. . in honor of our men and women in uniform who defend our freedom around the world, if you would please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag, of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it

stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. thank you. please be seated. as i was preparing for the arrival of our special guest today, not that it had anything to do with them, but i ran into some depressing statistics. don't worry, while this introduction will start on a low i promise it will end on a high. the stats that i ran into were all about who was reading books these days and how often. some of the numbers concern me. now, don't hold me to them exactly as my source was the internet, but they are revealing and they are tough to swallow. what did they say? one third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their

lives. 42% of college graduates never read another book after college, and 80% of u.s. families did not buy or read a book last year. now, i have to presume that's to the extent these people read, their reading habits are confined to 140 character tweets, blogs, weblogs, chats and e-mails and an occasional traffic sign. [laughter] i think they are missing a lot. i say that because every once in a while, a team of truly talented writers will get together and and write a gift, a gift for all of us and the work that informs, educates and entertains all at once. that is definitely the case with nancy gibbs and michael duffy "the presidents club." it really is a good book. we are here today at the

presidential library, which happens to be the best in my unbiased opinion, and while i am handing out opinions, having read nancy and mike's book i am sure there will not be a better book with such unique and interesting insights on the modern-day presidency published for some time. now i know this because for me, the book past the i didn't know that test on every page. i didn't know that president clinton had real respect for president nixon. i didn't know that there was a presidential clubhouse across from the white house where only former presidents are allowed to stay, and i definitely didn't know it was president reagan who taught president clinton how to salute. bees really interesting discoveries are just a handful of the scores of revelations throughout their book. and no wonder, nancy and mike

are two of the most talented writers and editors at time magazine who have the experience, the awards, the rolodex and the reputation required to write such a wonderful book. ladies and gentlemen with that, please join me in welcoming nancy gibbs and michael duffy. [applause] >> thank you. >> we could stand. >> thank you john for that ridiculous introduction. i wanted to start by saying that in the five years that nancy and i spent putting this book together we had many an odd hot discovery moment where we were learning as much about the president as you will learn if you get a chance to read this, things we didn't no, things that

surprised us and surprises even about the men we undercovered through reagan, bush and now obama so for us it was a real journey and discovery to say nothing about what we learned about hoover and truman and eisenhower, kennedy, johnson, nixon and ford. so we too came away thinking wow i didn't know that and for us it was a journey that continues as people keep telling us things we didn't know. but in some ways, ronald reagan was a bigger part of that story than we would have guessed, because when you first meet him in 1947, long before his presidency, and as we dug deeper and deeper into reagan's relationship at the club we learned that he actually had seen fdr when he was living in des moines and he had gone to a truman fund-raiser in kansas city when he was still a

democrat, and would then be taken under the wing of ike when he was beginning his political career as a republican. and i was struck by how his relationship when we were coming up the driveway, we saw over and over again all the presidents, which is a reminder that every president who served as commander in chief sees itself as part of a bigger club. this is a picture that was on the cover of time two or three weeks ago. to books crafts picture never been published before and so we were thrilled to put it on the cover. it takes you into the modern club that really began a long time before george w. bush, barack obama and bill clinton were there to pick up the torch, and in fact it begins -- . >> it begins when a president is in need of some serious help, and that is what it would take to bring together such an

unlikely partnership as harry truman and herbert hoover, two men with nothing in common politically, nothing in common personally, no relationship of any kind except for the fact that the world was a very difficult, dangerous, challenging place in 1945 when truman suddenly finds himself president and so he is not one to stand on ceremony. he does not care that herbert hoover had left washington as one of the most hated man in america with motorcades being pelted with rotten fruit, had been exiled completely and whenever anyone suggested to franklin roosevelt that may be hoover could be useful, hoover knows a lot and he was a great humanitarian relief worker before he came president. roosevelt would say i am not jesus christ. i'm not raising herbert hoover from the dead. [laughter] harry truman was reading the reports that said 100 million people in europe or at risk of

starving because the continent had been so devastated. and so, exactly how the roosevelt white house would react to this, truman secretly males a letter personally to hoover saying, would you be willing to come in and talk to me? and the two men meet. this picture is taken in may of 1945. truman has only been in office for a matter of weeks and they are very suspicious of each other and hoover afterwards thinks nothing is going to come of this. within a year hooper has been given a staff and a plane and sent by truman 55,000 miles around the world. he went to 22 countries and he met with 36 prime ministers and seven kings and the pope. his mission was to move food from the countries that had it to the countries that needed it. in doing so these two presidents honed this partnership that existed so far outside of policy differences, political

differences, because they both were so committed to what needed to be done and that first laid the foundation, laid the philosophical premise for what presidents and sometimes only presidents can do for one another and this is why when the two men meet one another on the platform and eisenhower's inauguration in 1953, hoover goes over to greet president truman and says i think we should form a presidents club. truman says great, you be the president and i'll be the secretary. that is the mythological foundation story teasing each other on a platform except it turns out with each successive president becomes more and more real so eisenhower in 1957 adds to an act of congress as office baze and allowance and mailing privileges to the former president. lyndon johnson's secret service security details and the use of presidential helicopters and even the projectionist from the white house film library are

being treated at walter reed watching too many movies from the white house library. nixon adds the clubhouse as john mentioned, which only one reporter in history has stepped foot inside of. >> when i asked the white house if i could actually see the clubhouse which is on jackson square across the street from the white house i call the press secretary jay carney who used to be my colleague at times and he said what building? [laughter] i don't think we know anything about this. in 1969 richard nixon is president and he is getting calls constantly from the hill country of texas where suddenly exiled lyndon johnson is going crazy. he has been sent home. his term is done. he decides not to run for re-election and he's a little -- he'd been drinking from a firehose for 10 years, longer than that and constantly calling the white house saying i want to do something, i need a plane, i need somewhere to stay. johnson was driving the nixon

white house was such distraction that nixon finally said, just get them out. get him a building, get him in office, get them a place to stay overnight in the young military aid who was a colonel in the air force at the time whose his name was brent scowcroft, this was his assignment. i guess that tells you how i found out about the story. and so they basically take over a rundown townhouse on lafayette square and it becomes a sort of the secret place where president can be, work, stay overnight for the next -- well until today. it's recently been renovated. i did recently get inside. it's very nice like the nicest four seasons you have ever stayed in your life. you can check in though. only four people can do that and i should tell you that the thread count on the sheets is like a good chilean. [laughter] and there is a lovely little feel on the duvet cover where if you wake up in the morning and you're not sure what your old job was you look down and say oh

i used to be president of the united states. this is one of my favorite stories on the club. we all love reading presidential biographies. we read david mccaul on truman and robert cairo on lbj and there were lots of great reagan biographies and they are fun to read and they are a treasure to sit down and curl up with but one of the ideas of the book was to pull the two men together to look at the relationships because relationships are what are really interesting. one of the things we discovered is that these two men were friends and allies long before reagan was president and long after ike was and in 1965 and 66 when ronald reagan is beginning his career as an elected official running for governor of california and thinking about the presidency once he is elected in california. eisenhower is watching him. never met him.

he's reading everything he can and watching him on television. he is really intrigued by reagan. he likes the optimism. and he is secretly going to write letters to some of reagan's friends to help them cope with a charge which in those days was that reagan was too much of an extremist to represent the republican party. eisenhower's letters to reagan through cutouts, through middlemen, are astonishing. they are like, for example, there was a charge that he'd been too close to the john birch society in the early 1960's and it was a spurious charge but it kept coming up. eisenhower script, his hold press conferences for reagan to have. reagan should answer this way and he goes through several different iterations of this through several letters and he's doing it wild nixon is trying to seek the gop nomination so you have a very interesting prospect of eisenhower secretly helping

reagan and 66, 67 and 68 while reagan is contesting for the gop nomination and again it's richard nixon who used to be ike's vice president. >> and his daughter is about to start dating" mary ike's grandson so you have the full -- >> talk about this picture because you understand it better. >> this is the bohemian grove. this is called the club picnic. you talk about this picture because the thing that amazes us about what happened is how many of these relationships go back long long before anyone is in politics. [inaudible] we were struck by that too. this is bahamian grove in the summer of 1967, 68 i guess. richard nixon is on the left and would meet herbert hoover at the grove. that summer than nixon was giving the big speech there about hoover when he really

wanted to do was to meet with reagan because reagan by now is actively seeking the 1968 nomination. he is beginning to contest the primaries. he's beginning to pick up delegates. he's got the right wing of the republican party completely won over. he's got people like william f. buckley saying there is no one else to vote for in 1968 except ronald reagan here is nixon who thought he would have a stately walk. suddenly having to contend with this newcomer from california who he had met and just to go back in 1947 when he was an young congressman. they have known each other for a long time and they had corresponded through much of the early 1960's but by this time they are on opposite sides. as we found throughout the story, these men would be friends and sometimes rivals long before either of them would reach the oval office. and this is a picture that most people probably can't time, but

right after nixon's visit, sort of he made his combat after watergate and reagan as president. there's a great story between the two of them. when nixon becomes president he goes to see ike at walter reed and ike is not well. and the old soldier says tunic son, and sees giving him advice. he says, i am yours to command. when reagan becomes president in 1981 and a long, 10 page single spaced letter, which nixon would write to reagan about all kinds of advice about who to appoint and how to conduct your first year he would say, i am yours to command just as ike had said to him. >> and you know so we have these partnerships, which as with reagan and nixon we also know that presidents of the same party often have a more propagated time getting along with each other than presidents of different parties and we see

this up to this day. so with president obama and president clinton, obviously their relationship got off to something of a rocky start. the 2008 campaign was bound to be a little hard on them. but the thing is that got to find most the fact that during the campaign many of you will remember that when obama was invoking a model of presidential greatness for vision, it was not the last democrat to manage to win two terms in the white house. it was the last republican. it was ronald reagan, who was the example obama sought of someone who had set a clear vision for the country and it wasn't a vision obama agreed with but what he was captivated by a buddy honored with the fact that reagan knew where you wanted to take the country and have been able to bring the country along with him. and of course this was exquisitely calculated to drive bill clinton. and obama would talk about the clinton presidency in comparison

to reagan's as having been small and paltry and a missed opportunity. and so that guarantees this relationship would get off to a great start and actually after obama wins, and appoints hillary clinton as as a secretary of state he basically makes bill clinton sign a prenup. [laughter] all the money he is and isn't allowed to raise and where he is and isn't allowed to give speeches and who he can and cannot see, and clinton goes along with the. he says it's hillary's turn now and i will do whatever they need me to do but it takes a while for these two men to find their footing at all and i think one of the things of course that has happened and we have seen it happened in many presidency once obama has been in office an in office for while he realizes doing great big things is not easy. doing anything is not easy and suddenly the deals and the compromises in the maneuvers and the things that they dismissed as clintonian and that was not a

compliment, suddenly were looking a lot more understandable. so now we see the newest obama campaign video which is directed via an oscar-winning director and narrated by an oscar-winning actor tom hanks stars bill clinton. >> i will refer to the republican primary for a lot of different people running for president wit and we talked about this earlier today, i know. asked what they would do if they were to become president and they said i would do what ronald reagan did that what we forget is the 2000 campaign on the democratic side was a very big argument about ronald reagan and which obama basically said i will be more reaganesque than clinton ever was an astonishing thing to happen on a democratic campaign. the second big role they have the club is consolation and these are men who come out of the office with huge scars, big

wealthy than when they are very successful. the thing that lines men from different parties and different generations in the club after it's all over, that makes them friends and when you least suspect it is that they all come out of office with welts and burns and regrets. and things they wish they could do over. there are no easy decisions as president and even the ones that turn out well they have missed gimmick -- misgivings. this is a famous picture from 1961. this is john f. kennedy's first trip to camp david a place named after ike's grandson of course. ike gave him a tour there but it was not a cordial call. it was five days after -- and literally eisenhower is taking kennedy to the woodshed. when kennedy came into office he reorganized the white house around his own way of making decisions. he thought eisenhower's very military hierarchy was not going to work. he wanted a much more personal kind of presidency and then they

had the bay of pigs and he thought well maybe that's not working so well. eisenhower and kennedy may. this was a serious -- i tried to warn you can't organize the white house is what kind of talk and kennedy says yeah i'm beginning to figure that out now and kennedy would learn. he would change the way he made his decisions. he would become much more like the one the ike -- after they appear before the cameras kennedy really needed this picture as much as he needed a talking to. he need this picture because it conveyed a sense of authority and command to have the old general there. but eisenhower did not criticize kennedy and public. >> and back the following week a congressional -- made the pilgrimage to see eisenhower. they said the bloom is off the rose of a candidate on eisenhower brushed him back and said there will be no witchhunt. it's important that we support

our president especially in policy and especially in dangerous times. that this not become a partisan issue. >> which is very much like what happened two or three weeks ago. i just have to bring this up. after george w. bush left office, the club has its protocols and traditions. he really went off the grid. he disappeared and he said the current president deserves my silence which was a classy thing to do. obviously his vice president didn't take that approach. [laughter] but when he finally broke cover three weeks ago and made gently constructive criticism of obama's tax and energy policy after sentence or two he said that our country shouldn't criticize our president, so the public role of president supporting the current ones continues. this is a great picture. >> this is an amazing moment, another amazing period and

another guest to texans although we argue about whether eisenhower is a texan. two men who worked closely together while a eisenhower's president and majority leader but still a true republican in a true democrat. the night of kennedy's assassination johnson is on the phone to eisenhower and he says, you know i've needed you for a long time. i need you more than ever now. the next morning eisenhower gets in his car and drives from gettysburg to the white house to see johnson. he sees kennedy's body lying in state and then he goes to see johnson in any and he writes in longhand on a legal pad, here is what you need to call the joints ration of congress and here's what you need to say because the world is watching. the country is traumatized. everyone wonders what's going to happen next and its basic advice is you need to promise to do everything in your power to push through kennedy's agenda. kennedy's agenda at that point was stalled in congress and wasn't going anywhere. eisenhower is advising johnson to promise to push it through.

this is not because eisenhower likes kennedy's agenda. this is because eisenhower believes after this moment with the country needed was a message of stability and of continuity, and throughout johnson's presidency, eisenhower plays this places extraordinary off camera rolled where johnson would call them up and say, can you make up some cover story for why you need to be in washington so you can come and see me? i don't know if you want anyone to know it's an emergency but i really need to talk to you. to the point that they are meeting. in the white house about vietnam that eisenhower ran and johnson attended but eisenhower ran the meetings, extraordinary. at one point johnson says to him, you are the best chief of staff i have got. [laughter] >> that's really amazing. that relationship is very interesting and my favorite is johnson actually had his staff find out every time he had met

him and attended a reception with him just so he could have physical evidence of the relationship with a man who then was the master. this is from a chapter i called three men and a funeral. [laughter] which is when reagan sent these three guys to the funeral of anwar sadat in october of 1981 on a version just like the one in the other room, aircraft before that, 26,000 i think. none of these guys didn't like each other. there was not a lot of love lost between either of them and you can understand why. on the way back nixon peels off his secret mission naturally and carter and ford who fought like ferrets in 1976 are now alone on the plane and nixon is gone. hage is gone, and kissinger is gone. it's a weird planeload. [laughter] and they become friends. they realize they have something in common.

they both need to raise money on their libraries. they realize that they are both sort of men of faith. they both realized they were tossed out of office a little bit before they would have liked. they looked around the club and they saw nixon and they knew reagan was president and i thought, we might be stronger together than we are apart so over the next 25 years, again across

he is practically standing out the white house jumping up and down. he writes, he is calling and calling and wanting clinton to talk to him in the calls aren't coming back so he writes a very friendly op-ed about the clinton presidency. now -- any writes to cover-up it in the privately says these columns are going to be getting tougher and tougher.

>> he of the president of the united states. >> finally, clinton calls and of course realizes he that you know he is incredibly shrewd about the world and an extraordinary sense like a chess master of what was going on in the former soviet union and what was going on in china but clinton, they become late-night phone buddies. it is and just to talk about foreign-policy. he wants to talk to nixon about how to organize his day, how to use his time. he learns through a scheduler, this is one i'm getting up in the morning and this is when i meeting and of course the president's time is the most scarce and precious thing that he has. they wanted to know if he was using it while witch and the first part of the clinton presidency was not. so he was calling nixon saying, how do i do this. only did he like being back in the game for 20 odd years later, this is still an impossible challenge. >> when we interviewed clinton

about this, he said one of the most price positions of being president was a letter that nixon had sent him a month before nixon dies in march of 1994. nixon had just gone to russia and russia was undergoing a huge change. he had gone with clinton's okay and yet gone with clinton's instruction on many foreign trips in this book and secret missions. this was one of them and at the end of the trip nixon writes clinton a single spaced, long letter. we asked clinton if we could have it and could we see it and he said no. but he said, he said it was somewhat better. he said, it's an amazing letter. as hardheaded and it's smart and we said -- and he quoted something from it. how do you know? i read it every year. and when nixon died in 1994, and the clinton white house announced the death and clinton of course gave the eulogy. he said a few weeks later he

missed him in the same way that he missed his mother. similar, not the same, he said i often find my self wishing i could pick up the phone and ask them for advice. >> was a truly extraordinary thing that we got to witness father and son in the white house. what are the chances of that and politics is complicated, family is really complicated. and yet the only thing more extraordinary than the fact that president george herbert walker bush got to see his son elected president is that he actually served as the father or surrogate father of more than one president. what we found really incredible the budding movie at all time is the move -- friendship that developed between president clinton and the entire bush family to the point that they now have a nickname for him. they call him their brother from another mother. >> spiel want to go back to this one because we get asked about

this a lot. in the two men finally meet in the oval office, the first father and son pairing of presidents since the early 19th century both men are overcome. they can't speak. this is later in the day obviously but it was quite an emotional moment. a lot of people have asked us, how much did bush two listen to bush won and how much did he ignore bush wants advice? we always say the reporting bears this out as much as maybe people's wishes were that it were not true, is that in some ways the sun was the comforter to the father, which is a very difficult time for the president it was the younger man who would call the father up and say, turn off the television. you've got to stop watching this stuff. concerned about the criticism just as any father would be of the sun and what 41 decided early on is his son had a lot of

advisers. but he really only had one dad so that would be the role that he would play which is probably the choice most i think fathers would make. anyway, easily misunderstood but simple when you think about it. i don't know what the opposite of kumbaya is but we have a lot of it in this book and this is one of the earliest. >> again, these relationships tend to follow often a twisting path, so if you look at eisenhower and truman, two men, architects in a way of the post-war world. they work very closely and effectively together as they are trying to figure out america's role as the surviving superpower, the idea of permanent stationing chirps in europe and then selling a reluctant american public congress on the idea of nato. it would take some of eisenhower statue to get this idea to be

accepted. so they were so affected as partners through those years immediately following the war that in 1948, truman even says so eisenhower you know, if you are thinking about running, i will get out of the way. i won't only get out of the way, i'll be your vice president if you want. so you have these men who start out with very warm relations who by the time of the 1952 eisenhower does run for president and it all comes apart and it comes apart badly and it comes apart mainly over the fact that truman concluded that eisenhower was failing to stand up to the challenge the most extreme elements of his party and especially senator mccarthy. truman was furious about this. he called eisenhower a moral coward and he started campaigning across the country saying eisenhower was unfit for office and anyone who would not stand up to mccarthy did not deserve to the president of the united states. so therefore on inauguration day eisenhower was so angry he

initially refused to come to the white house to pick up truman to go to the inauguration. they barely spoke throughout eisenhower's presidency. tremendous not step foot back in the white house, but these relationships again, it's never that simple. and the two men do find themselves again together mainly at funerals particularly in november of 1963 when they share a limousine back from arlington cemetery, the burial of president kennedy. and they start talking about their own burial plans. in that sort of shadow of their mortality, small things fall away and the big things come back. truman turned so eisenhower and says to you want to come in for a drink wax they end up back at warehouse talking and reconciling and so, a friendship that turns into a feud turns back into a reconciliation because ultimately what they both have been through by this

time, what they both knew as president were much more important than the fights they had had. >> that story had a happy ending. this one not so much. you have to tell this. >> well, you know i don't know that there have been two political combatants more skilled and fighting for stakes as high as richard nixon and lyndon johnson. and the remarkable thing, you remember in the 1968 election, johnson decided not to run for another term. all he wanted was to leave office as a peacemaker. he was determined that there should be some kind of a breakthrough. richard nixon of course had to reason for wearing that if there were breakthrough in vietnam, that he didn't stand a good chance of winning the election. very shortly before election day in 1968, johnson discovers that richard nixon's allies had been secretly sabotaging the peace talks. he called this treason

privately. what does he do about it? this is 1968. we have seen bobby kennedy assassinated and we have seen martin luther king assassinated. we have seen the democratic convention turned to do a war zone and part of johnson's calculation was what it would do to the country to have an outgoing president accuse the major candy parted it -- party candidate of sabotaging peace negotiations at the most delicate moment but it was an extraordinary moment of confrontation and ultimately johnson decides not to challenge nixon about it. in that election you remember it was very close. four years later, you understand now the reason that nixon had to keep johnson very happy. it was johnson who showed nixon where the tape recorders were in the white house. it was one of the reasons why think nixon got the clubhouse, why he orchestrated johnson's birthday party, why he sent a

jet down to the ranch with briefing papers every week. he really wanted to keep johnson and -- >> lady bird growth. they created a special force in california for lady bird to pay homage to johnson. >> he so nixon is reelected in a landslide and watergate is gaining force, and in january of 1973, nixon's men call johnson and say you know, you might want to call your press in the senate and just tell them to back off on this watergate investigation. rlc no we will reveal the fact that you were illegally surveilling, eavesdropping on us back in 1968, to which johnson says well, if you do that i will say what i learned when i was wiretapping you back in 1968. visits jordan and moment of mutual blackmail and you think how is it that this didn't all blow up?

the reason was two weeks later nixon was inaugurated for his second term and two days after that lyndon johnson died of a heart attack. at that moment, that rather perilous moment of the american presidency, there was no club. harry truman had died a christmas, johnson died in january, nixon was all alone. >> this picture tells you all you need to know about how george herbert walker bush is feeling. not every president gets along with members of the other party. jimmy carter had been a challenge for all of them. [laughter] it's probably because it's in carter's nature to be sort of a my way or the highway kind of guy. he also had another challenge. he left office at the age of 56 or 57 and in september jimmy carter becomes the longest living ex-president in american history. 31 years, 31 years, eight months and 24 days surpassing herbert

hoover's record. that is not an easy one to bear. carter has worked very hard in his career and he is really invented the water post-presidency. when he got out of office he wasn't sure what to do. he was confused. he said i've a long life, this is going to be hard but he write some books and starts doing charitable stuff. he has done huge amounts of things at home and overseas in the last 31 years and eight months. he won the nobel prize but he also -- all of this was returned to them except bush clinton, and obama have all set him on foreign missions of some kind and he has only delivered the goods but he had the tendency to go off script. this was kind of a classic moment at the funeral of coretta scott king in 2005, 2006, not sure when. it was to pay homage to a civil rights leader. carter uses it to gently criticize the other man's son

who is in present. carter has a way of saying things like this, a few my role as former president is superior to those of other presidents. every club needs a black sheep. [laughter] he gives everyone else in the club something to unite around. clinton would also send carter overseas but even when he did it the first and second time he wasn't sure he wanted -- i love that quote. we think it will be okay. the last thing we want to talk about is how the club really worked to unite when the presidency is in crisis. the president recognizes in our politics today which don't work very well, that one thing that has to work, one thing that always has to be functioning a powerful and effective is the presidency. >> and this is where we see them most willing to put self-interest, party interests and political interests aside.

and join together, make common cause are browned some larger purpose. we see it with truman and hoover again where of all people to completely reorganize the executive branch, why on earth with truman would truman sign off on herbert hoover carrying the hoover commission? this is a guy who everyone assumed would dismantle the entire new deal superstructure government. what truman knew this time about hoover was hoover had been president in a moment of national crisis. and he knew that if resident needs the tools to be able to meet a crisis and especially in the post-war nuclear age, having those tools was more important than ever and truman trusted hoover to do a reorganization of the executive that would empower the presidency and essentially the great gift that they both gave to all the presidents who followed to organize and rationalize the executive branch in a way that presidents would

be able to function better. the fact that hoover's strengthening of the present and moment it was occupy by a democrat made a difference and in the course of gathering the information for the hoover commission, hoover found out so much that was wrong and wasteful and government that if he had let any of it be known during the 1948 elections, it's very easy to imagine. reporters at the time later said it's amazing hoover didn't leak any of this, kept it to himself because his larger goal was to make sure that the presidency itself will strengthen for all the presidents who followed. >> we see it across parties all the time. >> we see it again when hoover and eisenhower advise richard nixon not to challenge the results in 1950. as close as that race was as many accusations as there were and funny business, in phonecalls within 15 minutes of each other eisenhower and hoover both sadie nixon, it would not be good for the country. stand down.

>> and you would be seeing that oversees. >> we need a much smoother peaceful transition of power was an essential model that america represented around the world and this was not the time to be having a prolonged battle. >> affect we haven't talked about, gerald ford very much but he plays a role in a number of points and trying in trying to protect the presidency both in his pardon of nixon which he realized simply could not begin until the matter was taken off the table and later to try to rescue bill clinton from impeachment in 1998. privately working behind the scenes in a series of phonecalls to try to get clinton simply to admit that he lied and work toward a center and away from impeachment and the indy could not convince clinton of that but he worked really hard to try to make that happen. this is the famous meeting at century city.

most people don't know that these two men actually ever met. as far as i can tell they have met twice, first in 1983 when resident reagan invited all the governors to the white house and so both bill and hillary clinton. there is a picture of them -- am i right clicks that's the only other time, right? this is not the place to make a mistake about that. that picture exist and this is the other picture. it's a great story. century plaza. i would say late november, 1992, bill clinton is in his postelection pre-inauguration tour. he pays a courtesy call on ronald reagan. they have brief conversations about things every president or would would-be president agree on like line-item veto and the need for a tighter budget and at one point clinton asks the question, any other advice from a? president reagan says the first thing you have got to do is you have to get to camp david.

you have to get out of that building. it's good for the soul to get out into the mountains. it was advised that clinton really didn't take until he realized a year or two into his presidency that he needed to get out of the house. the other thing president reagan had been watching president clinton during the campaign and found a little wimpy was john was too kind to say, but it was not a sharp crisp salute. president reagan having been in the military he also played many roles of military and clinton as i understand asked reagan to show him how to do it. the two men actually had a brief saluting clinic they are in the century plaza office of the president and it reminded me that it was eisenhower who taught kennedy how to press a couple of buttons on the phone and make a quick getaway by helicopter and it was johnson he taught nixon where the tapes were although that may --

johnson may have had a scheme up his sleeve about that. it's not just in matters of policy the men who are in commanders in chief pass on tips. this is one where a former president had a particularly keen understanding of the world of public perception played in leadership not just about public officials by private ones, very important. clinton would learn that and he would come to salute every time he got off the helicopter just as president reagan had done. it was passed on further when i think george w. bush went to visit clinton when president clinton was leaving office in george w. bush asked clinton -- he said to him, you didn't used to be such a great speaker because clinton had given a horrible speech one time i would say it in 1988 democratic convention. and he said do you have any tips about how to give a good speech? the presence club functions on levels both high and sometimes just very practical. >> but ultimately i think what

struck us is the ultimate, the rituals and the souvenirs in the clubhouse is, the thing that makes the club the most real is this notion that the office itself is more important than the individual, and who occupy it. we kept hearing this again and again and again particularly when one administration gives way to another. so in january of 2009, president bush summoned the entire club membership to the white house to meet the new guy, and he says at that time to president obama, look, we all want you to succeed and those of us who have been in this office no the office transcends the individual. and i think what we took away from this research was seeing how, these are men who are fiercely ambitious. they have played a men's roles in our countries history. they all are positive by how history will remember them.

they have deep strong wide broad agendas themselves in it over and over and over again we also saw them set those agendas aside or move past them or find in their own interest in larger interest that brought them together and brought them together to do great and important things. to do the small but still highly important work of just helping each other because it is a very hard job. it's not a job they can complain about and it's not something they can whine about. they fought in many cases much of their lives to get the job but once they do it, there is something that comes up again and again where jefferson called it splendid misery. pequannock called the presidency a promise born and truman used to refer to it as the great white jail that is the white house. it is also a very difficult job and one who can do it successfully can be wounded by it and their burdens for having done it and there are very few

people they can talk to about it. the one thing they want one another to know is basically yeah i get it. you can call me, i understand, i get it. i know how hard it is my won't give you a hard time. that is what we saw here and it's what we saw all through history and i think it's a model may be that many of us can take back with us in whatever realm we are operating. so thank you very much. we'd be happy to take your questions. [applause] >> you nancy and michael have been gracious enough to allow a few minutes at the end here for some question so all i ask is if you have a question if you can raise your hand. we have people in the aisles with mycra phones. just wait for the microphone and we will start right over here.

>> in the situation with the first first lady, like the president -- >> it's interesting how a lot of people have been curious about that and what i think we all have seen is that first ladies are especially aware if you are trying to raise children in the white house and it seems to be mainly girls. >> lately. >> lately. there were the johnson growth and the nixon girls and amy carter and chelsea clinton and now the obama girls. as the mother of girls, it's a wonderful glorious challenge in any of them trying to do it in a bright white lights of the white house would be especially challenging and hillary clinton talked about how helpful jackie kennedy was to her about raising children in the spotlight. lucy johnson told us that the reason why first families don't criticize each other is that it's not that we are all such wonderful people. is that they say we understand how difficult it is. so i think there is something of

a kinship among the first families. there is a marvelous picture that we saw up here in the library of 61st ladies together and certainly i think there is a bond between them because they were having unique experience. having said that, the semi-official infrastructure of the president club is unique to presidents. i suspect it will not be long before it is no no longer an all-male club, but for the time being, we haven't seen any equivalent outside of the president himself. >> here is another question. >> everyone is probably seen the photograph of the 16, 17-year-old bill clinton shaking the hand of president kennedy. is there any evidence that though clinton -- he would have been a college student around that time but is

there a photograph? >> i suspected if he had had a chance he would have. >> impact in his office and president clinton's office is a signed picture from lyndon johnson that had to be 40 or so. >> the story is great. clinton just reviewed the robert caro book in "the new york times" on sunday which we thought was an excellent idea and we supported it. we thought that was good. in 1972 clinton is passed by george mcgovern to run texas for mcgovern, which adds loss causes go, is one of the great loss causes. [laughter] texas from a government, hopeless. who was the only alley they thought they had? lyndon johnson except he wasn't sure he'd could form a government either. the day comes when mcgovern and then tom eagleton go to the

ranch right after the convention but before they realized eagleton might not be the best vice president of candidate. bill clinton and the co-chairman of texas for mcgovern and tailor branch who eventually would be clinton's direst kind of, sort of, had to flip a coin about which one of them accompanies mcgovern and eagleton to the ranch to see johnson. clinton does the coin toss so tailor brings back from the meeting, which did not go well by the way, a signed picture for clinton of lbj so that's as close as clinton got to meeting lbj but what's great about the american presidency as we all remember if we saw the motorcade, ronald reagan remembers he saw fdr on the back of the train somewhere in iowa. i think was des moines. i wouldn't count on it.

he was at a treman event is a management for so someone has their creation story that clinton never met lbj. he told us he thought as all presidents do of their successors, he said history will be kinder to him. [laughter] that is what they all hope for. right over here. >> so, the implications of the president club is that it's unique to the american democracy. are there similar models in europe with other democracies or prime ministers of britain? >> i see what is amazing about these presidents clubs in america -- to let me answer this way. i register in "the new york times" yesterday about how it was inevitable that sarkozy would be defeated because he wasn't a typically french president. the friends like their presidents grandfatherly and cool and anti-american. [laughter] and sarkozy was not of those things. he was not grandfatherly and cool. that reminds me when we go back to this picture, i mean, go back

to it. there is nothing in common about any of these guys. there'll different. it's a classic american story. we like presidents who don't begin to fit in the same old and if he went back to the following five they would be just as different if you added reagan, nixon and johnson and kennedy. this club bespeaks her on makeup and our own widely different backgrounds and it's quintessentially an american thing. so i don't think the clubs you would have in france or in england, probably you wouldn't have to create them because they all came out of clubs. [laughter] there is no club that would have all these guys is a member in america. they are just too different so that is why think is so remarkable about this. they created their own and back to creating your own association is quintessentially an american thing. >> when you are doing your

research, did you have a chance to talk to all the living presidents and what was their take on your book lacks. >> we were able to talk to president clinton in the first president bush and president carter. i interviewed as it happens the second president bush before we were working on this book and just you know god going on this. i asked him about his view of his predecessors and i was asking him club questions before even knew there was a club so we were very very grateful for the help they were willing to give us. i think though you know, this is a pretty intimate group and i think there are lots of things that they will not talk about and i would even argue that says it should be. but i think we got a lot of help from them and from people who had served often for multiple presidents and had a chance to compare the way they function in who they relied on and when they would reach out and how this little inner circle worked.

>> we have time for one last question. >> are there security levels such that the present president cannot cross certain levels of information with other presidents? >> well i think if you were going to tell anyone outside the tighter circles that he exists a former president would be among them. george herbert walker bush sent them newsletters and offer them secure phones and instantly all but one turned them down. a lot of people used to be president will want to get away a little. they have had enough of that secure world stuff and i gave that up for something better in different. so, i don't think there is a real downside to telling any of those guys if that happened. i think what is interesting is when they tell it, even after the strike on osama bin laden,

the first two calls by president obama were first to george walker bush and then to bill clinton because i think he knew these two men in both in their own way try to get him and were impeded for different reasons and unable to make it happen or pull it off. i think obama was saying and this was a shared mission over three presidencies and it took all three to get it done. that is a more important thing. >> we are about out of time. on behalf of everyone here, the reagan library in the foundation mike and nancy thank you so much for coming. it was fascinating. [applause]

>> this was something that was swept under the rug and kept from not only the mac in people but the mexican people as well. there are hundreds of faceless innocent mexican citizens who have been murdered as a result of this but the only thing that we knew outside of the government program was that guns from american gun dealers were going into mexico and causing all these problems with the cartel when really the government was sanctioning these sales and sending them into mexico.