolutely the truth. it wasn't just because i was being a goody two shoes, it was because i couldn't hear. it was and why was there. i didn't go behind the scenes with the pad and a pencil. i went with a camera. i never forgot that. that was why i was there. me to notrtant to share when i left the room. i also realized every time i was allowed behind-the-scenes with any of the presidents or candidates i photographed, i had to take advantage of every moment i had in the room. that meant not talking to them.

sometimes i would slip into the room and i did not even speak to the president. i didn't even say, "good " becausemr. president i did not want him to look up. and if he was in conversation with someone else, of course i did not say anything to him. i found that i worked that way and every so often the president would say, good morning. i would say i'm fine and i would disappear so he would go back. if he spoke to me, it ruins the picture because then i have pictures of someone sitting and talking to me. i am not part of this. other people in the room, how he relates to the other people in the room, how he deals with them is what i am there to see. and also if he is alone. how is he alone? what is he like?

there a wonderful picture of george, george was in the room that day, behind-the-scenes with the president. he was quietly sitting in a chair. the president turned around and started to read the newspaper. he was oblivious. he paid no attention to george and that is what you want. that is a beautiful picture of the president unaware of george entirely, in his own world, looking down at the newspaper. it became a symbolic picture to the loneliness of the job. which is fine. the picture is so much bigger than the caption. the picture is a beautiful image of the president of the united states alone in the oval office.

i would go to the extreme extent every time my camera was out of film -- with a leica camera, you do not use a motor. it is very quiet. you run out of film, if you want to change it, it makes a certain amount of noise. you do it as quietly as he can. there is no whirring of the motor. it makes a bit of noise. i knew i was making noise. so i would look down to make the noise and never look up. if i looked up i might catch the eye of the president who is going to start saying "you are all out of film" or something like that. i did not want him to notice me. the way i did it was never to look at him. i hoped he would not notice me or the noise if i did not look at him. do you know what i mean? try it sometime when you are

doing something noisy when you don't want so someone in the room to know about it, act as if you are alone. i would not look up. i was thinking they are going to ask me to leave, or this is a good break for them. they are going to say "thank you, diana." the press person was always trying to take me out. i would do it as quietly as i could and lift my camera to continue. a lot of times i could continue and a lot of times they thought i had had enough. , and this happened i don't know how many times, but sometimes i would leave before they asked me to. i did that for two reasons. if i knew i had the picture, i could leave.

you know you have the picture when something wonderful happens and i hope you will understand the subtlety of what i am saying. sometimes what i'm looking for is so small but it is big. it is like photographing president carter and president clinton --president bush and president clinton together when they became such friends later when they were both out of office. i was looking for the moment when the two would show how much they liked eachother. you see one president putting his hand on the other president's knee or something personal like that, you know you've got the picture.

it is not a bad thing to say thank you and leave. you never want to overstate your -- over stay your welcome when you are behind-the-scenes. many people look at the body of work i did behind-the-scenes and they think i spent the day with the president. i would not really be a fly on the wall for very long but it was enough to have a good body of work from behind the scenes. >> i know you mentioned you were looking for a moment that revealed something of the

person's character. how did that way of listening with your eyes develop for you? diana walker: when you watch someone through a lens, you are waiting for something to reveal itself with a facial expression. with a gesture, with a move. you know when you watch people when they are very engaged. you are watching for a moment when the person you see is

either responding to something. i was photographing president reagan. it was a big picture. it was to be the lead or the cover. it was not technically a assigned the scene photograph --behind-the-scenes photograph , though it is me having time to photograph him for a major story and there is no other press there. it illuminates what you are asking. i have done my homework about the president and learned from his wife's staff some of the stories you love to tell -- loved to tell. the title that this article was "why is this man so popular."

i had to show you why he was so popular. i was looking for the expressions in his face. for a gesture. for a sign of his character. i photographed, and photographed, and photographed him. all of a sudden, i said something at the is about mrs. reagan. i said she told me the story of such and such. he said, oh yes, i had not thought about that for a while. there is your picture. there it is. you are always looking for the moment when people reveal something to you. that is what we do.

whether it is out in public where there are millions, you're waiting for an expression on someone's face. even if you are using a long lens. you're waiting for a gesture. you are waiting for some event to happen in front of you. >> with a lot of your photos behind the scenes, you paid attention to moments of humor or when they are enjoying themselves. tell me about that. diana walker: humor in my oftographs, the picture walter cronkite, ronald reagan and all the presidents men laughing at that joke, i was very new to the white house when .hat nature was taken it unfolds in front of me when there were no other photographers in the room. i was doing an exclusive thing for cbs.

that picture, the picture of yeltsin and president clinton laughing, that simply unfolded in front of the world because they were on the stage. that picture is so funny. there is a series of five and they are so funny. i remember being behind-the-scenes with hillary clinton. we were doing a cover story around her 50th birthday and mrs. clinton's demeanor early on in the white house. she was not known for her sense of humor. there were people who did not know if she had one.

i asked the chief of staff if i could ride in mrs. clinton's limousine back from an event. the secret service left me in -- let me in the limousine and i squished into a corner looking at the first lady and her chief of staff. it was a wide picture to get both of them in. they immediately started to share something funny. it was a funny moment. they both were laughing and i thought, how great is this? i know what kind of sense of humor mrs. clinton has. i have been behind the scenes with her so much. i sent this packet of film to

new york and i said watch the back of the limousine. i got a call the next day from my editor. she said we cannot wait to run the picture of her laughing. she does not look that way in public. i was so happy that happened because it was so important to her character. she has a wonderful sense of humor and that was so nice to see when she was secretary of state. it was out there, how funny she could be. i love the fact that that was another laughing picture. i think laughing pictures are important. >> there is a contrast betwen the public clintons and the private clintons. being affectionate or laughing together.

tell me about the photo in the book where he has his arms around her neck? diana walker: one of the moments when i was behind-the-scenes with the clintons was the night -- i cannot remember why i was with them. for the day, or for a couple of days in a row. this particular night the , special olympics had an event at the white house and the president and mrs. clinton were hosting it. it was in a big tent behind the white house. the clintons were walking out on their way when the shriver family was waiting to greet them. they arson anonymous with the special olympics. it is theirs. -- they are anonymous with the

special olympics. it is theirs. the clintons stopped to speak to mrs. shriver and the white house photographer and i were together. just behind, we walked up quietly behind mrs. shriver. there was no light in the room. i had high speed light in my camera. ralph said to me, we should have heard you when you made the picture. you said wow. wow. i had my camera up and i was focusing. it is hard to focus a rangefinder camera in the dark. the president took his arms and wrapped them around his wife.

and he laughed. they were telling something funny. there i go again, not knowing what they were saying. it was so beautfiul and i went wow and shot it and that was a wonderful moment. a small moment. you never know when they are going to happen. it was a wonderful moment. it was on the eve of the vote of the president's impeachment. it became an important moment. i was thrilled to be there. >> you took a photograph of hillary as secretary of state where she is texting, which later became the text from

hillary meme. tell me about the photo and the duplication of that photo. diana walker: it was a year ago last october, i got a call from "time" and they said, would you like to go out with the secretary of state because she is going on a special trip. it is so important they are not telling us what country she is going to. we would love it if you would do it. i am kind of retired, semiretired, so they dusted me off and sent me out the door. there were two photographers on that trip because there were so many writers that wanted to go.

we're going to tripoli, libya. that was a big story in itself. gaddafi was not dead yet. and we were going to go to libya. the secretary of state was going to go to libya, which was in turmoil. we got on a c-17 transport plane to take us from malta to tripoli. i was getting my gear together and the press secretary said, would you two like to take a picture of the secretary before we take off? i said of course. you always do whatever you are asked to. the two of us went to the front of the airplane. the secretary was sitting at this desk in the airplane.

it is an odd sight. it is a cavernous airplane and it is weird looking. there she is. she has a blackberry in her right hand and she is reaching in her bag. she finds her glasses and these glasses happened to be dark glasses. she put them on and sat there and looked at her blackberry. the picture is unusual mostly because of the c-17. there she is in this cavernous place with the dark glasses on and is texting. you look and think this is weird.

she looked a bit like doctor no. ithought this is odd, but shot the picture and kevin shot the picture. i said, i don't think she will like that picture very much. they asked us to take it. end of story. however, when it got to "time" they loved it. absolutely loved it. they said this is a secretary in charge. look at this picture. she looks great. she will be relieved. for a minute they thought about putting it on the cover. i said oh my god. luckily for the secretary, i photographed her in her office and they worked out very well. they loved one of those.

it was quite lovely and they put it on the cover. they had two faces of hillary. they had her looking ladylike and lovely in her nice office and there she was, the secretary of state in charge, on a mission. on a mission to tripoli, afghanistan, pakistan. this was an important trip and there she was. she looked totally in charge. about four months later, tumbler, the website tumbler took that picture. the "time" website had that picture story.

they took it. they paid no attention to who owned it or ticket -- or took it credited.be they paid no attention to any of those issues at all. they put it up as a meme and i got a call from "time" and they said, you will not like this. for three days, your picture has been up without credit. that started this whole controversy with tumbler and the picture went viral.

"time" told tumblr that you shouldn't use this photo but you have to put credit on the photo. you have to put diana walker's credit, and diana says you have on thekevin's credit picture, otherwise you will have a lot of trouble. they did right away. it went all over the world. hillary and her staff invited the two men from tumblr down to meet the secretary of state. she said, apparently, boys, it is so funny. i get such a kick. i love the one where my husband calls me and says what are you doing tonight and i say ruling the world.

they said, will you text us? she said sure. she stopped and said get me my dark glasses and blackberry, we are going to do this right. she did that with the two guys from tumblr. it was so graceful. they were charmed. i said to myself, diana, take a page from hillary's book. enjoy the ride. it is going all over the world. relax and enjoy it. involvede principles

about not crediting and not getting permission. all of it is copyright infringement, and i am afraid this happens every day on the internet. every day people are learning more and more about copyright laws and realizing they have to obey them and i am sure tumblr will not do that again. >> you said you had both clintons in the 1970's. tell me about those photos. diana walker: in 2002 i was doing research for a book. my first book, one of the reasons i asked to be relieved from my job.

i wanted to do some books. i did not want to have a daily beat. i was --a very good friend of mine who was the picture editor of "people" magazine was semi-retired and i asked if i could hire her to go through my work and pull anything she that she thought i should see for my book. there were so many pictures there that i had never seen before. film goes from the photographer to new york, gets , and filed.ooked at

and you get the outtakes ages later. my out takes are here at briscoe center. mary said, diana, did you know you photographed bill clinton in 1979? i said, i think the first time i ever saw him was the election of 1992. although i saw him at the convention in 1988 when he made this long speech. i said i cannot believe i photographed him. you are on a trip with rosalynn carter to arkansas and you photographed mrs. carter with the then governor of arkansas bill clinton and rosa parks.

diana, you'll probably want this picture in your carter section of your book. the picture came and there was bill clinton and i also photographed hillary that day and also, in 1979, -- no, 1976, i had photographed hillary when i photographed hamilton jordan at the 1976 convention. i think it was 1976. she is in the picture. i photographed both of them before they came to washington.

>> another photograph of yours that is in the exhibit right now is more unexpected. you have a long friendship with steve jobs. there is a photo where he is in the mid-1980's sitting in a house by himself with no furniture. tell me about that. diana walker: i covered the white house every other month. dothe months off i would other work for "time" or another publication so -- another publication that was not a direct competitor of "time." it was just before, it was early reagan days where i was just substituting at the white house. i got a call from "time" and

they said we want you to photograph steve jobs. i said, oh yeah, the apple guy. they said he had a difficult time with the photographer we sent last time. we hope you can establish a better relationship. that was them saying, be nice. we are sending you because we think you have diplomacy. we're going into a situation where he is angry at us. off i went. he said, at one point, well, -- i said, yes, i want to see you everywhere.

i want to see you at work at apple. i said where else can i photograph you? he said i have a new house. he gave me several situations. i said i can do it all. he said great. i have to go to my house later this afternoon. let's go. we went to his house. he had bought a house in woodside, not too far from palo alto. it was a lovely big house. we walked in the kitchen. we had a cup of coffee in the kitchen. you the let me show rest. there is not much to see here. this is the living room. i thought, there is no furniture

in this room, there is not a book in this room there is , nothing in this room. how am i going to take a portrait of him in here? i photographed him in the kitchen and i said how about and he said how about i sit here. i have my hi-fi and my cup of tea, i have my lamp, and that is my house. i don't need anything more, do i? i said, that's great. i went far away from him to photograph this. it appealed to me this computer genius making piles, i assumed, of money from running apple had a house with no furniture. i thought it was funny. he was wonderful. he sat there. he turned on some music and had just what he needed.

that was the beginning of a perfectly wonderful relationship. "time" sent me to photograph steve every two years throughout his life. i became a good friend of his , if i can say that, and he became a friend of my whole family. i cared for him a great deal. as i look back on it, i'm so grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to follow him. when i would go out to photograph, he let me go wherever i wanted. it was like photographing behind the scenes. i liked him a lot and he liked my pictures.

he would let me come and do it. towards the end of his life, happily, i was not out photographing anymore. we sent people when he came to the mac world but i did not photograph him then behind the scenes. the last time i photographed him behind the scenes was in 2004 , right before his operation for for his pancreatic cancer. moment for himup and his family. it was a wonderful time to photograph him because he was convinced he was going to be just fine. i am glad that is the last time i photographed him. >> did you turn down subsequent chances? diana walker: we didn't do it

that way anymore. she, the editor did not want to ask for time out of his life. to have somebody go behind the scenes with him. he was obviously not well. i would see him and visit but not to take pictures. i had a hard time -- this is a strange thing to discuss on camera. when i was asked to go with hillary on the trip, steve died a week before i was leaving. we were asked to his private memorial service and i could not

go because i was leaving with the secretary at 7 a.m. i had to miss it. my family went. "time" was responsible for my being involved with both those people. it intersected my private life too, but it was because of "time." someone told me steve would be so happy with the idea of you going off with the secretary of state. he would have loved that. that was that. >> looking across your photographic archive, you covered several presidents, what

photos or series of photos would you like to be remembered for? that you feel is really representative of your career, in particular the white house? a big question, i know. diana walker: it really is a huge question. i think i would want to be remembered for particular pictures of each president. i could not say to you i think one picture is better than another. each administration i have photographed i have pictures

that i care about. it was my career. over those years i took pictures i am proud of and i had the opportunity to photograph outside the white house. i would say the first picture of steve under the lamp to the last picture of him with his hands on his chin on the cover of "fortune" when he died, those pictures i am very proud of. i think, if i were to speak -- well -- there were some

pictures of mrs. carter i liked. i cannot resist mentioning the picture of ronald reagan with queen elizabeth. that is, to me, a wonderful picture. i have to say, if anyone else had taken it, i would have said the same thing. i care for that picture. i think it tells you quite a lot about their humor. it is such a bright, funny picture. i think the picture of reagan with walter cronkite laughing at the joke is exceptional because i was there. that situation never would happen in front of the press. never, never, never.

george herbert walker bush, i love the picture of him throwing souvenirs in the desert. even though that is what he was doing. he was not rallying his troops. he was tossing souvenirs but that was rallying the troops before desert storm. a very memorable visit. with president clinton, there's a picture of hillary clinton with chelsea the morning of the inaugural and i have never gotten as many responses to a picture and then that picture. chelsea came downstairs and her mother was in the front hall of the white house.

i was behind the scenes this particular day with the clintons. chelsea opened her coat to show her mother what she was wearing , and she was wearing an extremely short skirt and you see mrs. clinton going, you do not see her face, but you see her pulling that -- the way she is standing -- it is one of those moments we talked about earlier. she pulls back, i think, in some surprise that her daughter is wearing such a short dress to a public event. no mother needed to be told what was going on in that chair. on in that picture. i love that picture. i love the picture of bill clinton behind-the-scenes before he is backstage at his convention in 1996 and he is

about to be introduced. his name has been put in nomination for the second time in his life. the crowd is going wild. they have just seen a clinton movie that has them thrilled. he is just about to go out and he stops and takes his belt, pulls up his trousers and takes a deep breath. the air is in his cheeks. one split moment, right before he went out. there is a man who can make speeches without looking at a note. he was taking a deep breath before he went out to make the speech of a lifetime. i love that picture.

and there is a moment i will never get over that i just love, it is a picture of the president with madeleine albright, the secretary of defense and with his national security adviser. all three of them were on a couch and the national security adviser was leaning over towards the couch, and i have asked the president to tell me what did he say, but i was in the room, the hind the scenes because i was doing a cover story on madeleine sudden,, and all of a the president said, look at us in a row like this, we look like those monkeys, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, and they did it. the three of them did this and

fun of me. obliviousif they were to the fact they had a photographer in the room but they did not care. they were having fun and they did it. and that is one of the times when i knew i had the picture and i should leave. so i shot the picture, i stood up and quietly left the room and assured the press secretary of the white house that that picture was not going to be used in the story because it had nothing to do with the story we were running. and it has never been published except as a winning photograph. in all the contest that you because it was so unusual, and it is a terrific picture because it says we do not take ourselves that seriously, we are human beings.

i just loved it for that reason. and so did each one of them and they all have the picture, they all have the other people write to them in it, and they have to tell you what madeleine albright says on my picture. i had them all sign it. madeleine albright is see no evil and she is sitting there and says, diana, this is the best picture of me you have ever taken. [laughter] it was absolutely charming. wonderful. wasounds like she certainly good at self deprecation. we have a lot of photographs here at the center. yoursas it that made certified for the archives here? i had a partner in crime at the white house, so to speak. he was senior to me.

for then their already first quarter years of the reagan administration. we covered the white house together and when clinton became president, we decided we needed a third because clinton was on the move all the time, so until cynthia johnson joined us. office at shared an "time,", and he -- at and one day he said, i know you have heard me talk about the briscoe center and don carlton but you are to consider leaving your archives to them. i said, leaving my archives? wow. i had not even thought about my archives, frankly. it just was not something i had given much thought about. tell don carlton

you might be interested? i said, absolutely because i have never thought of what to do with my archives. and the reason i did it was a started inking about what am i going to do with all the pictures in the basement, caption envelopes, all that stuff? i have to say that several museums have asked me for andain photographs of mine they are part of the collection of three museums or for museums, and i thought, well, that is great, but they are not going to want my archives. first of all, it is presumptuous to think in the museum once your butives, fine art museums, i thought, where would you send your archival?

you cannot leave them to your children, what will they do with them? i said, well, i have known people who have donated them to universities and that sounds like a good idea. but me find out more about this, and when don explained to me what he was after, i thought it was about the best idea i had ever heard. and how he was onto something because how fabulous is it to ha ve a collection of particularly houseertain to me, white pictures, how great is it to have those pictures for history? librariesurse, the have their own pictures but those are taken by their in-house photographers, and there is a certain, if you will

forgive me, bias when you are on staff as to what your pictures might look like or have in them or not having them. whichess pictures, presumably are impartial, to have the ability as a student to go someplace, where you have as extensive a collection as don had in mind to collect was a great idea, and to know that the pictures that i have taken for "time" could be important for someone knows is a huge, hugely rewarding feeling, a wonderful feeling to have, and the idea that you can logon and see images from certain days, events, everything, and from an

historical perspective, made me jump at the chance after i met don and we discussed it. i thought, wow, this would be great to have them be useful to other people. i still have the ability, we all museumthe event that a is interested like the of americanmuseum history and the smithsonian national portrait gallery, both have extensive work of mind, which may have come and ask to see, and i can do that. enhances the work, the interest in the work here.

which is great. and i can do with my pictures really what i want to do with them. i can keep a certain number of them that are shown in galleries, private galleries and it works out very well. the briscoe center will always have scans and they will always have all of the images that i took. they may not have the original son's because and my ability to sell them, that that will stay in washington with me, but copies, everything comes here. or will come here. i am absolutely delighted about it because this is a fabulous institution, and to have someone catalogued and be able to say to

some student who is coming in, particularly interested in health care who wants to see the events that hillary clinton did at the white house and he was -- it in the room, it is is terrific to be able to contribute my archives here. i think it is a wonderful thing for me, my family, and i hope it is interesting and informative to students forever. >> one more question. you may have touched on it in your last answer, but what do you see the value or importance of the photojournalism archives, in general, in particular, to history? diana: the photojournalism archives here at the briscoe center is really important well, first of all, i

believe in images and the string of images and importance of images. it is ailm, but to me, still picture that matters. wonderful, and the written word, i know briscoe collects that, too. but in collecting photojournalism, it is giving a .isual history it is giving a visual history to students, to the public, to whoever wants to see it. i walked through that exhibit donetairs and what don has , besides all of the archives of the photographers, he has also collected the biggest hits of photojournalism of the 20th century, and i can go down the

, and there isrs -- what is it called? picture.state the picture in vietnam, the eddie adams execution in vietnam, the ruby picture, jack ruby shooting oswald. look at that picture and you get a sense of the whole thing. you look at the picture of the s cheering and reacting to blacks going into high school in alabama. you can read 1000 words and it would not be as effective as that richer.

and it is a wonderfully important thing that don carlton has done, collecting these archives because photographers, you know, bring view what they is wonderful that people will be able -- that these pictures will be exhibited and shown, or used for research or however they are used, and it is very gratifying to those of us who have given our archives here, that there is this much interest and i think there should be the interest and it is wonderful there is an institution that has been interest. -- that has the interest. >> this weekend on c-span3 on

american history tv at 8:00 p.m. , the los angeles suit suit riot and how they were used to challenge conventional gender and racial identities. >> mexican-american suit suitors suitorscular -- zooot's were viewed as public enemy number one. they were seeing as an american. >> sunday at -- as un-american. sunday, the green hill plantation is explored. hashe green hill plantation the original slaveowner here was very active in the slave trade, so one of the things he decided to put in his yard is a slave auction block and auctioneer stand. >> you can definitely feel the

power of this place, that auction block standing where it is now is so powerful. this would have been the last place men, women and children would have been with their families, and after this place, they would have in scattered across the united states, so this is really ground zero for that experience here. >> at 8:00, an interview with an --torian on the stone basins stonemasons who built the outer walls of the white house. >> the swagger over the front door, which is carved with and ribbons,owers, and acorns, and everything you can think of, is very lush over the french or, the finest example of carving in america for 100 years. >> american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, only on c-span3. >> this year marks the 60th

anniversary of little rock central high school in arkansas. in 1957, president dwight d. eisenhower ordered troops to escort nine african american students to the all-white school, enforcing the supreme court's decision which declared state laws establishing separate schools for blacks and whites was unconstitutional. up next, little rock residents discuss changes to the city after public schools reopened in 1959. speakers include two of the first african-american students, known as the little rock nine. >> my name is rhonda stuart. i am a genealogist. what i do is research local history. i am also a granddaughter of willy toombs. i am the seed of the crisis. that history was planted in me, and i grow.