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Mr. ARNOLD ROGOW (Author, "A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton
and Aaron Burr"): Well, it's a--it's focused on the duel in 1804
between Hamilton and Burr in which Hamilton was killed. But, more
broadly, it's a--it's a biographical study of the two men and how it
came to be that their friendship developed the way it did.

LAMB: Who was Alexander Hamilton? And then, after that, who was
Aaron Burr?

Mr. ROGOW: He was the--well, first secretary of the Treasury under
Washington. He was a p--the most prominent Federalist politician of
his time. Burr w--at the time of the duel, was vice president of the
United States under Thomas Jefferson. He had been a N--a New York
state senator, had been in the New York Legislature. And the two of
them were the most prominent lawyers in New York state and two of the
most prominent in the country, in fact.

LAMB: What was dueling back in those days?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, dueling proceeded with--with a--a--a provocation
usually involving honor, and the injured person could issue a--an
invitation to the person who had--who had dishonored him or insulted
him. And if the invitation was accepted, it--the--the--the duel
itself was often called an interview, more polite language than we use
today for certain--certain c--things. And if the e--and it was
accepted, then the seconds arranged the details--the time, the place,
pistols and so forth.

LAMB: How much of it went on back in those days?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, there was quite a bit. It was illegal in--in s--in
some--several states, but w--it was widespread. El--Jackson was a
noted duelist--President, you know, Andrew Jackson. And he, in fact,
killed at least one man in a duel, but it did not interfere with him
becoming president.

LAMB: When did dueling, by the way, end?

Mr. ROGOW: In this country, it went on into the 19th century. I
don't know the exact time that the last duel was fought. I suspect
later than--than we might think in the South.

LAMB: So you have Aaron Burr Jr...

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah.

LAMB: ...and Alexander Hamilton.

Mr. ROGOW: Right.

LAMB: The duel was on what day?

Mr. ROGOW: On July 11th, 1804.

LAMB: Where?

Mr. ROGOW: At Weehawken, New Jersey, across the river, roughly
across from 42nd Street today, on the New Jersey shore.

LAMB: Is it marked today by anything?

Mr. ROGOW: There is a--there have been several little plaques there
that w--that don't last long as a rule, having been moved or stolen or
whatever. And whether there's one there now I don't really know, but
in the past there have been there, yeah.

LAMB: O--one of the interesting facts you had in your book is
that--What is it?--they had--Chase Manhattan Bank owns the--the--one
of the guns.

Mr. ROGOW: Owns both guns. Both guns.

LAMB: Both guns.

Mr. ROGOW: Mm-hmm.

LAMB: Where do they keep them?

Mr. ROGOW: In a vault, locked up.

LAMB: Don't display them.

Mr. ROGOW: No.

LAMB: Why not?

Mr. ROGOW: I guess because they--they--they would--you know, they
don't want to--they w--they would like to have the pistols, but I
guess they don't want to make too much of the fact that, you know,
Hamilton was killed by Aaron Burr, and Burr being one of the founders
of the Manhattan Company, which t--later became the Chase Manhattan
Bank. They don't want to...

LAMB: Have you seen those pistols?

Mr. ROGOW: No. I have not, no. I've seen--I've r--seen
articles--read articles about them and seen pictures of them.

LAMB: Why was the duel conducted, or whatever the term would be, at
Weehawken, New Jersey?

Mr. ROGOW: Because it--it was illegal in New York, and--and the--the
chances of getting away with it were much better in New Jersey. And,
in fact, Burr--Burr was subsequently indicted for murder in both
states, but in New Jersey, it was not--not pursued.

LAMB: So what time of day was it?

Mr. ROGOW: Early morning, between 7:00, perhaps 7:30.

LAMB: What kind of pistols did they have?

Mr. ROGOW: They had dueling pistols that had been modified, and
that's one of the--the mysteries of this--of this. Weights had been
added to the four ends to make them easier to balance and to--more
t--and to aim, in a way, and the caliber was--was much greater than
dueling pistols were supposed to be. It was over .50 caliber, which
gives it--to give you an idea what that is, it's--the--the heavy
machine gun of World War II was a .50-caliber machine gun. This was
.55-caliber, roughly. So those pistols were designed less for dueling
than for killing, in my view.

LAMB: So how does it happen? How did it work?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, the duel--the actual details are still
contra--contradictory and--and controversial. Hamilton had res--had
written before the duel that he'd d--he would reserve his fire and
give Burr a chance to reconsider, as he put it. And when he was
m--mor--mortally wounded and they were taking him back to New York in
the boat, he said, `Be careful of that pistol that it--it--it will
fire,' but it had been fired. Now his brother-in-law and hi--and his
second went over--went to the dueling ground and they said that they
found a piece of--a branch of a tree wh--at four feet--14 feet high,
about four feet to the right of where Burr was standing that was
broken off by the--by th--Hamilton's bullet. But the
second--Hamilton's second claimed that Hamilton had fired
involuntarily after being hit by Burr. In other words, the muscle
finger hadn't--hat--had pulled the trigger. And it was discovered
further that the--the gun had a hair trigger, meaning that all it took
was a slight touch for the gun to go off.

LAMB: The Hamilton trigger had a hair trigger.

Mr. ROGOW: Hamilton had a hair trigger. Now one of the questions,
of course, is: Did he touch the trigger too soon? Is that why the
gun went off? Could he have--wou--wounded as he was and died the next
day, could he have had enough strength in his hand to exert, roughly,
a--a--you know, a--a--a pull on the--on the--on the trigger and so
forth to set it off high above Burr? Or was he aiming at Burr and
just touched it too soon and, as one of the dueling authorities said,
booby-trapped himself?

LAMB: How far did they stand apart?

Mr. ROGOW: Probably about 10--10, 12 feet, something like that.

LAMB: And on what signal did they fire at one another?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, the u--the usual command was, `Fire,' you know, or,
`Present' (pronounced prez-ent)--or, `Present (pronounced pree-zent).'

LAMB: And how long--who challenged--I mean, was it Hamilton to Burr;
Burr to Hamilton?

Mr. ROGOW: Oh, Burr challenged Hamilton.

LAMB: How long before the actual duel?

Mr. ROGOW: He challenged Hamilton, I guess, in--it was--it was
roughly in--in June, but in connection with remarks Hamilton made
about him at a dinner in Albany in February in the course of a
political meeting, remarks that were leaked to the Albany paper. And
someone who was present, a Dr. Charles Cooper, said that Hamilton had
said Burr was a dangerous man, and then he said he had j--he had gone,
in effect, further than that and said something that was so despicable
that he didn't repeat what it was in the--in the letter he was writing
about this.

LAMB: Did you ever find out what...

Mr. ROGOW: No.

LAMB: ...what was despicable?

Mr. ROGOW: Nobody ever said what Hamilton s--said or reported what
Hamilton said. There's--there's speculation that--and Gore Vidal
was--wi--with his novel, "Burr," speculated and--to a fictional
statement. But it--it wasn't real. I mean, it was debated up. It
wasn't based on any fact--that Hamilton had said that Burr had an
incestuous relationship with his daughter dia--Theo.

LAMB: Burr had a re--incestuous relationship with his daughter.

Mr. ROGOW: That was--that was Gore Vidal's speculation about it.
And it is interesting, as I've--as I've discovered and others have
discovered, that in 1797, long before the duel, he in writing a friend
of his had--had--had Latin Roman names for people he wanted to talk
about in his mail. And mail was intercepted widely in those days, so
privacy was not assured.

LAMB: Hamilton's mail.

Mr. ROGOW: Hamilton and--well, Washington's, Jefferson's, Burr's,
everybody's mail was opened. And his name for Burr was Savious. Now
who was Savious? I spent a lot of time and effort and finally
discovered that Savious was a Roman of the first century who had
seduced his son and was--as a result, ca--was gonna be sentenced to
death and committed suicide.

LAMB: Go back now. Alexander Hamilton was secretary of the Treasury.

Mr. ROGOW: Not at the time, but he had been, yes.

LAMB: Had been.

Mr. ROGOW: Mm-hmm.

LAMB: How old was he?

Mr. ROGOW: When he--when he died? Depending on what--what dir--date
is accepted, I--I would say he was about 48--48 or 49.

LAMB: Aaron Burr Jr. was vice president of the United States.

Mr. ROGOW: At the time of the duel.

LAMB: How many people knew that this duel was gonna happen?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, several people knew, including, I think, Hamilton's
father-in-law and friends of Hamilton's.

LAMB: But it wasn't a public thing.

Mr. ROGOW: No, no. But one of the mysteries of the--of the--of
the--of this whole thing is why no one tried to prevent it. And to my
knowledge, no one tried.

LAMB: Now the shot was fired.

Mr. ROGOW: Right.

LAMB: What happened then?

Mr. ROGOW: Hamilton was hit in the lower right side and fell and was
carried to the boat waiting in the river and taken to Ne--to New--New
York.

LAMB: On the Hudson River there.

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah. And taken to the home of--of a friend. And, well,
he was in considerable agony, and nothing, of course, was gonna save
him, and he died the next day, about 36 hours later.

LAMB: And then what happened in--in this country? How much publicity
did it get?

Mr. ROGOW: And then there was such an uproar that Burr, I don't
think, was anticipating what--what was gonna happen--such an uproar
that this was murder, cold-blooded m--malice was involved. Some
newspapers went so far as say it had been plotted l--long ahead of any
remarks Hamilton made in Albany, that Burr has--and his henchmen were
out to kill Hamilton and destroy him, and that the whole thing
was--was--in other words, it was more like--more a murder than
anything else. And so he was indicted in New York and New Jersey, and
he took a boat across that, toward New Jersey, Perth Amboy, and--and
went into Pennsylvania. He thought he was going to be delivered by
the g--by the governor of New Jersey back to New York for trial, and
he was considerably--one of the few times in his life he was just a
bit anxious was that--on that occasion.

LAMB: How old was he, by the way?

Mr. ROGOW: He was abou--he was one year younger than Hamilton.

LAMB: And he went to Pennsylvania. And did he go beyond that?

Mr. ROGOW: He did. He went--made his way south and found to his
surprise he had more friends than he thought in the South. The South
generally does not have the high regard for Hamilton that people in
the North do. And so he--he was a--more of a hero there, and still
is, a--as a matter of fact. He figures in--in Eudora Welty--one of
Eudora Welty's stories--short stories, and so forth. And the--the
general view, of course, is that Jefferson, later on in--in the
so-called tr--treason indictment, was--was fr--framing him. And
that's a view that some Southerners still have today.

LAMB: How much of that--I know you discuss this in your book--how
much credence do you give to the fact that Alexander Hamilton
committed suicide?

Mr. ROGOW: I think that it is--it is very possible. He was, I
think, very depressed. He'd lost his son in a duel less than three
years before, possibly with the same pistol. Circumstances were very
similar i--in terms of what was reported about the duel and whether
Ham--whether his son fired or not; it was said by his second, he did
not fire and so forth. His son was his oldest and--and probably most
beloved child of the eight he had. And as a re--one re--consequence
of that was, his daughter lost her mind and would remain insane the
rest of her life.

LAMB: Her name?

Mr. ROGOW: Her name was Angelica, like--like his sister-in-law.

LAMB: Now did she become insane, do you think, as a result of the
brother dying or the father dying?

Mr. ROGOW: The brother. She was--she--I mean, she--she--he died
before his--her father did. She was never the same again. And she
talked about him all through her life as if he were still alive
and--her brother. They were very close.

LAMB: Now when did you get interested in all this?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, it goes back to when I was in college. You know, I
was fascinated by this duel and I could not understand why these--why
these two prominent Americans, one the vice president of the United
States, would--would fight a duel in which one would be killed and
which would terminate the life of one and the political career of the
other. And I sort of, in the back of my mind, over many years
would--just thought, `Well, I mean, I should have a look at this.' And
I did and I...

LAMB: Where'd you go to college?

Mr. ROGOW: I went to the University of Wisconsin and got a PhD at
Princeton.

LAMB: And do you remember the moment you got interested in this? I
mean, was it in a class or...

Mr. ROGOW: I think it was in a class, yeah. But I can't remember
the exact moment, no.

LAMB: And--and when was the first time you really looked into it?

Mr. ROGOW: I started about--well, it was roughly four years ago.
And I--I'd been collecting odds and ends, you know, notes over the
years, newspaper clippings and odds and ends of this sort. And I
decided to really get down to work, and I contacted a publisher
and--about a contract and so on and proceeded.

LAMB: What were you doing for a living then?

Mr. ROGOW: I was retired from teaching in 1985, subsequently went
into the rare book business and in that for 10 years with a partner.
And we both decided to give that up because he wanted to retire
completely from everything. So I was, i--in a way, casting about for
something to do.

LAMB: And where did you do the rare book business?

Mr. ROGOW: New York.

LAMB: The city?

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah, in the city, out of my apartment.

LAMB: Did you ever find in rare books anything to do with Alexander
Hamilton or Aaron Burr?

Mr. ROGOW: No. Mostly we had fiction and--and, you know, first
editions of this sort of thing. I--so we had some social science, but
nothing--I don't remember anything about Hamilton or Burr, no.

LAMB: Has a book ever been written about the duel?

Mr. ROGOW: Not about the duel as such. There've been bio--many
biographies, of course, of Hamilton and some of Burr and been articles
about the duel, but no, not to my knowledge, no--any book deals with
the--with the duel in such detail.

LAMB: What was i--along your way in the research, what were the most
valuable things that you found, and where did you find them?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, I was surprised about a number of things. One is,
I think, the b--the big surprise for me was that Burr's life has
almost no correspondence to his reputation. You know, he's--he's
regarded as one of the great villains of American history, along with
Benedict Arnold, and Burr was--was quite an impressive man. I mean,
a--he was a--a--a--a very open person, kind, he wrote letters to his
slaves and servants, solicitous about their welfare. He was
invariably polite to everyone. He never made--never m--was known to
make any statement about Hamilton or was critical of him till
afterward.

LAMB: You didn't find that anywhere? No?

Mr. ROGOW: Nothing. And he was--and I don--never cri--I--I don't
think I found a single statement of his that was ne--critical of
Jefferson or Adams or anybody. He was--he has--he was a sort of an
easy-going person, basically. I would say that he was sort of the
Clinton type. I--I kept thinking of Clinton here, now and again, in
connection with this. A friend of Hamilton's said he was a mere
matter-of-fact man. He th--he enjoyed life. He didn't--he was not an
ideologue. He did not have any great ideology or conviction about
anything. He believed in kind of live and let live. And he thought
Hamilton, ri--right until almost the end, was a friend of his.
Hamilton would come to dinner. Hamilton's daughter and Burr's
daughter probably were--were friends. I was extremely--I mean, I
was--I'm a--still mystified as to how--how it is that he got the
reputation he has.

LAMB: By the way, did he go back to continue as vice president?

Mr. ROGOW: After--after a pause in the South, yes, he came back to
preside over the final--his final days as--as vice--presiding officer
of the Senate.

LAMB: Who was the president that he served as vice president to?

Mr. ROGOW: Jefferson.

LAMB: What was their relationship?

Mr. ROGOW: Not good. Jefferson used Burr to--to become elected--to
get himself elected in 1800. But he discarded Burr after w--after he
no longer needed him--that's my view, anyhow--and--and refused to give
him any patronage. And it was so--thereby weakening his position in
New York in terms of politics and so forth.

LAMB: What party would Aaron Burr be in today?

Mr. ROGOW: Democrat.

LAMB: What party would Alexander Hamilton be in?

Mr. ROGOW: Republican.

LAMB: But as you point out in the book, Alexander Hamilton was very
big on centralized government.

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah. But he was--he was even bigger on--on the role of
business and--and, you know, the--the--the industrial relation of
America and measures to promote industry and manufacturing. And he
would have not--not have hesitated here to--to--you know, to--to do
what, I think, a lot of cons--Republicans today still believe is worth
doing, which is promoting business and s--and commerce and trade
and--and so on, and...

LAMB: Where did you find the most useful archival information?

Mr. ROGOW: In the--first of all, I have--I have to say that the--the
work of Harold Siret--the late Harold Siret and his colleagues
published 27 volumes of Hamilton's papers. And--and that's just about
everything that's still available. And the--and two volumes of Burr's
papers. These--these sources were very important. The rest I found
in th--in the New York Historical Society, the New York State Library
in Albany, New York Public Library and places of this sort.

LAMB: And who published your book?

Mr. ROGOW: Hill and Wang, which is a subsidiary of Farrer Straus
Giroux.

LAMB: And how did you convince them that this was a book somebody
would buy?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, I submitted a--a--a synopsis to the ch--the editor
at Hill and Wang, pu--you know, the editor and publisher, Arthur Wang.
And he liked it and so he bought the book.

LAMB: And where--where do you live today?

Mr. ROGOW: Live in Man--Manhattan, the Upper East Side.

LAMB: And where do you--where did you teach before you retired?

Mr. ROGOW: When I retired, I was teaching at the City University of
New York. Before that, I taught at Stanford and the University of
Iowa.

LAMB: Where were you born?

Mr. ROGOW: Pennsy--Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

LAMB: And what did you teach?

Mr. ROGOW: Political science.

LAMB: Did you ever teach this subject, this--this duel, in the class?

Mr. ROGOW: No. I didn't teach much history. I--I--I taught mostly
American government and politics, constitutional law and that sort of
thing.

LAMB: W--the women in both of their lives, it seems like that is a
thread through the book. Who was Alexander Hamilton married to?

Mr. ROGOW: He was married to a--the oldest daughter of Philip
Schuyler. I mean, he cust--Elizabeth--he customarily called Betsy.
She was a rather, I think, plain woman. There's one portrait of her,
which is in the book. Her eyes, I think, are her striking feature.
And in marrying her, he was marrying into one of the most important
and wealthiest families in New York. He himself was illegitimate,
from the--from the island of Nevis, and arrived in America penniless.
So his story is--is a great--you know--you know, very much in the--the
tradition of Horatio Alger, working himself up into positions of
wealth, prominence, and so on, from--starting from nowhere.

LAMB: Where did they meet?

Mr. ROGOW: He and his wife? They met in Morristown early on in the
Revolutionary War, when--when Hamilton was serving on Washington's
staff as a kind of aide-de-camp.

LAMB: How many children did they have?

Mr. ROGOW: Eight.

LAMB: Did they all live?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, one was killed in a duel. The other...

LAMB: I mean, but at birth--I mean, did al...

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah, when he died--Hamilton died, there were seven
surviving children.

LAMB: Are there any descendents left?

Mr. ROGOW: There are. Yes, there are Hamiltons and--and
descendents. I don't have any contact with them. This sort of book
would not be popular with them because it's--it takes a rather more
critical view of Hamilton than his--his descendents, I think, would
like. A--and so I'm not--I don--I don't know any of them personally,
no.

LAMB: How do you know that he was illegitimate?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, it's--it's clear that--that--from the records that
existed in--in Nevis, that his--his mother was unmarried at the time.
She had separated from her husband--first husband, with whom she had a
son, and was, ic--was, in fact--in the divorce suit, she was accused
of whoring, you know, adultery with nu--numerous individuals. And the
two s--the two sons that she had, Hamilton and his brother, were--were
referred to as illegitimate, as bastards.

LAMB: When did he come to the United States?

Mr. ROGOW: He came to the United States about 17--I guess he was
about 14 years old, so roughly about 1776--8, so--something like that.

LAMB: Here's a portrait of him in the book. How tall was he?

Mr. ROGOW: He was about 5'7"--5'6" or 5'7", something like that.
And Burr was about--almost the same height, the same build and they
were slight--small men, s--and very handsome. And physically they had
a strong resemblance to each other in the way they were built and so
forth.

LAMB: This is a portrait of Aaron Burr, and--do you know who did
this, by the way? Did--did you have a hard time finding portraits of
him?

Mr. ROGOW: No. There are portraits of--of--of Burr in the
historical societies and also of Hamilton. The only--that's the only
portrait of--of his wife that is known to exist at the Museum of the
City of New York.

LAMB: And you've got this in a--'cause you only got a couple here in
the--in the book. This would be his wife. Let's see, where--where is
she?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, she's on the other page, I think.

LAMB: OK.

Mr. ROGOW: That's--that's Burr's daughter and...

LAMB: That's the daughter...

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah.

LAMB: ...and--no, I don't see it here. Anyway, we'll find it and
drop it in.

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah.

LAMB: Could Alexander Hamilton have been president because he was
born outside the United States back then?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, that would have depended on the--on the Supreme
Court interpretation. And he was born outside the United States, but
at that time, it wasn't the United States. So probably that would--he
could have been president. But he--when he died, he was in such
disrepute, you know, and for various reasons that he--hi--his day was
over politically in terms--in terms of any higher office, I think.

LAMB: One of the things you point out early in the book is that
Alexander Hamilton quit as an aide-de-camp to George Washington. And
you report a lot of negative things that he had to say about George
Washington. Was that hard to find?

Mr. ROGOW: Yes, it is. It--it was mostly within reports of what he
told people; there's almost nothing in writing on the subject. But
it's pretty clear, I think, that he had no res--no great respect for
Washington, certainly none--none intellectually. And I think he s--he
s--he--he--he said Washington was very useful to him, which he was.
But he didn't--I don't think he basically liked Washington, though.

LAMB: What age was he when he worked for Washington?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, he would have been about, mm, 20 maybe, something
like that.

LAMB: And he was able just to quit when he was tired of being the
aide-de-camp?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, he had a--he had an altercation with Washington.
He kept Washington waiting a few minutes, he said, at various times; a
couple of minutes, then it was 10 minutes. So no one knows exactly,
but Washington rebuked him and Hamilton said, in effect, `Well, sir,
if you feel that way, I'm resigning as--from your staff.'

LAMB: And what did he do after that? What'd he go on to do?

Mr. ROGOW: He went back to--up to--up to Albany, where--to be with
his wife and--and her family. And they went back to the law and
then--but--but continued to--to want to be in the Army in some
capacity. And what he wanted to do throughout the war--the
Revolutionary War--was--was--was have a command of some sort. He
didn't want to be a staff officer; he wanted to be a line officer, see
combat. And he kept pestering Washington for a commission and finally
got one just in time for Yorktown, the last battle of the r--of the
Revolution. He led a--an infantry outfit i--in that battle. It
wasn't a great battle, it wasn't a major one. The French carried the
burden of the--of the--of the victory, for the most part. So he saw
some combat, to be sure.

LAMB: And what was Burr doing at this time?

Mr. ROGOW: Burr had--by that time, was out of the Army. He had--he
had served much--much more active service than Hamilton. He had
commanded a--a regiment. He had served with General Montgomery in--in
the Battle of Quebec, which Montgomery was killed and Burr standing
right next to him and so forth. He'd been on a nu--in a number of
campaigns. And--but he became very ill, and there's nothing really
known about what the illness was, th--but he was--he--he described
himself as a semi-invalid for 18 months. And I don't know, that was
the only--I was unable to find out exactly what--what the problems
were.

LAMB: Could you find where Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton first
met?

Mr ROGOW: My suspicion--and this is all I have to go on--is that
they--they met in Elizabethtown, it was called then; now Elizabeth,
New Jersey. They were--b--and Burr was there after graduating from
Princeton. It was then the College of New Jersey, but now Princeton.
He was out there on and off visiting relatives who lived there. And
Hamilton went to a kind of a prep school there to prepare himself for
Princeton, but did not get in. He was not admitted to Princeton and
ended up in--i--in the--what was then called King's College in New
York, now Columbia University. But my--I have a suspicion the town
was small enough and they were both interested in girls, lifelong
b--habit of both of them, and they may well have met there. There's
no record of that. No one--neither one ever said they had.

LAMB: Where is Alexander Hamilton today buried, and is his family
with him?

Mr. ROGOW: Trinity Church Yard.

LAMB: Where?

Mr. ROGOW: Trinity Church Yard in Manhattan.

LAMB: Down in lower Manhattan...

Mr. ROGOW: Mm-hmm.

LAMB: ...near Wall Street?

Mr. ROGOW: Right.

LAMB: And where is Aaron Burr Jr. buried?

Mr. ROGOW: In P--in Princeton, New Jersey, not far from the graves
of his father and grandfather, who were both presidents of
Princeton--both ministers, by the way.

LAMB: 'Cause I remember his father died fairly early in his life?

Mr. ROGOW: He did. So did his mother.

LAMB: And what impa--wha--how old were they?

Mr. ROGOW: Burr was about two.

LAMB: So he never knew his father?

Mr. ROGOW: Not really. And he can't have known his mother
very--very--very well because she was--she was--she died shortly after
the father. In--in less than a year, he lost his father and mother
and grandparents.

LAMB: And what kind of a young life did he have and who--who raised
him?

Mr. ROGOW: His uncle, his--his mother's brother. And he lived with
him. And according to some of the anecdotes, he was some--somewhat of
a rebellious youngster, getting into scrapes and sometimes getting--he
said he'd be beaten like a sack by his--by his uncle. But he--he--he
firs--went to Princeton early and graduated in about the middle of his
class.

LAMB: And when did he meet his wife?

Mr. ROGOW: He met her during the--in the course of the Revolutionary
War. She was then married to a British officer who was in the West
Indies, and they had five children. And she and Burr became very
close, how--you know, romantically. And when he...

LAMB: Before--before she--before her husband was--died?

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah, but he died not long after that, I think, of--of
some--of a fever or something of the sort. So then she was free to
marry Burr. And she did. And she was 10 years older, by the way,
than he.

LAMB: How many children did they have together?

Mr. ROGOW: They had one surviving child. They--they have had two
others that died early.

LAMB: And the name of his wife was...

Mr. ROGOW: Theodosia.

LAMB: And the name of his daughter that he was accused of having
incest with...

Mr. ROGOW: Theodosia as well. The--oh, Theodosia was her name as
well, but in the book, I refer to her as Theo so it's clear that I'm
talking about her and not her mother.

LAMB: And what evidence is there that you found that they did have a
relationship--physical relationship?

Mr. ROGOW: None. I didn't find any evidence.

LAMB: And do you have any sense from what you read that they were...

Mr. ROGOW: I think they were extremely close, closer than most
fathers and daughters. I think there was a certain amount of--of
physical, should we say, contact, you know, perhaps affection. Burr
was a very physical person. He was also a widower 'cause his wife had
be--died early. And I think it's probably--Hamilton may have
observed, possibly, or somebody observed some playfulness, let's say,
between them that--that looked suspicious, especially what might have
looked suspicious to Hamilton who, I think, was carrying on an affair
with his sister-in-law, his wife's sister, Angelica.

LAMB: Go back over that one again.

Mr. ROGOW: Well, Hamilton was guilty of incest i--if that's the
case, you see, I mean, having an--an affair with his--with his
sister-in-law.

LAMB: And what evidence is there that--you're saying that his wife,
Angelica's sister, whose name was...

Mr. ROGOW: Angelica.

LAMB: I'm sorry. This--his wife's name...

Mr. ROGOW: Betsy.

LAMB: ...Betsy's w--sister was Angelica...

Mr. ROGOW: Correct.

LAMB: And--and what evidence did you find that Alexander Hamilton was
having an affair with her?

Mr. ROGOW: It was widely believed by his friends. It--the
correspondence is very suggestive of that, especially her
correspond--her letters. She calls him all sorts of lo--love--love
language, you know, uses love--love terms of all sorts, `Little
rogue,' you know, and, `my dearest one.' And when she's--when she's in
America by herself, by the way, her husband in London, I think they
saw a great deal of each other, which would have been about 1789. And
when she leaves for the--to go back to--to London, she says, `I can
hardly stand it. I--I mean, I'm--I--I'm not sure I wo--won't come
back right away.'

LAMB: You point out at one point, even when she was in this country
that Alexander Hamilton was gone for--What?--30, 40 days or something
like that, and--and his wife didn't even know where she was and--and
is...

Mr. ROGOW: Yes, at various times it's not clear where he was. He
was presumably--you like--you--you could say he was doing cases
somewhere in upper--upper--upper New York state--you know, handling
some cases with the law. But she was away, too, on her lodgings in
New York--in New--in New York City, so there's a period when they
might have been together somewhere.

LAMB: In 1804, when the duel occurred, how many people were there in
the United States?

Mr. ROGOW: There were roughly about, I would say, four million, five
million, something like that.

LAMB: And how many people lived in New York City?

Mr. ROGOW: About maybe half a million, something like that. I've
forgotten the exact numbers. I had them all originally, but
I--I--I--something like that, I think.

LAMB: I mean, how...

Mr. ROGOW: And I've been c--I'm pretty certain.

LAMB: ...and--and h--where was the capital in 1804?

Mr. ROGOW: The capital was in f--was--first, you know, started
in--in New York, then went to Philadelphia, then went to Washington.

LAMB: But in 1804, it was in Washington?

Mr. ROGOW: Right.

LAMB: What was Alexander Hamilton doing--if Aaron Burr was the vice
president and Alexander Hamilton had been the secretary of the
Treasur--Treasury--by the way, under what president?

Mr. ROGOW: Washington.

LAMB: For how long?

Mr. ROGOW: For about four years.

LAMB: And he resigned.

Mr. ROGOW: Yes, he did.

LAMB: Why?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, he s--he s--found it tiring. He--he was under
attack for--charged with corruption, with using inside information to
benefit himself and his family, trading privately in Treasury
securities and so on. There'd been a scandalous affair, got into the
public press.

LAMB: This Maria Reynolds.

Mr. ROGOW: Maria Reynolds, right. Right.

LAMB: Want to tell us about that?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, she said that--that he had colluded with her
husband--he said that, rather, he had--he had had an affair with her.

LAMB: Who is she, by the way?

Mr. ROGOW: She was a Philadelphia woman, who some say was a--was a
former prostitute, but turns out to have been in--in--born into a good
family, and may have been a very respectable one, and that she was
married to a man who was in jail named James Reynolds, along with some
others, for s--speculation in Treasury securities and embezzlement.
And h--he claimed--and her husband claimed that Hamilton had
cooperated with him in this and was a--a co-embezzler, in effect,
and--and had been ma--making money on his--on his own as secretary of
the Treasury. Hamilton wrote a long pamphlet saying that, `None--none
of this is true. What I am guilty of is an affair with his wife,
Maria.'

LAMB: What impact did that have on him in the public?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, his friends were horrified that, first of
all--no--not so much that it happened, but that he wrote a pamphlet
about it, confessing it and so forth. And they thought that, you
know, he--that he--th--this is one of the reasons why that he
began--he bec--he came under the perception about that time that maybe
he was unstable. And this perception grew as--in the--in the years
that followed because he did a number of very rash things. He wrote a
longer pamphlet about John--why John Adams was not suited to be
president for a second time and was running for second term--from the
same party; they were both Federalists. So one thing after the
other--he made people think this man is not really stable, and
possibly worse than unstable.

LAMB: You said--in the early part of the book, you said, `Most
Americans think that Thomas Jefferson was a saint and that Alexander
Hamilton was a martyr and that Aaron Burr was a villain.

Mr. ROGOW: Right.

LAMB: And did you fight with those labels?

Mr. ROGOW: Yes.

LAMB: And--and--and w--if you were to put a label on Thomas Jefferson
and Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, what would your label be after
what your research shows?

Mr. ROGOW: Jefferson, I think, was--was a hypocrite, and I think he
was a very conservative man, basically. He said some of the right
things, but his actions were otherwise. He was a reactionary even in
his own time. He was a racist f--I mean, even at a time when--when
racism was--was a general thing, he--what he wrote about b--about
blacks was a--was--was painful to read. I mean, it really is much
worse than anything I read by anyone else, whereas Hamilton and--and
Burr both believed in the emancipation of--of slaves and so on. He
did not--Jefferson did not believe in women's education.

It was not until this century, by the way, the University of Virginia
generally opened its doors to women. The university was very proud to
have founded--you know, women should be taught, you know, domestic
skills. They shouldn't dance after marriage, they should stay out of
politics. Burr raised his daughter to be skilled in all kinds of
ways, not domestically. She didn't know how--how to sew or knit and
embroider, but she knew s--he had her reading all kinds of books,
Givens, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," learning
languages, becoming aw--aware of the world's knowledge. He wanted her
to be, you know, an in--intellectual woman. He was really the first
feminist in this country.

LAMB: Aaron Burr?

Mr. ROGOW: 'Cause see, no one's ever mentioned this for some reason.
I mean, he was a great admirer of--of Mary Wollstonecraft's book, "The
Vindication of the Rights of Women." He stayed up all night reading it
when he got a copy. He wrote enthusiastically to his wife. And none
of this seems to have registered with anyone. I mean, I--I'm very
pr--what puzzles me even today is, even modern historians sort of go
out of their way, you know, to put him down.

Joseph Ellis in his book on Jefferson--a very good book--says, well,
you know, whenever Burr was around, it was an air--an air of
conspiracy or a smell of conspiracy or something like that. And
the--Fawn Brody, who was--the late Fawn Brody, who was a professor of
history at UCLA, and a woman I admired a great deal as a historian and
wrote some good books and so on, is almost hysterical when she writes
about Burr. I don't know whether you--you have it there handy, but
she quotes him of--of--of plotting to assassinate Jefferson, a pure
case of paranoia, of a--of a psycho--psychopathic liar. I mean, she
goes on and on for almost a page.

LAMB: So you--you got the label on--on Thomas Jefferson as being a
hypocrite.

Mr. ROGOW: I think so.

LAMB: And then on Aaron Burr on--among other things, being a
feminist. What else would you call him? What--what--what kind
of--instead of being a villain, he was a...

Mr. ROGOW: I would say he was--he was a very likable, admirable man
in many ways. He had very few--if you allow for the womanizing,
ta--don't consider that to be sinful, he was a man of his time, you
know. He wa--he was, as I said, an ideologue. He--he believed in
tolerance. He was a stoic. He took a lot of adversities in life,
never complained, rarely--rarely explained anything, he just took life
as it was; a matter of fact man, as--as Sedgwick called him.

LAMB: Now you said that--that historians and Americans think of
Alexander Hamilton as a martyr. What would you call him?

Mr. ROGOW: I would call him a--a--a kind of a borderline type, in
psychological terms, meaning that he was unstable. He was driven by
ambition. He was--he could be ruthless. He was certainly capable of
dishonesty on a--on a--a massive--a massive level. And if anybody was
dangerous in terms of what I think of American ideals, it was
Hamilton, not Burr.

LAMB: Why?

Mr. ROGOW: 'Cause it was Hamilton who really said, `I have no use
for democracy'; made it very clear, he had no use for ordinary people.
He thought children--children of a very tender age should work in
factories and so forth. He horrified some of his own friends with
some of his views. He was--he was good about slavery. He did believe
in--in the emancipation of slaves and believed that--that--that blacks
should be serving in the--in the Army, which the service was totally
opposed to, of course. So he had some virtues, to be sure, but--but a
martyr, no. S--far from, I think, a hero--no.

LAMB: His wife lived for how long?

Mr. ROGOW: His wife lived to be 97. She died in 1854. She was a
widow twice as long as she was a wi--his wife.

LAMB: What did she do the rest of her life?

Mr. ROGOW: She was in--in ge--involved herself in--in orphanages in
New York and worthy causes and so on. And--but mostly she devoted
herself to--to cultivating the reputation of her husband, promoting
the biography of him and so forth. It was rather boring and one might
even say very favorable to everything and she de--she destroyed every
li--pamphlet she could find about the Reynolds affair di--by her
husband. And any enemy of his was her e--lifelong enemy.

LAMB: Based on your researchers you've gone through this period in
our own history, how di--if all--if these three men lived today--I
mean, we know so much about 'em in your book about their own trysts
and their womanizing and all that stuff. Did they know that in
America back then?

Mr. ROGOW: They had that reputation, yeah.

LAMB: Did they make a big thing out of it the press?

Mr. ROGOW: No.

LAMB: And if they lived today, what kind of a li--how--how difficult
would it be for them to be in American politics today?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, I think that--that--that--that--that they--Burr, of
course, would find what's--what's happening today very familiar. That
he got--he got some of this treatment in--himself in his own lifetime.
He was attacked for all kinds of things and--and--and then--including
coli--corruption and--and, of course, his womanizing and his--his
behavior in politics. Later on, of course, were the treason trial.
He was a--be--believed by many Americans--I guess still is--still
believed as--as having contemplated treason against the United States.

LAMB: And what was that about?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, he was acquitted of the charge that he was--wanted
to lead a--an army South and liberate or separate the Western United
States--west of the Mississippi and south into Mexico and separate
these--these areas and set himself up as a kind of leader, king or
something of the sort.

LAMB: This was after he was vice president.

Mr. ROGOW: This was--yeah, this was 1807. And Jefferson led the
charge. The--the key piece of evidence was a letter, now s--now
believed to have been a forgery, not written by Burr at all, but which
Jefferson thought was a--or said was written by Burr. So he was--he
was in seven court proceedings, including one--one presided over by
Chief Justice John Marshall, and in all of them, he was acquitted.

LAMB: And the treason trial was in 1807.

Mr. ROGOW: Right.

LAMB: How long did he live?

Mr. ROGOW: Another 30 years, roughly. He went--he went in t--in
1870--in 1808, he went to--abroad. And when he was abroad, you know,
he did try to--or get funds for this expedition of his, to the South.
There are people who think that he really was--was committing treason.
I--my view is, he wanted to bring an army into Mexico and in the
Spanish area of what's called Spanish Florida in those days
and--and--and ex--expel the Spaniards from--from those areas and
perhaps, you know, set himself up as a--as a political leader, much
the way Sam Houston did later on in Texas. I don't think he
contemplated treason.

LAMB: What did he do late in his life and where did he live?

Mr. ROGOW: He was in eng--he was in Europe four years. His--his
daughter, who lived in South Carolina, had a...

LAMB: Theo.

Mr. ROGOW: ...Theo had one son. And the few months before his
return, the son died at the age of 10, her son, his only grandchild.
And...

LAMB: A few months before he returned from Europe.

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah, he was on--almost on his way back when the son
died. And her daugh--and when he got--his--his daughter Theo was
coming north to see him, hadn't seen him since he left for Europe, and
her ship disappeared off Cape Hatteras. She was never seen again.

LAMB: What about her husband?

Mr. ROGOW: He died a few years later. He was heartbroken and never
recovered from the duel--the death of both his daught--his wife and
his son. But Burr went on. Burr was a--was rather stoic. He went on
for 30 more years.

LAMB: Where'd he live?

Mr. ROGOW: New York.

LAMB: And there are a couple of houses, one's G--Grange and the other
one's Richmond Hill.

Mr. ROGOW: Mm-hmm. Richmond Hill doesn't--doesn't--is--is--no
longer exists.

LAMB: What was it?

Mr. ROGOW: It was a big house--an estate with--with several hundred
acres of land, not far from the Hudson River. Roughly north was the
Hudson tu--you know, Tunnel today.

LAMB: The Ho--the Holland Tunnel.

Mr. ROGOW: I mean--sorry, Ho--Holland Tunnel. Yeah.

LAMB: On the Hudson River.

Mr. ROGOW: On the Hudson River, yeah. But ...(unintelligible) close
to it.

LAMB: And what was controvers...

Mr. ROGOW: Pardon?

LAMB: What was controversy about Richmond Hill?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, it was--he borrowed money to buy it. He--he--he
borrowed money to furnish it.

LAMB: Aaron Burr.

Mr. ROGOW: Aaron Burr. And he was continually taking out mortgages
and so forth, trying to scrape--keep the thing together. And finally,
of course, he lost it. But there was no--no real scandal about it
that I know of.

LAMB: And what about Grange?

Mr. ROGOW: The Grange is--still exists. It is now in Harlem. It's,
you know, about 143rd--44th Street and Convent Avenue. It's just a
relic, you know. It's surrounded by buildings--apartment houses and
so forth and it's...

LAMB: Is it open for tourists?

Mr. ROGOW: It's open sometimes, yeah. Some--not--not every day, but
sometimes.

LAMB: And Alexander Hamilton--Hamilton lived there for how long?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, he never actually lived there. He would--he would
come there for the weekends when--you know, holidays and so forth, but
not long, only a few years. He didn't have the house very long.

LAMB: Now as you went through the history of all this, did you find
anybody else in history that feels the way you do about Jefferson,
Burr and Hamilton?

Mr. ROGOW: You mean who's well-known?

LAMB: N--I mean, just as you're...

Mr. ROGOW: I have friends who are historians who--who--who sort of
agree, I guess.

LAMB: I mean, are you fighting a trend that was going the other way?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, I think--as I think I wrote somewhere in the book,
I think opinions are beginning to change about Jefferson. He's
becoming--coming under some more critical view than he has been
through in the past. Hamilton, I think, is--is--is also becoming
perhaps more critically viewed, and--but not--not Burr. Burr's
reputation continues to be as well as it ever was, I--I think, and I
don't expect my book to have any real im--impact on that.

LAMB: Why not?

Mr. ROGOW: I think the--the--the mythology about Burr is still
entrenched and, you know, I mean, I don't think it's--it's--I--I would
hope that, of course, it would have some--some effect, but I don't--I
don't--I don't think so.

LAMB: What about Gore Vidal's book? What did you think of that--on
Burr?

Mr. ROGOW: I liked the book very much and I had some correspondence
with--with Vidal as a result of it. I--it's a very imaginative tale
and he wri--he writes extremely well. Much of it is plausible, not
the bus--business about incest. I mean, there's no evidence for that.
But as he wrote me, he couldn't imagine any other reason why Burr
would have challenged Hamilton to a duel. He c--he just couldn't come
up with anything himself, Gore Vidal, with any other explanation. But
it's a good book. I--I like the book very much. And it was, of
course, a s--a very popular book.

LAMB: You--I want to go back to something you said earlier. You said
there was evidence all through the process that Hamilton and Burr were
social friends...

Mr. ROGOW: Mm-hmm.

LAMB: ...or at least socially together a lot.

Mr. ROGOW: Right. Right.

LAMB: Ho--how much of that evidence is there?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, we know that they--they--that--that Hamilton would
come to dinner. They were also know--they were co-counsel in many
cases--not in all cases; sometimes Hamilton was on the oth--one side,
Burr on the other.

LAMB: Were they both lawyers?

Mr. ROGOW: Both lawyers. And--but they often were on the same side,
representing the same clients.

LAMB: Did they...

Mr. ROGOW: So they knew each other, certainly.

LAMB: Did they disagree politically? I mean, not--not the
party--what--what party was Burr in?

Mr. ROGOW: Burr was in the--it wa--was--it was called the Republican
Party by--by, we would say now, the Democrats, a liberal party
an--anti-Federalist, more of a state's rights party under Jefferson
and so forth.

LAMB: And what party would Tom Jefferson--Thomas Jefferson been in?

Mr. ROGOW: Republican.

LAMB: And what party would Alexander Hamilton have been in?

Mr. ROGOW: Today or then?

LAMB: Then.

Mr. ROGOW: Federalist Party. The Federalists elected--you know,
Washington was a Federalist and Adams. But no--no president after
that was a Federalist.

LAMB: Was the hatred between Alexander Hamilton and Burr--or at least
Hamilton to Burr, was it based on ideology, was it based on party
differences or was it based on personal difference?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, here's where I--I--I--I decided to g--break out of
the usual explanations and go into the psychological area. I have
to--I should mention I'm--I was a--I'm a trained psychoanalyst as well
and did that for some--few years, not full time, but part time. And
it struck me that Hamilton was a--had an obsession about Burr that
went far beyond any rational explanation. And I think the obsession
was based on two things. I think there was projection; he saw in
Burr, I think, wh--what in himself he could not admit or--or
face--face up to because it was too threatening, the image he was
creating of himself, both in hi--for hi--in his mind and in the minds
of the country and his family and so forth.

So Burr, I think, was a kind of mirror image of Hamilton, and that was
one part of it. And I think--by virtue of the fact that--that he was
a mirror image, I think Hamilton had an attraction to him which he
experienced as threatening as well, kind of a homoerotic attraction.
And when I say homoerotic, I don't mean homosexual; I mean I think
when any--when they're--when two men are fond of each other or admire
each other or--or are close to each other, there's a little element of
homoeroticism, I think. And I think he--he found that, given his
macho image of himself, threatening, and he had to sort of attack Burr
on these two fronts, so to speak, because one--on one hand, he saw a
lot of him--himself in Burr and the other hand found it threatening
that he did see so much of himself and so much he liked in Burr.

LAMB: You say that A--Aaron Burr never took a stance on the
Constitution, but Alexander Hamilton...

Mr. ROGOW: Not clear, no.

LAMB: ...but Alexander Hamilton's role in the Constitution was?

Mr. ROGOW: He--he favored a--a much stronger central government,
greater powers in the executive and--and judicial branches.

LAMB: But he was there in Philadelphia at the Constitutional
Convention.

Mr. ROGOW: He was there--not all the time, though. Not all the
time.

LAMB: And you point out he left, what, on June 29th or something like
that?

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah, he was only there a couple of times, I think, after
that. And...

LAMB: But gave a speech that you...

Mr. ROGOW: He gave a speech which--which pretty well is--is a--a
statement of his principles about government and so on. He did not
believe in democracy and he thought democracy was an evil creation and
a threat to the country. He was really, I--I think, at heart, a
monarchist. He wa--he was--he was a great admirer of the British
system of government, and I think he favored a monarchistlike--a
system like that developed later on, maybe. But, of course, that had
no chance in Philadelphia.

LAMB: Now as secretary of the treasurer--Treasury, you say that there
was some insider trading going on...

Mr. ROGOW: Mm-hm.

LAMB: ...back in those days.

Mr. ROGOW: Right.

LAMB: What did it look like? How did--who did it?

Mr. ROGOW: Hamilton, I think, who was responsible for what--what's
called the--the--funding the debt measures, funding the debt involved
buying up bonds that were depreciated, used to finance the revolution,
at less--sometimes at 10 cents on the--on the--on the dollar in face
value, buying them up at 10 cents. And then when they were redeemed,
they were redeemed at full value plus interest. Hamilton favored that
because it would benefit the wealthy classes. He--his view was unless
you have the attachment of the wealthy people--what he called the
moneyed men--to the government, the government would not survive. In
that sense, perhaps, he was real--he was realistic. But he had inside
information, of course, about Treasury policies--borrowing mon--you
know, the p--plans and so forth. And this information, I am almost
certain, was passed to his family and his friends. And, of course,
they were able--able to make a great deal of money. His
father-in-law, at one point, had $600,000, in m--in--mod--modern
terms, worth of bonds of--of government debt.

LAMB: Whe--when he died at age 48, 49, from the duel, did he have any
money?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, he had owned property that--that--in upper New York
state and--and, yeah, he owned oth--other--other property. And there
it was again, th--there was this controversy, as every so often,
is--it was said he died penniless, and if his wife--or widow--had not
been given a good--his pension from the war, he would--she have had no
money. But I discovered that--the r--the research that somebody else
did and discovered that the--these--these people had found a fund had
been established that--where you can s--buy $200 worth of--of paper
and so forth, the kind of--can make a contribution to this fund and
that subscribers told enough to account for maybe $700,000 or $800,000
of money which, presumably, went to his widow. And so it's--it's
uncertain--I mean, there's some c--there's a--some contradiction here
about what--what exactly the truth was. But my--my view is that she
was not penniless at all.

LAMB: When--when he was killed back in 1804 and he died the day
after, you said, from the--the duel, how big a funeral did they have
for him in New York City?

Mr. ROGOW: Oh, very--very impressive. They had a procession of his
coffin on a carriage, you know, and his--his--his general's uniform
in--on the top of the coffin. He was made a major general, brevet, no
command--well, you know, a brevet major--just two-star general. He
was very proud of that. And military detachments, bankers, professors
from Columbia University and so forth, family relatives and all
for--all for--you know, wen--went ahead and sat down--sat down to the
c--at the cemetery. The bells were tolling and two Fr--two French
frigates in the harbor were sh--you know, shooting off their cannon in
their intervals and I ...(unintelligible) I had a little fun and put
this in the book but it--it happened to be the f--the 15th anniversary
of the French Revolution. July the 14th is the funeral--yeah,
Bastille Day. And I wondered--I didn't write this--whether the
frigates were doing this in honor of Hamilton's funeral or doing it to
celebrate the 15th anniversary of the French Revolution--the beginning
of the French Revolution.

LAMB: Now Alexander Hamilton, his wife Betsy and his--and her sister,
Angelica, are all buried there at the Trinity Church?

Mr. ROGOW: Angelica's buried there and--and Betsy's buried there,
right, right.

LAMB: And what about Aaron Burr's funeral?

Mr. ROGOW: There wasn't anyth--anything; nothing was made of it.
And for 20 years, there was nothing--no--nothing on his grave to--to
indicate he was even buried there.

LAMB: I--in Princeton?

Mr. ROGOW: There is now. There's an Aaron Burr Association with
about 200 members that's dedicated to the--promoting the
reputation--rehabilitating, I should say.

LAMB: Did you talk to anybody from the Aaron Burr Association?

Mr. ROGOW: Oh, yes. Yeah, I--actually, I joined it. I went to a
meeting and I'm--I've now been invited to speak to their meeting in
September. They--they have an annual meeting at some place that Burr
frequented or was present for...

LAMB: What kind of people belong to the Aaron Burr Association?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, amateur historians, I would say.

LAMB: Where is it located?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, the--the--the president lives in Bethe--in
Maryland, you know? He's a lawyer. But it's not located anywhere.
There's no headquarters. It's a--just people who think Aaron Burr's
been much maligned. And one of their--one of their causes is to get
him on a postage stamp. They've been t--working for years to have the
United States Postal Service put Burr on a stamp. I don't think they
realize that no--almost no vice president's on a stamp who did not
become president. So quite apart from anything else, you know, Burr's
chances are not very good.

LAMB: And he has been a United States senator, too.

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah.

LAMB: Had Alexander Hamilton had any other job other than secretary
of the Treasury?

Mr. ROGOW: No, except delegate to--to the Conti--Continental
Congress, you know, and to the--delegate, of course, to the
f--Constitutional Convention in 1787.

LAMB: Down in front of the Treasury Department is a statue of
Alexander Hamilton as the first secretary of the Treasury. Do you--do
you think he should be there?

Mr. ROGOW: Oh, yes. And he's on the $10 bill, you know? So
any--any American who has a $10 bill in his wallet or pocketbook has a
p--is carrying around a portrait of Alexander Hamilton.

LAMB: Go back to the...

Mr. ROGOW: So...

LAMB: ...where we started, at Weehawken--right across from 42nd
Street over in Weehawken, New Jersey. You've been there.

Mr. ROGOW: Mm-hmm.

LAMB: A--and you say there's no s--nothing special there. In other
words, they don't--they don't commemorate...

Mr. ROGOW: It's all--it's all growing--built up, you know? It's
just a--but there is a little piece of--of, you know, kind of wooded
area, but it's very small.

LAMB: How do you find it, then? Is there a sign that says, `This is
where it happened'?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, there had been in the past, and so we know roughly
where it was. Now whether that original plaque was accurate, I don't
know.

LAMB: And how did...

Mr. ROGOW: And that--it may have been some other place along
that--that shore, you know, along that--that area.

LAMB: Do you think that Chase Manhattan ought to display those
pistols so we could all see them somewhere?

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah, I think so. Yes, I think they should be. Yeah.

LAMB: Do you ever think of asking them that?

Mr. ROGOW: Well, I might do that. I think one--as a matter of fact,
they were, I think, displayed during the bicentennial, I believe. But
I don't think they're--I don't think they're on permanent display, no.
And...

LAMB: Well, why don't you get the Aaron Burr Association and talk to
the Chase Manhattan bank, and we'll bring our cameras to Weehawken and
we can--we can re-enact this thing?

Mr. ROGOW: Boy, that'll be the day, huh? You know, Hamilton, of
course, is Bank of New York, so apart from anything else, these two
banks are not exactly, should we say, friendly in terms of
bus--business affairs, even today. You know, they're two--they--it's
competing banks, Chase Manhattan and Bank of New York, so I think the
chances of--of any--of any real collaboration are not very good.

LAMB: Are you thinking of writing another book?

Mr. ROGOW: Not at the moment, no, no.

LAMB: And what, in the end, do you want people to take away from this
book? What's the big message in the end?'

Mr. ROGOW: I want them to have another look at Aaron Burr. I want
them to see that Burr is--has been much maligned and, I think,
deserves a--to be thought of in a far better way than he is.

LAMB: And what do you want 'em to think about Alexander Hamilton?

Mr. ROGOW: I want the--want them to think that Hamilton was--was,
you know, ruthless, totally ambitious, power-driven. He certainly had
a--had--brilliant man, maybe a genius, I would say, you know? Burr
was not a brilliant man, no. He wasn't that. Ham--Hamilton was--was
important in terms of the nation's financial sec--security at the
beginning, and he deserves every--every kind of credit for that. Burr
contributed nothing of any lasting importance. But other--but as for
me, if I had to choose a dinner companion, can you guess whom--whom I
would choose?

LAMB: And wh...

Mr. ROGOW: It would be Aaron Burr.

LAMB: And what about the cover of this book, where did it come from?

Mr. ROGOW: That was chosen by the publisher. It is not the duel.
The inside--inside the--the--the--the book, on the--on the front page,
I think, or the title page, there's a little drawing. That is a
representation of the duel, but many years later. There's no--there's
no representation of the duel originally with anybody who was present.

LAMB: And whose idea was it to call it "A Fatal Friendship," and why?

Mr. ROGOW: Arthur Wang, my publisher and editor.

LAMB: And do you know why he wanted to call it that?

Mr. ROGOW: He just liked the title.

LAMB: Did you like it?

Mr. ROGOW: Yeah, I do. I think it was a well--a--a very well-chosen
title.

LAMB: Our guest has been Arnold Rogow. He is the author of this
book, "A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr," and
the duel of 1804. Thank you very much.

Mr. ROGOW: Thank you.

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A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr