today, if we start to see a resurgence of inflation and some fear, will that lead to a much more rapid and sharper increase in nominal interest rates as investors try to avoid being impoverished by negative real interest rates? ..

which prudent policy would avoid. >> the most important policy is to make sure you maintain the expectation that the price stability will be maintained in the united states. the chairman made a very strong oral statements in 60 minutes the other day and was as clear as you can be about his intentions. some skepticism until we prove. but the federal reserve will have to act in a timely way to head off inflationary consequences of the very big supply of liquidity. they understand the problem and are hopeful that they will respond so that you don't get the kind of market reaction that was referred to. >> the critical question -- i

don't believe they have a coherent plan for doing what they say they are going to. they have a model which i believe has serious flaws. one of the serious flaws is it does not have a loan demand which is a critical failure. but the hard question is going to be how high the interstate is going to have to go to prevent the trillion or more excess reserves from being used to how high the rate will go. if you can do it within a moderate interest-rate the public will probably sit still for it. if you have to go to rates that a going to be seven, eight, 9%, that is going to be a different thing with unemployment as high as it is. you will hear from not just the congress and administration, but business community, labour communions, and general public that you cannot do that. that will be the real test of

whether that policy is going to succeed. that is what i -- what is missing as far as i know, and i have asked this question of people at the fed minute time, how much of the excess reserves will be of sort for everyone% that you raise the interest rate? they don't know the answer, at least they don't tell me what the answer is, and i don't believe that they have studied it closely enough to have an answer for themselves. that is the critical question. that is always the critical question in monetary policy, how the public and these other people are going to react to the restraints in a time of high unemployment. >> next question. >> alan greenspan in his 2002 speech says that you can't

predict bubbles or don't know them when you see them, but you know they greenspan put, others put it out in a hypothetical. this has resulted in asset inflation with respect it, at least, its equity markets. to you, and i mean both you, believe that the idea of asset inflation is a coherent concept about equities or is it just -- as you mentioned about oil prices, a relative price change and not something that should be called inflation? if you do think it is coherent as a concept, do you believe that, indeed, federal reserve monetary policy has contributed to it? >> in the 1960's beyond i've wrote lots of papers in which asset prices play an important

role. i am a strong believer that it was a mistake to strip models down. this was something which i shared with jim tobin. we both had asset prices and believe that asset prices were critical for monetary policy and that the influence of demand for money. so, the fed has moved away from that. i hope there will move back. having said that, i don't believe they should try to control asset prices. a piece of affirmation which tells us something about the way in which policy is being transmitted. the difficulty is knowing how much of that is expected real return and how much of it is expected inflation. we don't have good ways of supporting those things out. if we did we would be better off, but we don't. we should use the information that says asset prices were a piece of information about where markets are going.

it is a mistake to believe that the short-term -- the fed operates on a model in which the short time interest-rate is the only interest-rate. it is solved out by them. nothing matters except, what? except what happens to prices. i think that is a flawed way of thinking about the policy. in my book i make a statement which i think has been proven incorrect, but it will eventually be correct. no central bank will ever operate consistently in that model in which asset prices and other things don't have any role at all in their announcements. >> chairman. >> that leads me to ask a question.

as you were conducting policy how much weight did you put the models? >> how much? predictions, very difficult for the future. week demonstrated repeatedly that economists are not very good at predicting the economy at important points. there is a certain study, increased study. it is hard to mess. whenever you have a recession, on the eve of the recession of recovery, they are not very good, which is the only time you worry about it. [laughter] >> next question right here. >> freshman at george washington university studying political science and economics. my question is in regards to the recent movement, recent position

of the liberty movement with regards to onding the federal reserve. in 2009 congressman ron paul introduce the fed a bill that would essentially protect the fed to an audit by the comptroller general. wondering if that is a timely move given our economic climate as it is in america. >> i believe the congress traditionally makes the mistake of confusing process. but they should be concerned about its outcome. process is something they should leave to the people who have to make decisions. you want the decisions to be unhampered by the fear that somebody is going to look over year shoulder and say you should not have said that. we don't know enough to be able to say in either the short term whether the decision that they made was right or wrong or too much or too little.

so let's try to get the process excluded from the discussion and put the emphasis on the outcome. octomom to the fed and tried to press them to get better outcomes. that is what the public cares about. i don't think the public gives a damn about what the chairman might have said to the vice chairman at the meeting on october 22nd. i mean, it is it irrelevant as far as they are concerned. what they care about is what you produce, our outcome. that is where we should put the emphasis. congress has an oversight role, and the oversight role should be focused on outcomes, and they should do a much better job than they do the monitoring of comes. >> at think the federal reserve or any agency has a

responsibility to be as clear as possible and what their policy is and intentions are. revealing all the entrails of the internal committees is not very helpful. this business with this would keep the business, different areas, but arguing that transparency is helpful in terms of public policy making and all of the internal communications, it's unfortunate. let me return to this forecast just to give you a particular example. when i became chairman of the federal reserve the federal reserve staff had been predicting a recession. other we were already in a recession or if not it should appear in the next quarter or two. i don't think there were in that prediction, but what surprised me is we went ahead and tightened money anyway. traditionally if the board had been listening to that kind of

forecast they would not have taken it. what was surprising was we tightened very strongly in the fall and winter of 79 and 80 because the economy continued to grow. i could not believe it. a forecast of recession command interest rates went to 20% at that point, and the economy was still growing. the economy and in addition, i still think this is an artificial recession. the economy dropped into an artificial recession and response to the controls of president carter. that came out of the clear sky. he announced one day credit controls. the other reserve apply the credit controls. we did not like the idea. so we made him as mild as we could possibly make them and exempted every form of credit except credit cards and single

payment installment loans. car credit was exempted. kohl was exempted. those of the two big swaths of credit. going to restrict credit, everybody was cutting up their credit cards and repaying the credit card balances and money supply. the economy. the want to be patriotic. and that so-called recession lasted about four months until we took off the controls. everybody said, okay, off we go again. so reasonable gray areas of recession. it was kind of an artificial recession. never went into the real recession. >> economics in the spring and duke in the fall.

chairman, we should be able to do better. we have experienced between the euro and the dollar given that the sec to relative. i wonder how that would be done. can you comment? >> well, that gets into a big questions of international monetary reform, cooperation among many players and policies and understanding. willingness to make changes in a cooperative way in the interest of dealing with the problem. >> a classic case of europe and the united states. the united states and the rest of the world against asia and china. unofficially the rate has held steady, but at some point. can't we make some more cooperative arrangement where the adjustment takes place

boldly? it is a nice question, very difficult to do in practice. there is going to be an attempt, i think a year or to finally form an international monetary system. nobody has used that phrase for a couple of decades. i think that phrase is going to come back in the next six months the g20 will say something about its. the commission and the committee will look at it. there will be an effort to deal with the problem. >> there is talk, at least the president of the world bank has talked. i have always believed that the

reason we don't have a gold standard is not because we don't know about it, but because we do. that is that doesn't give us unemployment outcomes that countries want most of all. i don't think that as a starter. what would i do? i would say that there is a problem of trying to reconcile domestic and international monetary policy. the way that we -- the best that i can come up with is to say that the three leading monetary countries, they euro, japan, united states all pledged to achieve the same rate of inflation. they make a strong commitment to do that. third countries can pay to that rate. one of those rates, a basket of the straits.

that way they can have price stability and have fixed exchange rates. the three countries can have floating exchange rates said the real exchange rates can adjust and not cause the unemployment that people wish to observe. they would also get the benefit of those countries. but the whole system would, in my reckoning the voluntary. three countries would voluntarily through coordination, no meetings, no discussions, just pledged to keep the 2% or 0 -- i prefer zero, but don't think that is going to happen. zero to 2% inflation rate. that would remove the great part if we did it and persisted in it, a great part of the problem and would leave room for countries to make adjustments within that band when they had

unemployment and so on so as to satisfy the domestic urges at the same time providing a much more stable international environment. i believe that is a way of doing better. is it absolutely optimal? well, i hesitate to answer that question. i doubt it. it may be the best that we can do, and it is certainly the note we do. >> i don't disagree with what he is saying. i think we ought to do precisely what he is saying. the hope that that will produce reasonable stability in the exchange rate is, i think, not in accord with experience. we have been reasonably close to what he says in the past ten years. the exchange rate has gone up and down. the euro has gone up and down, and so has the end. so they're going to do something.

i think that ought to be the foundation, but we will have to do something more than that. >> the other is the no meetings requirement. we have way too many undersecretaries and assistant secretaries not to have international meetings. >> next question. >> right here. and side. the panel, one of these things about what the fed calls, let's just call it financial stability. very much a part of monetary policy. all three division directors started committee that looks at the top banks. at think it will be more a part of meetings.

a good thing, a bad thing, a distraction. >> organizations do their best when they have a limited number of objectives. given multiple objectives they have a hard time achieving any of them. i think all of this talk about macro potential sometimes avoids what is the most significant thing that they could do, and that is raise the capital. in the 1920's to banks have 20 percent of their assets and capital, and there were no large bank. we need to go back in that direction. we don't need a lot of new regulation, and we don't need a lot of people telling the banks not to take these risks with those risks. a market economy requires people to take risks. it is not clear at all to me that moving risks out of the bank system into some unregulated intermediary, if that were to happen, would be desirable from the standpoint of

society. i would like to see the banks have more capital. i testified to that three times. i worked with members of the legislature, the banking committees to try to get legislation. i actually got one to introduce it, but it went nowhere. why? because the bank, of course, fights like mad against the idea of more capital because it is costly to them. bailouts are wrong, wrong, wrong from the standpoint of a society, wrong from the standpoint of the bank's. it just leads to people taking advantage of too big to fail in taking risks which they should not undertake. increase the capitol, put the onus on the stockholders and management. that is probably the way that you get financial stability, and

you don't need regulation. let me say, i have three lots of regulation. first law is lawyers and bureaucrats make regulations. markets led to circumvent them. second law is regulation is static and markets are dynamic. they don't circumvent them at the beginning. they will learn to do it. the third is regulation works best when it changes the incentives for the people who are regulated so that they have an interest in enforcement. >> chairman volcker. >> having some background some balance. there is no question that the banks, to have more capital than they had in years, whether it is

being dynamic, i don't know. i don't think you can do it by legislation and regulators around the world. authority to control capital as they lose their authority. i don't think that is the end of the story, and i would like to deal with bailouts and too big to fail. when push comes to shove the choice seems to be between collapse of the system and entry into the system. regulators around the world have to take action to try to avoid that. that is why we need more regulation in some areas. i can think of several pieces of regulation that i strongly support. >> how about the question from the other direction, which is, do you worry about the focus on the setting of monetary policy

the federal reserve officials spend a lot of their time writing -- approving financial stability reports and getting into that leads the spending? >> not really high on my list of worries. i wonder what most members of the federal reserve board do in between meetings. you know, their is a limit of the amount of time that you conducted your belly button worrying about what monetary policy should be over the next two weeks. i don't think they spend enough time on regulation. one of the interesting and important things in the legislation must say there will be a governor, vice chairman of the board. he will be nominated by the president and approved by the senate with the responsibility, a principal responsibility of maintaining oversight of the

regulatory work of the federal reserve. that focus has been lacking. off and on about the interests of a particular chairman or another governor. often that interest has not particularly been there. i think the for reserve should be the principal regulator, but if it is going to be organized that way, somebody ought to be responsible for it. i think that there is the overwhelming argument, a monetary policy. at think there is some danger as the federal reserve becomes all-powerful and people began wondering in this great democracy of ours as to whether any agency should have that brett the responsibility has not be subject to a closed political control. at some point i do worry that

the federal reserve takes on too much. >> i would just like to add to that that i think the present solution is an absolute abomination that puts a right there in to the federal reserve not responsible to the board of the open market committee and gives them the authority to take budgetary money from the profits of the federal reserve to do with as they decide. i think that is absolutely the wrong way to go. that should be on the budget. if there is going to be a regulatory authority and the federal reserve its budget should be voted by the congress, and the congress should have a much heavier hand in the oversight of what they do when we are talking about the redistribution of wealth, income, and a society, not the causes of monetary policy. >> the consumer financial protection agency.

>> i am. >> so now is the time for the last word. first, do you have anything to say? you wrote the book. then. >> well, i am happy that the book is finished. it is like the monetary policy that paul talked about. i had no idea it would take 15 years to finish this book. if i thought it would i would not have done it. i'm glad it's done. many people have said, well, are you going to write another volume on the time after 1986. my answer is no. >> well 15 years of effort, two volumes with three volumes.

life went on after 1986. but cuts on after today. >> a continuing process tomorrow and the day after. >> i'm sure we will be better informed. those two volumes, how many words. >> 1300 full pages in volume to. 700 roughly in volume one. >> living longer and longer. you will have to have a successor, but thank you for doing this one. >> yeah. we want to thank everyone for coming. victor, we think the professor and the chairman. >> the chair of the federal

reserve from 1979 to 1987. the political economy professor at carnegie-mellon university. to see this and other programs about the federal reserve online visit book tv and search federal reserve in the upper left-hand corner of the page. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here on line. type author or book title in the search bar on the upper left-hand side of the page and click search. you can also share anything uc easily by clicking share on the upper left-hand side of the page and selecting the format. book tv is james live on line for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. >> you are watching book tv on c-span2. here is our prime time lineup for tonight.

>> coming up next former secretary of defense donald runs fell, his memoir "known and unknown: a memoir." during this event the first stop on his book tour, he is interviewed by michael becker lost. >> we thought we would have this low gathering because secretary donald rumsfeld book has not been getting very much attention. we that we would make up for

that by at least having one event. make sure that the book gets the attention it deserves. appropriate that we are doing this in the national constitution center because one of the things that the founders were serious about was, unlike the regions in europe that there were stuck in this country to be an like, they wanted to make sure that we have a record of our leaders, with that thought about what they did in office and they hope the record would be open as soon as possible. can everyone here? >> so much noise over to the right. though, is that what it is? >> it is a big crowd of people trying to get upstairs. we will just speak loudly. in any case, they hope that we would have access to what our

leaders thought and did as soon as possible so that we can learn from successes and shortcomings. as i was saying, the book of donald rumsfeld is very much in that tradition. the book is on his entire life, but i thought we would begin by talking about in rock. i guess maybe the way to get into this, here we are in the constitution center. we just passed by the stats to a james madison. as you know, madison give a lot of thought to warrant with the president should do and how often americans should get into war. if he came back in nasty to tell him why we went to war, what would you say? >> the answer would be that the congress of the united states

passed a resolution overwhelmingly favoring regime change. in the 1990's by an alarming note, and it was signed by president and. the united nations issued some 17 different resolutions advising iraq that they should conform to the resolutions call request of the designation security council to allow the inspectors into their country to provide the inspectors the information are on weapons out of mass destruction. the u.s. the nation's had been repeatedly rebuffed. president george w. bush made a decision when he first came into office that he was concerned about the fact that iraq was firing regularly at united

states and united kingdom aircraft that were supporting the united nations no-fly zone and patrolling in the northern and southern portion of iraq. the plans were being shot at almost every day. the only country in the war that was shooting an american and british aircraft. over 2,000 times they were fired on. the joint chiefs of staff advised me and the president that they were concerned about the fact that eventually one of our planes, a british plane on our plan would be shot down. killed were taken hostage. the third being the unit is this department of state had listed iraq as one of the country's on the terrorist list. there were a series of things like that by way of background. it next, the united states intelligence it is the spent a great deal of time and determined that they were convinced that the iraqi

government had weapons of mass destruction, had the competence to continue developing weapons of mass destruction and have the capability to rapidly expand the stabilities in the event that they decided to do so. you have a country that has used chemical weapons on its own people. a country that has used chemical weapons against its neighbor, and a behavior pattern that persuaded people that they not only had them, but would use them. we were at a point in our country's history.

>> we have not had a declaration of war since 1941. >> exactly. that the korean war, not the vietnam war, that the incursion with president clinton. >> does of war declaration make any difference? would it have brought americans more into this? >> i doubt it. i think that, you never know. that is a road that they did not travel, and i can't really say. i think the resolution passed by congress and then the resolution by the united nations provided an underpinning.

the other thing that i would add is that president bush and colin powell and the vice-president discussed the hope that there would not be a conflict and that saddam hussein would be persuaded to leave the country and not require an invasion of the country. there were messages pasts and request made. they were rebuffed. at think that saddam hussein very likely was purposefully trying to make the world believe he had blogs stockpiles. i think that he felt he had friends in the united nations it might be able to stop the united kingdom, united states and various other countries supporting the coalition and prevent them from going in. i also think that because president george w. bush, his

father had gone into iraq after iraq invaded kuwait and cause them to be removed, but did not change the regime. good evidence that saddam hussein believed that america would not change the regime and would survive even though the united states might come and. so, there were a combination of things taking place that argue for it, and there were a behavior come a behavior pattern on the part of iraq, misguided as it turned out, and he refused to leave with his family which was offered and urged. barry, war is the failure of diplomacy. >> your "in the book. one thing people i think will be surprised to read about is that president bush never asked you for your advice and with the the country should just go to war. would that violate one of

brussels' rules? >> i don't think so. i don't know that he asked : powell or even the vice president. he was elected by the american people. we had frequent meetings and discussed various aspects of the situation. they worked very hard with the united nations to try to put additional pressure on saddam bassein so that he would not continue to resist. the president did what the president has to do, made the decisions. i assume that he is and that everyone in that group would have argued vehemently if they disagreed which no one did. >> how do you think people in the future will look back on that decision? >> it is hard to know. the road not traveled is always smooth there. one looks at it and thinks what

if, what if. at think that a little-known fact is that the head of libya at that point had a very aggressive nuclear program under way. when the united states went in and changed the regime in iraq working very hard on the nuclear program, very high on the terrorist list decided that he would forgo his nuclear program. he contacted western leaders and indicated, look, i do have this nuclear program. i am willing to stop it and have it inspected because i do not want to be suffering the same fate as saddam bassein. if you look at the region there are disadvantages that linger from the conflict. by the same token you have the country that no longer has a

truly vicious, brutal regime that has used chemical weapons against its own people and neighbors. it is gone. the iraqi people have-in the constitution, elections under the constitution and not finding their way away from the repressive system toward a freer political and economic system. other countries in the region such as libya are encased in a behavior pattern that is vastly better for the world and region. so, there are minuses, negatives, and there are some pluses. i think you are an outstanding historian, and it will be people like you overtime who will weigh all of those things. with the benefit of some distance, makes some of desmond.

>> let's go back to the beginning. you were born in chicago, grew up in winnetka, illinois which was not quite a prosperous town as it is nowadays. >> a little village, as you read about. went on to princeton. is that a little bit of a culture shock? >> hello, my goodness. it was, indeed. i was told by the dean of the school that i was going to get to a big ten school and wrestle. the dean said, no, you have to get to princeton. why? well, that is where you belong. book, i can't go there. i don't have the money. how did you the scholarship, which he did. i went. of course most of the people had gone to private school, taken freshman courses, they get there. it worked my hat off. test and all the time of the library or play football or

wrestling. never did much other than that. it rained a lot. not my first choice. my wife was off at the university of colorado. >> you heard talk by april study and who had been nominated once. it is not in the book, but i'm told you know some of those words by heart. >> i do. >> by senior bank would 1954, the former governor of illinois named adlai stevenson had lost to dwight eisenhower already in 52 and later in 56. our senior banquet in college. he gave bobby -- he did the most

eloquent and persuasive speech about public service that i had ever heard or will ever hear. it was an evening event. we all just sat there listening to this brilliant. he called himself an egghead. as a joke he used to say, what was it, -- >> let the world unite. >> exactly. all of us who are getting ready to go into the military, we all came away with the sense of responsibility. one of the things he said was that the gang people and our country have a responsibility to help guide and direct the course of our country. the power of the american political system is virtually

without measurement. if america were to stumble the world would fall. it had an impact on me. i have put up a website with hundreds of miles that i believe support the booked it can get to an end notes and the website and actually see the entire memo as i quote a paragraph. i am almost positive we have l.a. stevenson speech on that website, and i highly recommend it. it is a wonderfully inspiring speech. >> although he did not attempt to become a democrat, obviously to be it was there a point in your early life that you would have been anything but a republican? >> oh, my goodness yes.

franklin roosevelt was the only president in my lifetime up until 1932 and never knew herbert hoover personally. franklin roosevelt was the president. he represented the net assets of america in wartime. my parents, i commend everyone i knew what look to him. >> and you were so taken with stevenson that he ran for congress at the age of 29. very dark horse dan rather than he is nowadays.

what movie to begin says in? >> i was the longest of long shots. i worked in washington for to congress, one from ohio and one from michigan. suddenly out of the blue the woman who was the congresswoman who had succeeded her husband occupying that congressional district from 1932 until 1960. she announced she was not going to run for reelection. that thought to myself, my goodness. that family owned by district for my entire lifetime. he may not get another chance. a talked to joyce. she's gained.

something like 100 volunteers helping. people running around with things on their cars and earrings and buttons and bumper stickers and sure enough i was fortunate one of the things that might have helped is that president kennedy had an elected two years before. he was so young, running for congress at 29, served in the senate for part of a term and then ran for president. he was a young president and had been elected and was so attractive and charming and humorous. >> he posed for a picture with eisenhower during the campaign. >> the fact that we have such an attractive young president had an appeal in the district that

made a kid of 29 years old running for congress looking like maybe he could actually be a congressman. >> you came to washington, and write about it in the book. you attended a briefing by lyndon johnson. tell us about that. he spoke up about that briefing. >> just a wonderfully energetic and appealing person he had just come back from vietnam. had not been when i ran in 62, but by then it was 64, 66, 65. so president johnson was getting complaints that members of congress to and feel there were

staying informed about the war. a large number one down. the invitation came late. we went in, and it is nothing for a young congressman to be sitting in the white house getting briefed by the president and what president who is just come back from vietnam the recovery started to get the briefing. lyndon baines johnson was commander in chief. he was bigger than life. he would pop up every time someone would say something and answer the question. he bird with just about be ready to answer and stop. lyndon johnson would take over. >> that is pretty much the way it usually was.

johnson was talking about doing the things he would do test when the war. you pipe dubbin said bombing halts. probably more critical than he would have been as a member of the executive branch friend he was going through a time where he was trying to figure out what to do in the war in vietnam. there would be a bombing pause. he would hope that would be a positive reaction from the north vietnamese or the viet cong. it didn't. he, in explaining what he was doing why it wasn't working. his answer was, in effect, that

it wouldn't work. of course, the fact wise if you do something for a time and some completely it is confusing. i did ask a question. i tried to get some response are red as to how that combination of off and on was going to work the way it's going to work is more of the same. he added test job as president. >> in what respect what you think with the big mistakes.

>> and the last analysis that country was going to have to find its way south bill after the north vietnamese are viet cong a after the north vietnamese are viet cong alone because all they had to do was to sapir. it didn't have to fight a single battle. they could just disappear and a weekly show back up. they could go harvest the rice and come right back. you could have walked u.s. forces from one end of the country to the other and they just disappeared. and then when you passed it would come right back. in my view in retrospect, the benefit, the task was really to try to get the south vietnamese government capable of organizing and training their own forces. providing south vietnam that offered a promise for the

future. at think kochi man was more successful in suggestion to the people that the future under him would be brighter. there was an argument made that the south vietnamese government was corrupt and out of touch with the people. that is not unusual for government to be labeled corrupt. a great many of the governments are corrupt. that was an argument. the combination of those things created a very difficult circumstance.

"if you define poverty as a certain percentage of our population and then try to eradicate it is not possible because there are always be a certain percentage that fits in that category.

they immediately started a host of programs there was a job corps. microprograms, health care programs, drug programs community action programs that must've been 12 or 15 different programs the design was that it would bypass governors and mayors, all elected officials. of course that had the effect of anchoring republican and democrat players and public officials because the money would come straight from the federal government to organizations, community organizations that were described as having a maximum feasible participation. bypassing the mayor. of course what they started to do was opposed local government. local city council and local state government were constantly

being harassed. if it was a legal services program, federal government applying money which then filed lawsuits against mayors and governors and city councils, all of the people, regardless of political party, and it had nothing to do with politics. it was against the structure. so by the time i went in there. it was widely -- >> but here you are promising the republican people. the possible future president. isn't this a great year for a career like that? >> well, joyce has a somewhat unusual sense of humor. one night i got home and went to the icebox. there was a sign that said, he tackled the job that could not be done with a smile and went right to it. he tackled the job that went right to it. you laugh.

it's 10:00 at night when i was reaching in for a soda pop. be of. >> did he see watergate coming? >> i did not at all. you know, one time someone wrote. i ended up going over as ambassador to nato right after the 1972 election. there was a member of the cabinet and the white house. political siberia. in proximity to power considered in washington thousand miles in their direction.

somebody wrote, who is the smartest man in washington. answer, don rums felt. he is not in washington. answer, that's right. and i get a reputation for being smart instead of lucky. i had no more idea what was going on. richard nixon had this been reelected by one of the biggest margins. he won every state in the union except massachusetts and the district of columbia. but i would want to be away from that, but we did. check our family and went to belgium. a truly wonderful experience. >> the 1960's, he came in saying he wanted us to sit with these

folks that the wheel. directed that the president. people working, presidential power, the d.c. signs of that? >> gerald ford was a legislature, and a minority leader. he function on these concepts were everyone could come to see him. he was a gracious and wonderfully warm and decent man. anyone who wanted to have access to him, could. it was a positive. a president of the assets didn't do that. ho had watched the nixon white