next from the nixon presidential ivory museum pat buchanan describes when nixon rebounded for president in 1916 california governor in 1962 to win the presidency in 1968. monday september 8 marks the 40th anniversary of president gerald ford's pardon of richard nixon. >> tonight is a great night because we have a very special treat for you. we have someone who spends a number of years at richard

nixon's side and remember that when he lost the two elections, the president in 1962, the gubernatorial or pardon me and 60 in the gubernatorial in 1962, people wrote him off. they said richard nixon was gone. he said this is my last press conference. not so. at about the same time a young man left columbia university, graduated from columbia, joined the st. louis dispatch, became an editorial writer and along the way match richard nixon and that began a magnificent journ journey. he began a magic carpet ride from richard nixon's defeat through years of what richard nixon described as voluminous

ears to the achievement of the highest office in the world, president of the united states. pat buchanan was with him every step of the way. it's recorded in his great book that was just launched last week. in fact this is the pacific coast launch of its. "the greatest comeback" of how richard nixon built the new majority and the silent majority and how he won the presidency. so here is a man who spend every day with him, strategizing, planning, creating and he is the first man eyewitness to the magnificent brilliance of the 37th president. please welcome pat buchanan. [applause] ♪ [applause]

[applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thank you very much andy. with that reception i may start looking at 2016. [applause] [laughter] you know i always relished coming back here. this is the second time i guess i have spoken in the east room of the nixon library and it is a magnificent and memorable place. i was going to mention to all the folks i have served with over the years and even going

back for five decades and i would like to go out one with richard nixon from the campaign of 1960 before i was there campaigned for governor and 62 before i was there and who ran with richard nixon trying to save barry goldwater in 1964 x four i was there. and then shelly buchanan. do you want to stand up shelly? [applause] she was shelly -- my goodness i recalled a also i got to no richard nixon up in new york when i first went to work for him. he told me pat when you get to washington there are three people you want to see in sandy quenneville stover and -- who had been old friends and loyalists for a long time.

sandy has done a magnificent job with the foundation and everything. i know you heard him tonight and i really think he deserves more than one round of applause. [applause] in the greatest comeback is not definitive history of that period but when it is is a memoir of my time in those three years with richard nixon before he became president and it is the story of a man who rose from one of the worst defeats in american political history and the worst occasions and in came back from basically a broken career to lead a shattered and ruin the party not only to victory in 1968 but to create a great coalition that succeeded fdr's coalition and dominated the presidency for 20 of the

next 24 years. i have often told friends that what richard nixon did in the 20th century is matched only by one other man and that's fdr who created that coalition which dominated the white house. i guess if you exclude eisenhower seven through nine presidencies after 1932. let me tell you a little bit then go back and try to tell some of the story as much as i can do in the limited time we have available. the first words i heard from the president of the united states where these. buchanan was that you throwing the eggs? [laughter] he had just been inaugurated and delivered his inaugural speech was coming up pennsylvania avenue and his limousine was showered with debris and rocks and eggs and everything and he

showed up at the white house and was going into the viewing stand and shelly and i were walking into the viewing stand alone these boards that the secret service had put down because it was so muddy. i heard behind me the secret service kept saying could you step off the board sir? i stepped off the boards and in walks a person of united states. that is when he said buchanan was that you throwing the eggs? [laughter] let me go back and that incident incidentally is a metaphor for the city richard nixon came in into. he was the first president since ag retailers to take over the white house with both houses of the congress and opposition. the media either loathed or detested richard nixon by and large. the bureaucracy had been built up with the new deal, the fair deal and great society and was overwhelmingly democratic.

it was a hostile city they richard nixon came into and it had just broken the presidency of lyndon baines johnson after winning the magnificent landslide in 64 and -- in 1968. that was the america basically of madmen if you will. the america that we saw on that film madmen. take a look at what happened in those years before i got to meet richard nixon. 1963 we had john f. kennedy assassinated. in 1964 we had the first uprising at berkeley at the great campus disorders of the 1960s. this was the beginning if you will of the revolution. in 1965 folks out here will remember the watts riots, the worst race riot of its time since the civil war. you have the beginning of the revolution.

he and i was a young man. i was an editorial writer at the democrat editorial in st. louis. i throw back to washington to hear martin luther king delivered his famous speech in the lincoln memorial. i was up in the memorial with him. it was a magnificent moment. one year later 50 years ago this month, i was then the sharper county mississippi before they found the bodies of the three civil rights workers in the civil rights revolution of those days which it started off so well was rapidly disintegrating into disorder and riots and black power and black panthers and all the rest of it. that was the world became into. let's take a look at what nixon himself was enough period. you know people talk about 62 and 64 and they are correct but you go all the way back to 1950, that was the last election that richard nixon won in his own

right. he won a landslide come of the victory california had ever seen over douglas. eisenhower could have been elected on any ticket that 1954 when nixon was leading republican party, the republican party lost both houses of congress. they lost 13 senate seats in 1958. 1960 he lost narrowly in a contested election. to jack kennedy. we know what happened, we all heard what happened in chicago. in 62 he came out and ran for governor and was defeated by governor pat brown. any of that famous press conference where he just said this is it. he had had it with the press. he said think of all the fun you are going to be missing. he won't have richard nixon to kick around anymore because folks this is my last press conference. he was finished, down and out. then in 64 even though he was out of it, he not only introduce

barry goldwater that convention, richard nixon went in campaigns all across america for barry goldwater hearted and very campaign for himself. and look at where he was and where the party was in 1965 when i arrived. the republicans had 140 seats in the house, 32 in the senate. outnumbered more than two to one in both bodies. 17 governorships outnumbered two to one in governorships. state legislators were outnumbered two to one. people were talking about the republican party is the party that lost that was finished and split between the goldwater wing and the rockefeller romney's wing. that is what richard nixon inherited. that is when he began to come back, his great comeback. that is the situation and countered frankly when i joined richard nixon.

how did i get aboard with richard nixon? i was an editorial writer at the conservative st. louis globe democrat having some difficulty with my publisher at the time. and i thought maybe i ought to get out of this office and get into the real world. so nixon was invited by dirksen taccom fill in for him for a speech in belleville illinois. about 15 miles across the river from st. louis so he was going to speak there and then he was going to go to a cocktail reception given by don has two is the cartoonist at the globe democrat and a good friend of mine. so i said done what you have to do is you have to be invited to the party and you have to get me to meet richard nixon is your party because i want to meet him. he said i will do it for you. i went over and waited till nixon speech was over and got into the motorcade behind us and went to have his house and he

introduced me to richard nixon. i said mr. vice president how are you? if you are going to run in 1968 i would like to get aboard early. i figured the direct approach was best. [laughter] don't beat around the bush and i'll? and he said what do you do? i said well i'm the assistant editorial editor for the st. louis globe democrat. he said i don't know want to know what your title is pretty want to know what you do. so i said i write editorials. we have to editorial writers and the st. louis dispatch essay. i write on everything. i write on local politics, statewide, county politics, national, foreign policy. i write on everything. so he seemed pretty impressed and just to convince him that i was not putting them on it that i said we have met before.

he said what? i said we met before sir. you see i was at the burning tree country club when i was 14 years old. i was on the caddie log for the last man on the bench. we integrated the caddie bench at the burning tree club. we never got bags and we would look wait until the late afternoon and out comes this golf bag. i said if it's the vice president's bag. sure enough the pro-came out and look to the bench in the two of us were the only ones sitting there so he says come on over. we went around with the vice president of the united states for 18 holes, four hours. to convince nixon i wasn't making this all left i gave him the name of the pro-and the assistant pro-at burning tree.

so the next morning he is driving out to lambert field for an hour and the cartoonist comes in and says pat, nixon talked about you all the way out to lambert air force. i said that's a good sign. [laughter] then i didn't hear anything from him until two weeks later. i get this phonecall and it's that familiar voice. can you come to new york and continue our conversation? so i said sure so i went to new york and for three hours richard nixon's office he quizzed me on everything i could think of. foreign policy, domestic policy, tax policy, congress. it was exhausting for three hours and when we were done he said i would like to hire you for one year. i said one-year? he said yeah because if we don't pick up seats in 1966 the nomination isn't going to be worth anything in 1968.

then he offered me a salary which was 50% higher than what i was making. so i said yeah i'm interested in this. [laughter] so i said i will take it that you had better call my publisher first because he doesn't know i'm here. so that is how i got bored with richard milhouse nixon in 1965. now, when i got with him the first thing he said my three assignments were you have to help write a column for me and get rid of the stack of mail this high-end travel with me in 1966 and work with me in the 66 campaign. i said fine but i had larger dreams of what my functions would be. i set the first thing we have got to do mr. vice president if we are going to win that nomination, he said you have got to be the center of the republican party. their wonder for folks in california indiana nebraska who are still with you but i said

i'm a member of the goldwater movement. i was a goldwater man. i said if we can put together the goldwater movement at the nixon center of the republican party there's nobody that can stop you from getting that nomination. rockefeller is too far out on the left and they are all too far out on the left. the first thing i did, mr. nixon said something about bill buckley and the buckley as being more dangerous than the birchers. i said we are going to have to clear this up. and so i wrote this letter explaining what mr. nixon had meant to the publisher of the national review and bill buckl buckley. we healed their breach and then my with my friend tom charles houston is sort of came aboard restarted holding meetings all during 66 with readers of various conservative groups. nixon had met and i certainly have medcom i was a journalist but houston knew who they were. we met with them and started

finding every columnist who was a conservative to come up and meet richard nixon have an interview with him and give him time. the cap building this alliance with the conservative movement. been nixon, his own idea went out on his own in 1966 and campaigned in 35 states, 80 congressional districts come every single republican who asked for him. he went all over the southern states and went all over the country working for the republican party and i said in my book it was in nixon's interest to do this but it was also consistent with what he believed. nixon was a fighter. his party was in trouble. he loved his party and he was loyal to its only one out to fight. in every district he could. i traveled with in that whole

time and he was a spartan. i have never seen anybody work harder than that. there were occasional incidents. let me tell you one. mr. nixon had some trouble with the rockefellers. let me tell you one story from the campaign of 66. we were in fort smith arkansas and nixon got up and at a press conference and did an event for john paul hammerschmidt who was the one guy that beat bill clinton for congress. i think -- i think he beat bill clinton but anyhow nixon goes to the motel and it's a rectangular thing. it's on the inside but it's only one story. nixon has this from here and he says i do not want to be disturbed. i have got to nap. at the big speech and i don't want anybody to disturb me. i said you got it and i moseyed

around to my own brown. i saw this huge fellow marching straight across the quadrangle of this motel straight towards nixon store. he was yelling hey, hey did to mr. nixon who was sleeping. so i started running and i didn't get there in time. this guy is pounding on the do door. the door opens and richard nixon with a man than thought that's the end of pat buchanan. nixon says pat, have you met win rockefeller? this was winthrop rockefeller the brother of nelson and david rockefeller but he was a great war hero. he was the youngest of the brothers and involved in some scandal but a great fellow. that was my introductions, first introduction to the rockefellers. the second was, you may know the name pat hillis. he was a congressman.

helen's traveled with us. we got to oregon during this campaign and he'll links comes up to me and of course i was a goldwater man. my views of nelson rockefeller, it was hard to describe how harsh they were. [laughter] so he'll links comes up to me and said hey pad the old man is going to endorse rockefeller. i said why? so i took off down the hall into nixon sweet. i open the door and go in. he's not there so i go over and opened the door to the bathroom. he's about to get into the shower and i say you are not going to endorse that blankety-blank are you? he said don't worry pat, we will get something for it. sure enough what richard nixon did again, this tells you something about the man. he'd been treated brutally. they treated him like dirt. he moved to new york and they

didn't invite them to any republican events. here he is going up to endorse nelson rockefeller which he did. why? he said first the party has to win and we are all going to have to diminish our egos of it. we are all going to have to come together. we are deeply divided with goldwater and rockefeller and this is the right thing to do. the right thing to do once again was the right thing to do for richard nixon. he endorsed rock and at the end of the campaign richard nixon -- i was in oregon and we heard word that lyndon johnson was coming back from a manila summit meeting in 1966 in october and he was going to campaign in all of these states, doesn't states. i mistakenly went in and told nixon before he went out for his speech that night, i said the presence coming back and he's going to campaign in a dozen

states. nixon said well we will just have to see about that. he was clearly shaken. he went out that night and he endorsed, called the governor, running for governor of oregon except he kept calling him bob mccaul until the audience family said it's tom, it's tom. so that's a lesson. if you are in politics do not give your candidate bad news before he's about to go make a speech. but i will say this, nixon came back and he was very down. he said johnson when he comes back we could be cut to 40 seats which he predicted maybe winning 12 seats. he was down so i went back to my room and he called me in. he said take some notes. he dictated a speech on vietnam. i must have taken 12 pages of notes. he said now you get up in the morning in spite of boise idaho and work on a speech and prepare for me. i'm going to campaign in the state of washington all the

wrong and the next morning i'm going to come down to boise. we worked on that and worked on it and work on it and just before the election nixon dropped it in "the new york times" and the appraisal of the manila communiqué by johnson. johnson got up at the press conference. you can take a look at the day, november 4, 1966 a critical moment for the comeback of nixon. he was on the front page of "the new york times" and from lyndon johnson's tapes he told hubert humphrey, did you see what that so baymack said about us in "the new york times" this morning? johnson when out in the press conference and lambasted richard nixon as badly as any president has ever attacked a the leader of the opposition party. those aren't my words. those are the words of jewelry cover who wrote a book about the event. nixon and i flew up to waterville maine.

mike wallace met us at the airport and i was reporting on what i heard. i was on the plane listening on the radio and nixon came out to the plane. i said you are not going to believe what the president saying about us. so we flew up there and mike wallace met us at the airport and flew after us and caught nixon and waterville maine. nixon handled it beautifully. he was gracious to johnson. he is the hardest working president i have seen. he's a little tired from the trip but he had questions about vietnam that need to be answered. the country was astounded. nixon was saying exactly right thing. they end up 1966 nixon is faulted to contention by johnson for the republican nomination. however 66 election one big time.

47 seats in a new governors. so we get to the weekend after that our celebration at the drake hotel. richard nixon took us to a restaurant with the wives and everything. we had a great time. times and "newsweek" come out after the election. who was on the cover? six republicans, the new republican leaders. governor reagan, governor rockefeller, governor romney, senator percy, senator broke and senator hatfield. and no richard nixon. it was a real downer for us that he had been left out after all the work he had done. but i will tell you he did us a favor. they did us a favor by vaulting everybody else up. just before that election day nixon himself told the national press on one of the sunday programs that after this election is over i'm going to

take a six-month moratorium from politics, completely. i saw nixon a day or so later and i said sir businesswise? governor george romney of michigan is ahead of lyndon johnson by eight points in the national polls. he is running far away from the republican nomination but if we are going to drop out for six months and do nothing? nixon said in its own manner, let them chew on him for a little while. [laughter] and i gather he meant the press corps. if you read my book, that is exactly what the press did. but you know in fairness i put a line in my book about mitt romney and how tough it must have been when he was 20 years old in paris seeing what

happened to his father's launch for the presidency because i have never seen, it was not an outstanding performance. romney won out and he got caught up on the vietnam issue and the press went after him and there were one after another attacks from the press. it was one of the worst things i have ever seen. i told nixon one time i sent in this editorial come, i have never seen anything this vicious by this fellow. he said you should see what he writes about me, pat. ..

so, then we really got into the later '6s so, 1967, and anybody can -- people might remember the places but newark and detroit, you've seen what happened to detroit. newark and detroit went up in horrible race riots, they had federal troops in both cities. many, many deaths. thousands and thousands of respite, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage and this showed that the whole -- this was part of what was happening

in that decade for which we were not responsible, but there's no doubt about it we benefited from this. the revolution was on in america. social, cultural, moral. i mean, campuses are ablaze, antiwar movement was rising then. had not been rising in '65 but by now it was ablaze. you had the civil rights movement, was degenerating in many cases into riots, black power and all the rest of it. so all of these things caused more and more americans to say, the great society, we supported this and civil rights, but it's not turning out well. it's not turning out well. and something is terribly wrong with our country. this is what middle america was saying. and then romney, governor romney in his famous statement on lou gordon's tv show in late august, he got on and he made a terrible mistake, maybe it was what he

believed. he said, i was all wrong on vietnamment we should never have gotten in there when i went over to vietnam in 1965, i got the greatest brainwashing you've ever seen. and i was brainwashed by northwestern military and the american diplomats, and after four days "the new york times" picked up on it. romney says he has been brainwashed. it was not a good thing for his candidacy. and gene mccarthy, who became a friend of mine, was brutal on governor romney. he said in romney's case, a full brainwashing was not needed. [laughter] >> that a light rinse would have sufficed. but you have to -- this is brutal but you have to remember in those days, that is how tawf governor george romney had it in

those days, to the point where we're rung against him and i'm feeling sorry for the guy. then we come up to 1968, which was a real year of tragedy. it was a year of real tragedy. most of the year, i believe, in american political history since the civil war. my friend, tom brokaw, wrote other book called "boom" about it. and other books have been written about it. you almost had to go through the era toker andance that. we began the campaign -- dwight chain chap in. the three of us flew in a small plane out of la guardia, february 1, 1968, into logan, and then we took a car -- took nixon up to new hampshire, where

we got him into a room nature phony name. general gentleman minimum chapman. he was going into manchester the next day and sign up for the primary. and i remember when we were going down the hall in this motel, benjamin chapman, richard nixon, was going down the hall and this inebriated fellow was walking toward him, and he was oning toward him and he kept looking at him and he passed by, and you could see there was some recognition on his face but not a great deal. so, that is how we got nixon into new hampshire. that very day, the first day of the tet offensive in vietnam, and i was concerned because my little brother was with the 101st airborne in vietnam, had just gone over. but in that month the tet offensive dominated the news. look at the "new york times." a picture of richard nixon, he

announced, and got one column in "the new york times." it had eight columns, and the four-column photograph was of the saying gone police chief shooting the fellow in the head. the terrorist who was murdering people, but the saigon police chief -- but that's the beginning of that year, within february also, you had the massacre at whey. 3,000 killed. vietnamese walked through town with lists, murdering anyone who was loyal to the government or working with americans. before february was out, governor romney quit the race. dropped out. again, was with dwight chapin. i god a call from a friend of men and he was covering romney, and he said, romney is dropping out this afternoon. so nixon was speaking at what we called the little towns tour,

and he came down -- i grabbed him and we took him into the men's room, and dwight and i said romney is going to drop out this afternoon. i have it on good authority. my buddy from journalism school is covering him. so nixon walks out and mike wallace asked what he had to say about governor romney dropping out of the race, and mr. nixon carried it will. he said, that's the first i heard of that. anyhow, romney was gone from the race. what happened then, two weeks later they had the new hampshire primary, and richard nixon, while he won, got over 70% of the vote -- we didn't have an opponent then but you look at the total votes, you hat nixon, write-ins for rock feller and romney, and bobby kennedy write-ins on the democratic side. eugene mccarthy and lyndon

johnson. nixon got more votes. people weren't looking at it -- than all the others put together. because of also project we had. he got four times as many write-in votes on the democratic ballot as bobby kennedy. people didn't notice, they should have looked closely, because what that said is, the country is turning toward this party and somewhat toward this man who is supposed to be the greatest loser of all time. the big news was eugene mccarthy, got 20% of the vote against lyndon johnson, and johnson -- i don't know what his people are thinking of. johnson's name wasn't even on the ballot. the president of the united states was running as a write-in candidate in new hampshire. so i was astonished he did this, and half the mccarthy votes were from hawks, people who wanted johnson to be tougher on vietnam. so johnson's people handled it horribly.

three or four days later, robert kennedy jumped into the race. against johnson, and began to savage him. he said johnson is appealing to the darker impulses of the american spirit. just brutal stuff. and he jumped in, and murray kempton, who loved bobby kennedy, called him a complete opportunist. a prewittal attack. so then rockefeller, rockefeller didn't -- we expected rock feller to come in and go after us because romney was gone. so, rockefeller did not get -- he holds a press conference, and dwight and i are in -- mr. nixon had a habit. he didn't watch television and would ask dwight and i to watch and it come in and tell him our impressions. it's a very smart thing to do, i think, because he wants to know what other folks from different viewpoints are thinking about what they see. he knows what he thinks.

and so rockefeller did not announce or announced he one going to run. he had -- he said he had no desire to be president, and i hope y'all take this seriously and everything. so, we went in and told richard nixon, and i was for years they asked me what nixon said and i didn't tell them. what he said was, it's the girl. at that time drew pearson had put out these reports through his newsletter, that nelson rockefeller had a girlfriend, and after the marriage broke -- his initial marriage broke up, this would have just killed him. and so the rumor was floating all over the place. we thought that was the reason he didn't announce, not going to run. so that didn't turn out to be true. so then -- that's march. still in march. that's around the 21st. on the last day of march we were going to give a speech on vietnam, which i was very opposed to, and we had to cancel it because johnson announced he's going to speak on march

31st. we were going to speak on to the. so nixon told me go out to the airport, get in the limousine, and stay at the airport. i'm going to go to wisconsin, which is the primary was on the 2nd of april. some get on the runway, and when my plane comes in, i want you get on the plane, run down, get on the plane ahead of the press, tell me what johnson says, so i'll be able to respond. so i said, sure. i was in the limousine, with this black driver, nixon's driver, and we're sitting there in the limousine, and here comes johnson is talking away about vietnam, he was bombing halts we knew were going to come, we thought were going to come. and then he says, i will not accept, seek, nor will i accept the nomination of my party for another term. lyndon johnson was basically saying he wasn't going to run again. a whole new ball game. so i told the driver, move this car down the tar -- tarmac and

get me right next to the plane before the press gets on there, because the vice president doesn't know what is happening. so i got on and ran into the plane and told him what was happening, and nixon walks out and says, i guess it's the year of the dropout. and he admitted in his memoirs he should not have said that. but it was -- romney drops out, rockefeller drops out, johnson dropped out, all in one month. they're gone and it's brand new picture. with a in are new picture meant i thought we were in trouble. i thought we could beat johnson. the country desperately wanted change. i thought we could beat johnson. i thought we could beat bobby kennedy, i always did, because he was on the left wing of then democratic party, savaging the president, and if we got the nomination, lyndon johnson would be working for nixon. bit hubert humphrey was a democratic liberal in tight with

the democratic establishment as vice president. i said we could have a real problem beating hubert humphrey, their strongest candidate. so that's march 31st. four days later, dr. king was assassinated in memphis. 100 american cities went up in flames and smoke and fire and violence, and looting and burning, and there were federal troops in my home town of washington, dc, places i'd grown up and i was very familiar with as a kid were being burned down. it was the worst series of racial violence in american history. 100 cities burning, and it was horrendous. and that tremendously influenced the politics that year. the american people came to see -- were beginning to say this country is coming apart, and in baltimore, which burned badly, stokley carmichael, who became a communist and went to ghana -- or guinea, he was

encouraging the burning and looting, and the governor named agnew called in the civil rights leaders and read them the riot act for not condemning the racial insend areas. he said i condemn all these white i racists. now you have to condemn these guys that are burning down the city. and agnew was known as a liberal governor, a rockefeller man. but he dade tremendous job, and i had notes, and clippings, and i sent those to nixon because i was very impressed with what agnew was doing. and nixon was equally impressed, as we would find out later. and then my alma mater, columbia university, before ail april was out, exploded in the worst violence of any campus in the 1960s. mark rud, you hear about it now. they took over the campus. took over the dean's office. they trashed the dean's office. and it took a week, they finally called the new york -- nypd out to clear the campus. there will brad radicals and

white radicals both, and nixon -- there was a division inside the nix con camp. i was in the goldwater conservative and our research writing group was very conservative. the most conservative element in the whole nixon campaign, but we had liberals in there, too, and we were deeply divided over how we should deal with that, and sort of nixon was going along with my proposal, which is northwestern people want to crack down on the nonsense. they supported civil rights and all these initiatives of the great society, and see this happening. now naysay say the law has to be enforce it. a poll taken found only two percent of the people in oregon, where we were campaigning, agreed with the students on the campus who were demonstrating, agreed they had a just cause and what they were doing was the right thing. so we lad the country, the future silent majority, was being formed right there in 1968, in april.

so then we move to may. may. in 19 -- in may, richard nixon was in the oregon primary, the last of the contested primaries. he had no opposition. so he wind up the floor with everybody. reagan, who had a film running up there, got 22%. rockefeller, four percent for nelson rockefeller, and i remember, shelly and i were at the oregon primary that night nixon won. he went down to dinner at the benson with pat nixon, he had a dinner. and i went off because first anytime history, a kennedy had lost an election. bobby kennedy was beaten by eugene mccarthy in the oregon primary. and so i said, i've got to see this because bobby kennedy was coming up from california where he was campaigning, to the benson hotel to concede defeat. and shelly and i went down, and just as he gout out of the car i could sey -- see teddy white

with him, and freckles, his dog, with him. i went to the room dressed like this, where he was standing up like here, conceding defeat. and i will say, i was not a fan of bobby kennedy. it was the most gracious concession speech i'd ever heard. i said this is a class act. accomplish he handled it extremely well, bobby kennedy. he said gene mccarthy has run a fine race. we're defeated here but there's another race in california in a week, the canada -- california primary, and we'll congratulate him. it was just a lovely speech. and that was over and we went back to new york, and one week after that night, i got a call from jeff bell from our campaign headquarters, at 3:00 in the morning, woke me up in my apartment, and said simply, bobby kennedy has been shot. and so i called mr. nixon, and he was already awakened.

julie and david were watching returns over there at the time, and they had apparently seen the news stories, and it was that kind of year. and so nixon went to the funeral, but then we had a battle inside the nixon campaign, basically, over a real issue was -- which was, which way do we go? how do we defense against governor george wallace? the benefit nixon got was the republican party, which i described to you as twice the size of the -- the democratic party, was splinters three ways, george corely, wallace, the governor of alabama, was leading in seven or eight states and at one point he was holding 21% of the boat. you had the bobby kennedy, george public govern, eugene mccarthy wing of the party, antiwar, and then you had the

johnson-humphrey center of the party. in the battle inside the nixon camp we had to find out a way who was going to defense against wallace to take away votes from him while nixon held the center fought against hubert humphrey. that went on for a while until i wrote nixon a memo, in my book. said for two months we have been five points behind humphrey. in those days you didn't gain five points overnight. almost told you how it would come auto out. i said we have to be bold to win this thing. nothing i can thing that is bolder than if you put the bedtime for bon sew on the ticket, and that was the governor of california. ronald reagan, and the nixon campaign in '68, it was a tremendous drive and a move to conscript the governor of california, ronald reagan, who

was impresencely popular and could contest for the conservatives and northern catholics and half of us wanted to put ronald reagan on the tick. then we got to miami, and we didn't get reagan. we didn't get reagan because the polls, as we arrived in miami, showed nixon ahead, so then we said you don't want to take a risk now, because we're ahead. so you take someone who is not the big risk, and nixon can win it himself. so that's how spiro t. agnew was chosen by mr. nixon, and i tell you, the press corps, because the incident in baltimore where he read the riot act to the civil rights leaderses, the press was outraged. mike wallace came up to me cursing, what do you so and sos thing you're doing. you just lost the election. wallace was a friend of ours. but he just was outraged, and so i go upstairs, and there's nobody up on the 17th floor

but richards nixon himself, and he says, pat, let's watch agnew's press conference. said, right you are, and so i go in and we're watching tv, and agnew is up there being as tougher as he can be in the press conference, and the press is going after him, and agnew is holding his own, and i'll never forget what nixon said to me. he said, buchanan, i think we have ourselves a hanging judge here. and he turned out to be. so, then i had one more experience i want to tell you about. and that is, win we got this mission bay out here after our own convention where nixon was nominated issue told nixon that -- i said it's important i think we have eyes and ears at the democratic convention. so, can you send me to chicago? and i want to observe and i'll be your eyes and ears, sir. bogey going to key biscayne

because those days a candidate whose convention was over would get out of the way while the other candidate had his convention. it's a courtesy that is not done anymore. so nixon went to key biscayne and i went to chicago. and i stayed at the -- i was right there at the main center hotel, which we called the comrade hilton. on michigan avenue. and truth be told, i was gassed there. i went across the street in grand park and was accused of being an fbi agent by all the radicals, and then when the big night came, i was in -- alone in the 19th floor of the comrade hilton and i heard a commotion down on the street at the same time somebody walked in and it's the novelist, normal mailer. he says, hi, pat. i said, hello, norman. what are you doing here? he has a present with him, he say torres, the light heavyweight champion of the world and we're having a drink

and he is telling me what a conservative, small c conservative he is, and we hear this noise no front and we sat there and witnessed those cops coming down balboa, going into grand park, using clubs, chopping people down left and right. norman mailer has it all in his book on miami and the convention in chicago, and he mentions he was on the 19th floor. he does not say who he was looking out to window with. but it was an incredible event, and hunter thompson, who later became a friend of mine, he wrote that richmond nixon is president of the united states because of what happened at michigan and balboa that evening, and there's no doubt it's a major contributing factor, but it was unbelievable. i will call -- nixon called me at one time, 2:00 in the morning, kept calling me. what's going on now, pat? he is watching this on television in key biscayne, and one time i said, sir, it's 3:00 in the morning, you want to know what's going on? i opened the window and held the

telephone out and you could hear on sendities about richards dali which i cannot repeat, and i held it out for 30 seconds and i said that's what's is going on here, sir. and that was almost fatal to hubert humphrey inch closing, let me talk about the fall campaign, which -- i think is a testament to hubert humphrey. he had a hellish time in september. the demon traitors were constantly on his case, dumped hawk and all these things. couldn't speak-wasn't allowed to talk, and just broken-hearted over it until finally he gave his speech in salt lake city saying basically i'll halt the bombing, mover to the left and get our troop outs of vietnam, bring them home, and goodbye to the war, and the left came home. and at that time the george wallace voters -- let me tell you about the polls on october 4th, month before the

election, george wallace was at 21%. hubert humphrey what 28% and we were at 43%. 15 points ahead of humphrey. election ended four, five weeks later, 43-all. hubert humphrey almost put the boss, the old man, as we called him, into the history books along side tom dewey, the stake was the democratic part and all the democrats started coming home, wallace to humphrey and got them all and one until four years later after the white house that we put together the 49-state new majority. we did have a final nixon beliefs, and he wrote, that the final telethon that we had -- let me tell you how that worked. a telethon four hours before the election. the questions would come into the nixon girls and the volunteers, and they would write the questions down, and they'd take them into a back room where

i was, and where shelly and rosewoods and major acker were, and the questions would come in and i'd say, well, we i can frame this question a little bet, and then they would type them up, then send them out to bud wilkinson and he would pitch the fast balls down the center for richard nixon. and he was produced by someone who had broken his foot in a parachute jump and his name is roger ailes, who has become fairly well flown today. but he was 28 years old that last night. so this is what the whole story and the book are about. and it's a -- to me it was an incredible history, with an incredible man who just -- i mean, his perseverance, his courage, his ability to get up from defeat, again and again and again, is just unbelievable. it really is a testament.

i don't care which side of politics you're on. the fact that he came back the way he did. and let me mention, we all know, we were talking at dinner tonight, that people say, what do you remember nixon for? and one says, china. or watergate. those two things. let me just list some of the things he did very quickly. in his first term before watergate. the ended the vietnam war, brought our troops home, brought the p.o.w.'s home. opened up china to the world and west. negotiates the evidence greatest strategic arms agreement since the washington naval treaty of 1922. he rescued israel in the yom kippur war. he brought egypt out of the soviet bloc other into the west. ended the draft. gave 18-year-olds the right to vote. desegregatessed the south. only 10% desegregated when johnson left office.

70% when nixon left office. he created the epa, osha, and the cancer institute. he named four justices to the supreme court, including two chief justices. the lat e e'er one, william rhenquist. he then won a 49-state landslide, unbelievable. the biggest loser of all times, 49-state landslide, and he put together a political coalition that dominated presidential elections for 20 of the next 24 years. had it not been for watergate i think people would be talking about whether he is a near great or a great president. but that's the man i knew as the boss, and the old man. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you, pat. thank you. thank you, pat. pat has agreed to answer a few questions which we'll do before the book signing, so if you have a question, please raise your hand and i'll come to you and you can speak into the mic so we'll get it on television. i'm going to start with this young lady from ucla, come on over here and she lives in anaheim. >> you said that president nixon created the new majority what would you think the current run party can do to shift the majority back to the right? >> i don't -- you know, the question is whether the -- a republican today can replicate what richard nixon did in creating the new majority. at 49 state coalition that reagan re-created in 1984 when he won 49 states and he won 44

against jimmy carter. i don't know that you can because the truth is we're another country right now. we have changed dramatically. dem graphically, we're a different country than we were today. you can look at 18 states, including four of the mega states, california, new york, illinois, pennsylvania, and going democratic, six straight times. ...

.. >> >> i have described that it

i book if you have read the book the libel against richard nixon is used racist tactics to win the south. that is false. the people that did that were the democrats woodrow wilson in segregated the government fdr in and cactus jack who was on the ticket fdr put a klansman on the supreme court in to block that and tire lynchings what. to use the issue of race to maintain the solidity of the northern liberal southern coalition with the state

sell wallace carried are the same ones that he carried with eisenhower is that because he was tougher have foreign policy? he put on his ticket to a man from alabama from the tickseed manifesto calling for resistance to integration and passive resistance to the supreme court decision. so the democrats look at the column i wrote for nixon when he went south leave it to the dixiecrats to squeeze the last ounce of political juice out of that racial injustice. and he voted for the civil-rights act 1964 and 65 and he desegregated the south.

but naturally the south moved from the conservative convictions but only after it was desegregated. and to take it on in that book. and read all confederate states every single time they ran all four times. >> we are live streaming we asked our viewers to submit questions on e-mail one is from denver colorado what your memories of election night 1968? >> they are fairly terrifying. [laughter]

teddy white in his book says cutting across the country after we had our telephone on monday night we got on the played nixon flew across the country and my hands broke out in hives but the night of the election and haul their bid was the most confident. on saturday before the election and i got a call from john sears in he said tell the old man michigan is :that the harris poll had

us at 40. said he indeed be in front of the television watch the oregon ducks play you h -- usc and he says thanks. i honestly thought we would lose the election. but wallace was taking baldies votes from the democratic base, all the states and we went across the mississippi the question was but then the democrats are still dominant. that night i was at the waldorf-astoria and i stayed up all night intel 67 in the

morning then i fell asleep i woke up in nixon went to key biscayne. they left me there. but i waited intel 8:00 in the morning that we did not beat illinois. >> thank you. of a business graduate. >> of all the daily press summaries from your office to the president was the most positive news that you delivered other than the election of '68 and '72. >> all of the news summaries? i cannot even think of any particular warned.

but i will tell you i will tell you this story. by the time they got there to work on the press to study those issues that would raise 25 per 30 questions and nixon reid -- wanted answers reduced 120 words then we would send a memo predicting what were the most likely? the most likely 15 questions we thought he would get. we did very well. we had as a good record so i said tim the memo and i predicted the questions and every single question the

press asked on every issue i predicted a and had an answer in the book. so i get a call with the press conference was over and the president said buchanan icu predicted every single question they would ask. i said yes, sir. he said that's good. but there are some questions in the book they did not ask next time leave those out. [laughter] collect -- collect. [laughter] >> my question on monrovia. >> how are you? >> i am concerned about the

country and with the invasion coming from the south. my question is this. but do you know, of any leader of any country that ever applauded or plant and encouraged the invasion of their own country? [applause] >> i do believe one of the first responsibilities of united states is to secure the borders of the individual states of the union it i regret to say congress over the last 25 years over the border we have a hellish problem with

the cohesion of aurignacian. that blood dash that is now in the united states unless we get control we are in peril to use that -- lose that country we grew up in since i launched my own political career that was not that successful planetary apprehensive and i do not understand why the president cannot even take a look at the crisis on the border. shooting pool when he should be down there. [applause] that is my view. >> mr. buchanan did my question is counterfactual.

if nixon won the election rather than jfk, what we have had the cuban missile crisis? the bay of pigs in how would you handle vietnam? then going to diaries he thought jfk was all white way i don't thank you thought that about nixon but how do you see that? >> i do believe christian of saw kennedy hesitate to launch the bay of pigs which was a complete debacle even in the kennedy himself and then got no response but i think that persuaded khrushchev he could put away missiles in cuba. he would not have done that under eisenhower because of

world war ii and i don't think he would have done that with richard nixon had he won that election at all. i don't think richard nixon would have sent them into cuba unless he was determined that would work that was the situation and doubted the but with the it, i will be honest we supported those vietnam's wars third 1962 and i think the whole country may be 65 lyndon johnson had 70 percent of the country and the vietnam war was supported by 80 percent. i don't know with vietnam but i don't think khrushchev would have trifled with nixon in the way he did with

jfk but brezhnev fought in the yom kippur war with soviet airborne divisions i don't know if it is true the soviet ships were coming in our interest nuclear-weapons nixon had the all out airlift. it was a tough time i was in the president's oval office just before the of massacre richardson was right outside. and he said i cannot be defined by a member of my own cabinet. so he had to get rid of richardson at that time.

then i saw my old friend eliot's to see my friend get his head chopped off. and also talk about china relations at the diversity in china you there at the very beginning. if nixon were alive today what would he say about the future relationship of both china in the west where they're going? >> president nixon again in my book and some of these things i got by going back into my files not realizing what was in their heads the suggestions like one of them

said rundown what rockefeller said on china. so what? we ran it down he wanted to know if he was in favor to recognize china or a engaged him. nixon believed very much in the united states and the soviet union and china had to manage this relationship that would be troublesome and have a lot of rough spots in such a way that we never go to major war against each other. he really believed in his own capacity to achieve this. i am much more of us skeptic and nixon he did believe he could create a generation of peace in china was a large

part hardy manager relationship now with china and japan? i think he would talk seriously and directly to the chinese not to ruin all the benefits from the relationship as it is grown in the 40 plus years since they have gone there. that is all like to say but he was very proud of the fact that he had gone there to the people's republic. >> in the middle of the room our final question spinnaker is what's going on in indeed released to play this game of tactics you mentioned before egypt was removed now into the west but now it

seems it will go back in the other middle eastern states are going back to russia how do you see that playing out? what goes through your mind? you saw it go the other way. >> my view of the russians is different in a number of folks no question he once crimea back he is responding to what happened when his sky in kia of whom he had cut the deal with to have the ukraine was dumped over by the crowds in the streets encouraged by united states in may came and he saw that as the coup day todd managed by the americans he said it fears will not get my naval

base to salute the nato soldiers said he got that back but i don't see him as a big player in the middle east i think that is building its own way you can find out by studying the 30 year war in europe the catholics and protestants in the turmoil of religion and states with a population of germany. and i think that started off on its own track with the middle east. but the ukraine i am a little apprehensive of what took place with the downing of that aircraft it was not deliver it mass murder but

somebody made of plunder to bring that down now putin is on the spot many republicans are calling for weapons to the ukraine if you encourage the ukrainians to grab their problems to humiliate the russians you're putting putin in a point where he will have to respond to in ukrainians will lose if there is no more. we will find united states and russia face to face. with regard to the middle east i don't thank you misstates should go back in with more and more troops? should american troops have to die? [applause] that is my view.

he stops the press conference. [laughter] >> thank you for a great presentation. [applause] we will present you with her great gift what led nixon to come up. [laughter] we expect you to use that on fox and the mclaughlin group. thank you for coming this is your home away from home. please come back. now the books are on sale in the museum store. if yould