By Bob Stuart

Published: May 8, 2008

STAUNTON - Cokie Roberts came to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library on Thursday to discuss her latest and most ambitious book, “Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation.”
Roberts said this work describes the work of early American political wives such as Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison. But the book also chronicles the efforts of early female educators and writers.
“This was a bear,’’ said Roberts, describing how she used journals, letters and other correspondence to write the book. “I had to shape this into a narrative and make it readable.” She said the book is her most difficult reporting job.
While Roberts is known for her work as a political commentator on ABC News, she first gained an appreciation of the power of political wives while growing up as the daughter of the late Louisiana Rep. Hale Boggs.
“I remember wives who ran their husbands’ campaigns and ran their congressional offices,’’ she said of her childhood in 1940s and 1950s in Washington, D.C.
When Boggs died in a plane crash in 1973, Roberts’ mother, Lindy, succeeded him and stayed in office for nine terms.
Roberts said covering Congress for decades has also given her an appreciation of the impact of the founding fathers and their wives.
“I knew nothing about the women of that era, but I thought they had to be as influential as the women of my era,’’ she said.
Of Abigail Adams, Roberts learned that the wife of America’s second president, John Adams, was the political eyes and ears of her husband.
“He counted on her for political advice,’’ Roberts said. And Abigail Adams holds another unique distinction, according to Roberts.
“She developed a bunker mentality when in the White House about being right and true,’’ she said. “She was part of the first presidency where that developed.”
Dolley Madison, the wife of President Madison, was a grand Washington hostess, but someone who also dealt with vicious rumor and innuendo, Roberts said.
“Dolley Madison was accused of being overly sexed,’’ she said. Dolley Madison was so influential, that when James Madison defeated South Carolinian Charles Pinckney for the presidency in 1808, Pinckney wrote he was “beaten by Mr. and Mrs. Madison,’’ Roberts said. Madison also helped widower Thomas Jefferson with many social functions while he was president.
Roberts spoke Thursday as part of the Wilson Presidential Library’s speaker series. Her talk was simulcast to the United States Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, said Eric Vettel, executive director of the Wilson Library.
Roberts fielded questions from Wilson Library supporters at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel & Conference Center and from diplomats in Geneva.