Part II Challenges First Ladies Face

NARRATOR: No one ideal can capture the complexities of modern society, so should we expect that in a first lady? We have working mothers in a diverse society where even the word "family" has many interpretations.

GIL TROY: That gap between who Americans want to be and what they actually are is one that's very problematic for the first lady. Her life is rooted in the complicated realities of modern America and yet for those four years or eight years there's a kind of demand that the first lady be perfect and the first family be this kind of ideal "Father Knows Best" family, rather than a more "Simpsons"-type family.

Working in the White House

NARRATOR: As more and more women balance work and family, Americans will find that their first ladies arrive at the White House door with advanced degrees and successful careers.

Look at the wives of this year's presidential and vice presidential candidates: first lady Laura Bush has a master's degree, Lynne Cheney headed the National Endowment for the Humanities. Teresa Heinz Kerry chairs a billion-dollar foundation, and Elizabeth Edwards had a thriving law practice before she left to raise her family.

Is it possible for a modern first lady to have it all?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: You know, for the first time in my adult life, I was a volunteer -- a full-time volunteer, 24 hours a day.

KATI MARTON: The White House is not a good place for a career woman. We love our traditions and we seem not to want a somebody who's gonna experiment too much with that role.

BARBARA BUSH: I think if women have master's (degrees) and careers, I think they should look at the fact that this is an opportunity. And if you're, if you'll pardon my saying so, sort of stupid and don't realize that this is -- you're not giving up, you're gaining.

ALLIDA BLACK: It depends on how the woman balances the position. Could Elizabeth Dole have been first lady and run the Red Cross? Yes, I think so, if she had a top-notch social secretary to help her with the ceremonial functions of the White House.

NARRATOR: Will the American public accept a first lady with an outside job? Teresa Heinz Kerry says she wants to continue to direct her philanthropies if she becomes first lady, so we may have an answer soon.

The first lady's influence

GIL TROY: When you look at both Nancy Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton, they ran into the same wall. They ran into the same gender stereotypes of a Lady Macbeth being power-hungry.

NARRATOR: Hillary and Bill Clinton didn't think they had to hide the partnership they'd had when he was governor of Arkansas. President Clinton came into office promising two for the price of one. He asked his wife to take on health care reform, and Americans weren't ready for that.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: To our surprise, it was a firestorm that people were really upset and concerned about. Now, historically, there had always been very influential and even powerful first ladies who had played major roles in their husband's administration, but that had always been behind the scenes.

Nancy Reagan, Hillary Rodham Clinton

NARRATOR: Nancy Reagan tries to stay behind the scenes but her influence was no secret. Sometimes she got caught.

NANCY REAGAN, at press conference: [whisper] "We're doing everything we can."

RONALD REAGAN: [full voice] "We're doing everything we can."

GIL TROY: Nancy Reagan was perceived as being too power-hungry. She was perceived as upstaging and castrating her husband. She did that because she was so concerned that "Ronnie" succeed.

ALLIDA BLACK: Nancy Reagan is very shrewd. She's very smart. And - and I think a lot of us gave Nancy Reagan great short shrift and unnecessary disrespect when she was in the White House, because we so focused on the china, on Queen Nancy, when in reality, Nancy Reagan was really being of great service to the nation and to the president: by helping him negotiate with Gorbachev, by understanding the way to use the media to help end the Cold War, to certainly being a shrewd assessor of staff capabilities in the White House.

KATI MARTON: I think it's really time to get real and get over this - this thing about, "Oh, the first lady shouldn't meddle." The first lady will meddle, and she needs to meddle; but she's got to have a light touch.

ALLIDA BLACK: Well, it is easier for the first lady to - to be subtle in their use of power, to cloak it, if you will. But is that duplicitous? I mean one of the great ironies, to me, is that the first lady that we revere, Eleanor Roosevelt, denied that she had power. And the first lady that we criticize a lot, Hillary Clinton, was honest and said that she had power. So I mean, you know, there's a little bit of hypocrisy here.

NARRATOR: Hillary Clinton might agree. After the public debacle of her health care crusade, she continued to be an influential first lady in the traditional way … behind the scenes.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: I continued to be very involved in the decision making in the White House in every realm, but the president didn't name me to something, which he thought was actually a - a more transparent and open way to go about doing what every pe- everybody had done before.

ALLIDA BLACK: It's sort of, "Mmm, it's okay, but just don't let me know about it."

KATI MARTON: I think it's an understandable fear of unelected power. We're a democracy, after all. Who elected her? But it's pretty unreal to expect that, since they both live and work in the same kind of royal place, that they're not going to talk shop. They live over the shop.

The White House is the most isolated place in the world, and that was before all the layers of security that now shelter the American president. The first lady has more mobility, more freedom. And if she does her role right, she will keep him honest. The most successful presidencies historically have been those where the president had an open line to his wife and he had a wife who was honest and fearless and smart.

Lady Bird Johnson

ALLIDA BLACK: Lady Bird Johnson was one of the shrewdest first ladies, I think, of the 20th century. And she was one of the bravest.

NARRATOR: In 1964 she went alone on a dangerous campaign trip through the South to talk to "her people," Southerners, about the just-passed Civil Rights Act. There were bomb threats.

LADY BIRD JOHNSON: Although you may not like all I say, at least you understand the way I say it… [cheers]

KATI MARTON: She was, with her combination of compassion and grit, able to -- to steady her husband during a -- a depression that he went into when he saw his hopes for a "Great Society" crushed under the weight of his failed war, and ultimately persuaded him that he shouldn't run again…

LYNDON JOHNSON: I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.

KATI MARTON: There're very few people, other than a spouse, who can say to the man, "It's time to go home," especially Lyndon Johnson, whose entire life was politics. The mark of a great first lady is one who understands the essence of her time. And some of them get it right, and some of them don't.