>> we have someone who spent a number of years at richard nixon's side. and remember that when he lost the two elections, the presidential in 1962, the gubernatorial in 196 -- pardon me n '60s and the gubernatorial in 1962. people wrote him off. he said this is my last press conference. not so. at about the same time, a young man graduated from columbia, joined the louis post dispatch -- "st. louis post-dispatch", and along the way he met richard nixon.

and that began a magic carpet p ride from richard nixon's defeat through years of what richard nixon described as the wilderness years to the achievement of the highest off office in the world, president of the united states. and pat buchanan was with him every step of the way, and it's record inside this great -- recorded in this great book that was just launched last week. in fact, this is the pacific coast of it. "the greatest comeback," of how richard nixon built the new majority, the silent majority and how he won the presidency. so here's a man who spent every day with him strategizing, planning, creating, and he's a firsthand eyewitness to the magnificent brilliance of the 37th president. please welcome pat buchanan. [applause]

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thank you very much, sandy. with that reception, i may start looking at 2016. [laughter] [applause] >> you know you, i always relish coming back here. this is the second time i've

spoken in the east room of the nixon library, and it is a magnificent and memorable place. and i was going to mention to all the folks i've served with over the years and even going back four and five decades, and i'd like to single out one who was with richard nixon for the campaign of 1960 before i was there, the campaign for governor in '62 before i was there and who rode with richard nixon on that plane around trying to save barry goldwater in 1964 before i was there, and that's shelley buchanan. you want to stand up, shelley? [laughter] [applause] she was, -- [inaudible] i'd also like to say a couple of words about sandy quinn who i got to know richard nixon up in new york when i first went to

work with him. when you get to washington, there's three people you want to see, and sandy was one of them, old friends and loyalists of a long time. and sandy has done a magnificent job with the foundation and everything, and i know you heard him tonight. i really think he deserves more than one round of applause. [applause] you know, the greatest comeback is not definitive history of that period, but what it is, is a memoir of my time and 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 came back from, basically, a broken career to lead a shattered and ruined 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've often told friends that what richard nixon did in the 20th century is matched only by one other man, that's fdr, who created that coalition which dominated the white house i guess unless -- if you exclude eisenhower -- for seven of nine presidency ises after 1932 -- presidencies after 1932. let me tell you a little bit then and go back and try to tell some of this 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 were these: buchanan, was that you throwing the eggs? [laughter] he had just been inaugurated, delivered his inaugural speech,

was coming up pennsylvania avenue, and his limb seep was showered -- limousine was showered with debris and rocks and eggs and everything. and he showed up at the white house, and he was going into the reviewing stand, and shelley and i were walking into the reviewing stand along these boards that the secret service had put down because it was so muddy. and i heard behind me the secret service saying, could you step off the boards, sir? so i stepped off the boards and in walks the president of the united states, and that's what he said. buchanan, was that you throwing the eggs. [laughter] but let me go back really, and that incident, incidentally, is a metaphor for the city richard nixon came into. he was the first president since zachary taylor to take over the white house with both houses of the congress in opposition. the media either loathed or

detested richard nixon by and large. the bureaucracy had been built up in the new deal, the fair deal and the great society and was overwhelmingly democratic. it was a hostile city that richard nixon came into that had just broken the presidency of lyndon baines johnson who, after winning a magnificent landslide in '64, had stood down in 1968. that was the america, basically, of "mad men," if you will, the america that we saw on that film, "mad men." 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 you had the first uprising at berkeley of the great campus disorders of the 1960s. this was the beginning, if you will, of the revolution. in 1965 folks out here remember

the watts riot, the worst race riot of its time since the civil war. you had the beginning of the revolution. you know, i was a young man, i was an editorial writer at the globe democrat. >> st. louis. i drove back to washington to hear martin luther king deliver his famous speech up in the lincoln memorial. it was a magnificent moment. one year later, 50 years ago this month, i was in mississippi before they found the bodies of the three civil rights workers. and the civil rights revolution of those days, which had 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 a world we came into. now let's take a look at what nixon himself was in that period. you know, people talk about '62

and '64, and they're correct, but you go all the way back to 1950, it was the last election that richard nixon won in his own right. he won a landslide, the biggest victory california had ever seen over douglas. he won with eisenhower, but eisenhower could have been elected on any ticket. in 1954 when nixon was leading the 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. maybe a stolen election to jack kennedy. we know what happened. we all heard what happened in chicago and in texas. '62 he came out and ran for above and was defeated by governor pat brown. then he had that famous press conference where he just said this is it. he'd had it with the press. he said think of all the fun you're going to be missing. you won't have richard nixon to kick around anymore.

because, folks, this is my last press conference. he was finished, down and out. but then in '64 even though he was out of it he not only introduced barry goldwater at that convention, richard nixon went and campaigned all across america for barry goldwater harder than barry campaigned for himself. but 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. they had 17 governorships, outnumbered two to one in governorships. state legislatures, they were outnumbered two to one. people were talking about the republican party as the party that had lost its head, that is finished, it was split between the goldwater ring and the rockefeller/romney ring. and that's what richard nixon

inherited. that's when he began to come back, his great comeback. so that's the situation i encountered, frankly, when i joined richard nixon. and how did i get aboard with richard nixon? well, i was an editorial writer at the conservative st. louis globe democrat and having some difficulty with my publisher at the time. [laughter] and i thought maybe i ought to get out of this office and get into the real world. so nixon was invited by dirksen to come fill in for him at a speech in bellevue, illinois, about 15 millions 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 hess who was the cartoonist at the globe democrat and a good friend of mine. so i said, don, what you've got to do is you've got to get me invited to your party, then you've got to get me to meet richard nixon at your party, because i want to meet him.

he said, i'll do it for him. so i went over, waited until nixon's speech was over, got in the motorcade behind his, went over to hess' house, and he got me into kitchen, introduced me to richard nixon. and i said, mr. vice president, how are you? if you're going to run in 1968, i'd like to get aa board early. it was -- aboard early. it was direct. i figured the direct approach was best. [laughter] why beat around the bush, you know? and he said what to you do? i said, well, i'm the assistant editorial ed to have the st. louis -- editor of the st. louis globe democrat. and he said i don't want to know what your title is, i want to know what you do. [laughter] i said i write editorials. and since we're a paper, we've got two editorials and the "st. louis post-dispatch" has eight, i write on everything, statewide, county politics, national tax policy, foreign

policy, i write on everything. and so he seemed pretty impressed. and just to convince him that i was not, you know, putting him on a bit, i said we've met before. and he said, what? i said, we've met before, sir. have you seep -- i was a caddie at the burping tree country club when -- burning tree country club when i was 14 years old. [laughter] i was on the caddie log, we were the last men on the bench, pete cook and i. we, frankly, integrated the caddy bunch at the club. there were all black kids who were unhappy we were morning in on what they had. black kids would go out in the morning and amp, so we're waiting in late afternoon, and out comes this plaid golf bag. and i said, that's the vice president's bag. and sure enough, the pro came out, and he looked over at the bench, and the two of us were the only ones sitting there. so he says come on over. so we went around with the vice president of the united states

for 18 holes, four hours. and to convince nixon i wasn't making this all up, ghei him the -- i gave him the name of the pro and the assistant pro at burning tree. and so the next morning after this meeting with nixon he's driving out to lambert field for an hour, and the cartoonist comes in and said, pat, nixon talked about you all the way out to lambert air force. i said, that's a good sign. [laughter] so -- then i didn't hear anything from the him until about two with weeks later. i get this phone call, and it's the familiar voice, can you come to new york and continue our conversation? so i said, sure. and so i went to new york, and for three hours in richard nixon's office he quizzed me on everything i could think of; foreign policy, domestic policy, tax policy, congress. i mean, it was exhausting. for three hours. and when we were done, he said i'd 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's not going to be worth anything in 1968. so i said -- 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'll take it, but you better call my publisher first, because he doesn't know i'm here. [laughter] so that's how i got aboard richard milhouse nixon in 1965. now, when i got with him, the first thing -- he said my three assignments were you're going to help write a column for me, get rid of this stack of mail, and travel with me to work in the '66 campaign. and i said, fine, but i had larger dreams of what my functions would be. and i said the first thing we've got to do, mr. vice president, if we're going to win that

nomination, and that's -- i said, you've got the center of the republican party. they've admired you, respected you, those wonderful folks in california, indiana, nebraska, they're 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 with the nixon center of the republican party, there's nobody that can stop you from getting that nomination. rockefeller's too far out on the left, they're all too far out on the left. so i began, first thing i did he had had a breach. mr. nixon said something about bill buckley, and the buckleyites being more dangerous than the birchers. i said we're going to have the clear up. [laughter] -- clear this up. so i wrote this letter explaining what mr. nixon had meant to the publisher of "national review" and bill buckley. and we healed that breach. and then with my friend tom charles houston who sort of came aboard, we started holding

meetings all during '66 with leaders of various conservative groups nixon hadn't met and i certainly hadn't met. i was a journalist, but houston knew who they were. so we met with them, and and then we started inviting every columnist who was a conservative to come up and meet richard nixon, have an interview with him and give them time. so we kept building this alicense with the center of the republican -- alliance with the center of the republican party and the conservative wig of the republican party. then nixon, his own idea, went out on his own in 1966 and campaigned in 35 states, 80 congressional districts, every single republican who asked for him. he went in all 11 southern states, went all over the country working for the or republican party. and it was a move that, it was -- i said it 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, and he loved his party, he was loyal to it. he went out, we're going to fight within every district we can. so, i mean, and i traveled with him that whole time. and it was, i mean, he was a spartan. i mean, i've never seen anybody work harder than that. there was occasional incidents like let me tell you one, we had some trouble, of course, mr. nixon had some trouble with the rockefellers. let me tell you one story there the campaign of '66. we were in fort smith, arkansas. and nixon got up, and he had a press conference and did an event for john paul hammerschmidt who eventually was the one guy that beat bill clinton for congress -- or bill clinton -- yeah, i think bill clinton -- no, was it his first race? yeah, i think he beat bill clinton. anyhow, we're in fort smith, and nixon goes to the motel, and it's a rectangular thing. and it's on the inside, but it's only one story. so nixon's got this room here x

he says i do not want to be disturbed, identify got to snap, i've got a big speech tonight, i don't want anybody to disturb me. and i said, you got it, and i went down around and mosesed around my own -- mow citied -- moseyed aaround my own room. and i saw this huge fellow walking straight toward nixon's door, and he was yelling, hey, dick, hey, dick, to mr. nixon, you know, who's sleeping. so i started running, and i didn't get there in time. and this guy is pounding on the door, and the door opens, and richard nixon let him in, and i thought that's the end of pat buchanan. [laughter] and nixon says, pat, have you met wynn 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. he'd been involved in some scandal, bobo rockefeller in the '50s i'd billion reading about. but a great fellow.

and that was my first introduction to the rockefellers in that campaign. and the second was, and you may know the name pat hillings who was a congress man out here. and hillings traveled with us. we got to oregon during this campaign, and hillings comes up to me and, of course, i was a goldwater man, and my views of nelson rockefeller just -- it's hard to describe how harsh they were. [laughter] so hillings says, hey, pat, the old man's going to endorse rockefeller. i said, what? so i took off down the hall. i get to nixon's suite, i open the door and go in. he's not there, so i hear something, i go over and open the door to the bathroom. he's about to get into the shower. and i said you're not going to endorse that blank are you? and he said, don't worry, pat, we'll get something for it. [laughter] so sure enough what richard

nixon did -- again, this tells you something about the man. he'd been treated brutally by the people in new york. they invited him to nothing. when he moved to new york, he's in law practice, they didn't invite him to any republican events or anything and here he is going up to enforce nelson rockefeller which he did, why? because he said, first, the party's got to win, and we're all going to have todiminish our egos a bit. we're going to have to come together, we've been deeply divided, goldwater and rockefeller, and this is the right thing to do. and the right thing to do once again was also the right thing to do for richard nixon. so he enforced rocky. and then at the end of the campaign, richard nixon, you know, i was -- again, we were in oregon, and we heard word that lyndon johnson was coming back from the summit in manila, and he was going to campaign in all of these states n a dozen

states. and i mistakenly went in and told nixon before he went out for his speech that night. i said, you know, the president's coming back, he's going to campaign in a dozen states. and so nixon said, well, we'll just have to see about that. but he was clearly shaken. and he went out that night, and he endorsed tom mccall, running for governor of oregon, except he kept calling him bob mccall. [laughter] until the audience finally said it's tom, it's tom. [laughter] so that's a lesson, if you're 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 if johnson comes back, we could be cut from 40 seats -- which he'd been predicting -- to maybe winning 12 seats. so he was down, and so i went back to my room, and at midnight he called me in, and he said take some note. and he dictated a speech on vietnam.

right on through. i must have taken 12 pages of notes. now, he says you go to boise, idaho, and you prepare a speech for me. the next morning after that, i'm going to come down to boise. and we worked on that and worked on it and worked on it as we flew around the country, and just before the election nixon dropped it in "the new york times," an appraisal of the manila communique by johnson. you can take a look at the date, november 4, 1966. critical moment in the comeback of richard nixon. it was on the front page of the new york times. and from lyndon johnson's tapes, he was -- he told, called hubert humphrey and said did you see what that s.o.b. said about us in "the new york times" this morning? and then johnson just went out in a press conference and lam

lambasted richard nixon as bad as anyone has ever done. those aren't my words. nix sob, we were -- nixon, we were flying up to waterville, maine. mike wallace, i was on the plane listening on radio, and nixon came out to the plane, and i said you're not going to believe what the president is saying about us. and so we flew up there, and mike wallace who was at the airport flew after us and got, caught nixon in maine, and nixon came out and handled it beautifully. he was gracious to onsoften. he said, look, hardest working president i've seep. he's a little tired from his trip, i understand this. we've got questions on vietnam that need to be answered. and the whole country, the media astoundingly said richard nixon is saying exactly the right thing. so all of a sudden end of 1966 richard nixon is vaulted up into contention by lyndon johnson for

the republican nomination. however, '66 election we won bigtime, 47 house seats, eight senate seats, eight governors. so we get to the weekend after that our celebration at the drake hotel. richard nixon took us to the restaurant out with the wife and everything. we had a great time. "time" and "newsweek" come out after the election. who's on the cover? six republicans. the new republican leaders; governor reagan, governor rockefeller, governor romney, senator percy, senator brook and senator hatfield. and no richard nixon. and it was a real downer for us that he had been left out after all the work he had dope. but i'll tell -- he had done. but i'll tell you, they did us a favor by leaving us out of the news and vaulting everybody else

up. and just before that election day nixon himself told the national press -- he was on one of those sunday programs -- that i'm going to, after this election is over, i'm going to take a six month moratorium from politics completely. and i saw nixon a day or so later, and i said, sir, is this wise? i mean, above romney, governor george romney of michigan is ahead of lyndon johnson by eight points in the national polls, he's running far away first for the are palin nomination, and we're going to drop out for six months and do nothing? and nixon said in his own manner, pat, let 'em chew on him for a little while. laugh -- [laughter] and i gather he meant the press corps. and 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, 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've never seen finish it was not an outstanding performance. i mean, romney went 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've ever seen. i told nixon one time, i said -- i sent in this editorial. i said, i've never seen anything this vicious. he said, well, you should see what tully writes about me, pat. [laughter] but it was just terrible. and murray kempton who was a great writer at the new york post, i was an admirer of his from journalism school, everybody remembers george romney was at american motors. he was a huge success. he brought out the early nash rambler that was an incredible

success, and that's one of the things that vaulted his career. and kempton and i -- i slipped into the meeting myself. romney was speaking in new york at one of these large jewish community gatherings, a huge flipping down at the waldorf, and i saw murray kempton over there, and i wanted to see what was said in the paper. and his conclusion was, first line, the nash rambler must have been a hell of a car if george romney was able to sell it. [laughter] i mean, that was typical of what was being written about romney. i mean, you almost feel badly for the guy except we were benefiting from all this. but then we really got into the, we really got into the later '60s here. we're in 1967, and anybody can -- people might remember the places, but newark and detroit. you've seep what happens to --

seen what happens to detroit as a consequence. newark and detroit went up in horrible race riots. they had federal troops in both cities. they had many, many debt, thousands and thousands arrested, 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 were ablaze, the anti-war movement was rising then. it had not been rising in '65, but by now it was ablaze. you had the civil rights movement, as i mentioned, was degenerating in in many cases io riots and black power and all the rest of it. so all of these things caused more and more americans to say, you know, the great society we supported this, we supported civil rights, but it's not turning out well. it's not turning out well.

and something is terribly wrong with our countriment this is what mid -- 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, i believe, it was late august, he got on, and he made a terrible mistake. maybe it was what he believed, but he said i was all wrong on vietnam. 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 the american military and the american diplomats. and after four days, finally "the new york times" picked up on it, romney says he's been brainwashed. it was not a good thing for his candidacy. [laughter] and gene mccarthy, who became a friend of mine, was brutal, brutal on governor romney. he said in romney's case a full brainwashing was not needed.

[laughter] that a light rinse would have sufficed. [laughter] but you have to -- this is brutal, but you have to remember in those days, i mean, that is how tough governor george romney had it in those days. to the point where we're running against him, and i'm feeling sorry for the guy. [laughter] so then we come up to 1968 which was a real year of tragedy. well, the it was a year of real tragedy in american political history, i believe, since the civil war. my friend tom brokaw wrote a book called "boom" about it, and i've got 'em now '64, '65, '66, you almost had to go through that era the experience that. we began the campaign, and dwight chapin is here tonight. dwight chapin and i and ray price, and i think that was it,

just the three of us, flew in a small plane out of laguardia february 1, 1968, to -- into logan, and then we took a car, took nixon up to nashua, new hampshire, where we got him into a room under a phony name, bepg my chapman. he was going -- benjamin chap match. he was going to go into manchester the next day and sign up for the primary. and i remember when we were going down the hall in this motel, bepg my chapman -- of course, richard nixon -- was going down the hall, and this inebriated fellow was walking toward him. and he's walking toward him, and he kept looking at him and looking at him, and he passed by. you could see there was some recognition on his face but not a great deal. but that's how we got nixon into new hampshire. but that very day was the first day of the tet offensive in

vietnam. and i was concerned because i had my little brother who was with 101st airborne in vietnam had just gone over. but in that month the tet offensive dominated the news. you've got to take a look at "the new york times," there's a picture of richard nixon, he announced, and he got one column in the "new york times." they had eight column is in those days x the four-column photograph was of the saigon police chief shooting that fellow in the head in the street of saigon, the terrorist had come in and was murdering people, but eddie adams' photo won the pulitzer prize. but that's the beginning of that year. within february also you had the massacre at wei, 3,000 were killed. the viet cong walked through town with lists murdering everyone loyal to the saigon government or working with the americans. and before february was out,

governor romney quit the race. dropped out. again, i was with dwight they pip, i got a call from a friend of mine who i'd gone to journalism school with, and he was covering romney, and he said romney's dropping out this afternoon. so nixon was peeking at what we called the little towns tour, and he came down from the podium. so i grabbed him, and we took him into the men's room, dwight and i, and i said romney's going to drop out this afternoon, i've got it on good authority. so mike wallace says what do you have to say about governor romney dropping out of of the race in and mr. nixon carried it pretty well, he said that's the first i've heard of that. [laughter] sometimes to you're just stopped -- sometimes you're just stopped cold. 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, he got over 70% of the vote. of course, we didn't have an opponent then. you looked at the total vote, you had write-ins for rockefeller, romney, bobby kennedy write-ins on the democratic side. nixon got more votes. people weren't looking at it, than all the others put together. because of a little project we had. he got four times as many write-in votes on the democratic ball t as bobby can kennedy can. people doesn't notice, they should have looked closely because what that said is, look, the country's turning toward this party and somewhat toward this man who's supposed to be the greatest loser of all time. the big news, though, was eugene mccarthy who got 42% of the vote against lyndon johnson, the president of the united states. and johnson and hid people, i don't know what they were 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. and so i was astonished that he did this. and half of mccarthy's votes were from hawks, poem who wanted johnson -- 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 and said job is appealing to the -- johnson is appealing to the darker impulses of the american spirit. it was just brutal. it was just a brutal attack. and so then rockefeller, rockefeller didn't -- we expected rockefeller to come in and go after us because romney was develop. so rockefeller did not get -- he holds a press conference and, again, qiect and i are in --

mr. nixon, he had a habit, he didn't watch television. he would ask ask me or dwight and i to watch it and then come in and tell him what our impressions were. no, it's a very smart thing to do, i i think, because he wants to though what other folks are seeing. so rock fell or did not announce or announced he wasn't going to run. he had no desire to be president, and i hope you all take this seriously. we went in and told richard nixon, and for years they asked me what nixon b said, and i didn't tell 'em. what nixon 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, after the marriage, his initial marriage broke up, this would have just killed him. and so that rumor was floating all over the place, so we thought that was the reason he didn't announce he's not going

run. so that didn't turn out to be true. so then -- that's march. we're 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 at to cancel it because johnson announced he was going to speak on march 31st. we were going the speak on the 30th. so nixon told me go out to the airport, get in the limb teen, - tell me what johnson says so is i'll be able to respond. so i said, sure. so i was in the limousine with this black driver who was nixon's driver x and we're sitting there this that limb seep, and here comes -- johnson was talking away about vietnam. bombing halts and things like that we knew were going to come or we thought were going to

come, and then he says i will not accept a seat, nor will i accept the nomination of my party for another term. lyndon johnson was, basically, saying he wasn't going to run again. it was a whole new ball game. so i told driver move this car down tarmac and get me right next to that plane before the press gets on there because he doesn't -- the vice president doesn't know what's happening. so i got on and ran in there to plane and told him what was happening, and nixon walks out and says, you know, i guess it's the year of the dropout, southern -- you know? [laughter] and he admitted in his memoirs he should not have said that. romney, rockefeller, johnson drops out all in one month, and it's a brand new picture. i thought we were in trouble because i thought webbed beat johnson. the country desperately wanted change. i thought we could beat robbie

kennedy because he was on the left wig of the democratic party. and we'd got the nomination, leadership adopt johnson would have been working for richard nixon. but hubert humphrey was a different story. he was a committed, democratic liberal who was in tight with the democratic establishment as president, so i said we could have a real problem here. so that's march 31st. four day later dr. king was assassinated in memphis. 100 americanties went up in flames and -- american says went up in flames and violation and looting and burning, and there were federal troops in my home up to of washington, d.c.. places that i was familiar with were burned down it was the worst series of racial violation in he were history.

the american people were beginning to say this country's coming apart. and over in baltimore which burned badly, stokely carmichael the racial incendiary who eventually became a communist and went to ghana -- or guinea, he was down there encouraging all this looting and burning. and governor agnew led all the civil rights' leaders the riot act for not condemning the racial ip send yeas. you've got -- ip p vend yeas. you've got to condemn these guys that are burping down our city. -- burning down our city. he did a tremendous job, and i have notes of all this and clippings, and i sent those to nixon because i was very impressed with what agnew was doing. nixon was equally impressed. as we would find out later. and then my alma mater, columbia university, before april was out

exploded in the worst violation of any campus in the 1960s. mark rudd, you hear about it now, they took over the campus, the deep's office, they crashed the deep's office. it took a week and they finally called the black radicals, white radicals both. and there was a division inside the nixon camp. i was a goldwater conservative, and our ream writing group was very conservative, the most conservative element in the whole nix sob campaign. but -- nixon campaign. but we had rib liberals in there too. and nixon was going only with my stance that the american people want to crack down on nonsense. they see this happening, i thousand they say the law's got to be enforced. only 2% of the people i know in

oregon where we were campaigning agree on the campus of just cause. so we had the future silent majority was being formed right there in 1968 in april. so then me move to may. in may richard nixon was in the oregon primary. it was the last uncob tested primary -- uncontested primary, he mopped up the floor with everybody. reagan got 22%, rockefeller, % for nelson rock feller. -- rockefeller. and i remember shelley and i were there that night. we went down to dinner at men szob, and so i went off the first time in history a kennedy had lost an election. bobby kennedy was beaten by ewe

mean mccarthy in the gop primary. and i said i've got to see this because bobby kennedy was coming up to the bicepson hotel -- benson hotel to cede defeat. freckles, he had his dog with him. and i went to the room just like this where he was standing up like here conceding defeat. and i will say i was not a fan of bobby kennedy. he was the most gracious concession speech, one of them, i'd ever heard. i said, this is really a class act. and he had led it -- handled it extremely well. he said gene mccarthy's run a fine race, we're defeated here, and we'll meet senator mccarthy down there, and we congratulate him. it was just a lovely speech. and that was over, and we went

back to new york. one week after that night i got a call from our campaign headquarters at three in the morning, woke me up at my apartment, and he said simply bobby kennedy's been shot. and so i called mr. nix sop, and he was already -- nixon, and he was already awakened. julie, and i think david, were watching returns at the time, and they had apparently seen the news stories. and, i mean, it was that kind of year. and so we, nixon went to the funeral. but then we had a battle inside the nixon campaign, basically, over a real issue which was which way do we go? how do we defense against governor george wallace? let me go back a bit. a benefit nixon got was the republican party which i've described to you as twice the size of the republican party -- the democratic party was

splintered now three ways; george corley wallace, the governor of alabama, was leading in seven or eight states. and at one point he was holding 21% of the vote. you had the bobby kennedy, eugene mccarthy wig of the party, anti-war. then you had the johnson-humphrey center of the party. and in this battle inside the nixon camp, we had to decide who was going to take votes away from him. and that went op for a while until i wrote nixon a memo. i said for two months we've been five points behind humphrey. in those days you didn't gain five points overnight. and i said we're going to have to be bold if we're going the win this thing. and, sir, there's nothing i can think that's bolder than if i --

if you put the hero of bedtime for bonn sow on the ticket and that, of course, was ronald reagan. and the nixon campaign in '68, people don't realize it, there was a tremendous drive and a move to conscript the governor of california, ronald reagan, who was immensely popular and who could really attest for the kind of social conservatives and the northern catholics, and we all -- half of us wanted to put ronald reagan on the ticket. then we got to miami, and we didn't get reagan. we didn't get ray ban gauze -- reagan was the polls as we arrived in miami showed nixon ahead, so we didn't want to take a risk now. and so you take someone who is not the big risk, and nix sop can win it himself. and that's how spiro agnew was chosen. and, i'll tell you, because of that incident in baltimore, the press was outraged.

mike wallace came up to me cursing what do you so and so's think you're doing? you just lost the election. and wallace was a friend of ours. he wasn't a hostile press knell. but, i mean, he just was outraged. so i go upstairs, and there's nobody up on the 17th floor but richard nixon himself. and he says, hey, pat, let's watching a gnu's press conference. so i said, right, right you are. [laughter] and so i go in, and he and i are sitting there watching tv, and agnew's really holding his own. i'll never forget what nixon said to me. he turned to me and said, buchanan, i think we've got ourselves a hanging judge here. [laughter] and that, he turned out to be. [laughter] so then i have one more experience i want to tell you about, and that is when we got to mission bay out here, our own

convention where nixon was nominated, i told nixon, i said i think it's important we have eyes and ears at the democratic convention, so can you send me to chicago? and i want to observe it, and i'll be your eyes and ears, sir. you and bebe go down to key biscayne, you know, because in 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's not done anymore. so nix sop went to key -- nixon went to key biscayne, and i went to chicago. we called the come raid hilltop on michigan avenue. [laughter] and truth be told, i was gassed there. i went across the street in grant park, and i was accused of being an finishing bi agent by all the -- fbi agent by all the radicals. and then when the big night came, i was alone on the 19th floor of the come raid hill --

comrade hilltop, and i heard a commotion, and it's the novelist, norman mailer. he says, hi, pat. i was, like, hello, norman x. he's got a friend with him, jose tourist, the light heavyweight champion of the world. and the three of us are there having a drink, and he's telling me, basically, what a small c conservative key is. and we sat there and witnessed those cops coming down balboa, going into grant park, using clubs, chopping people down left and right. norman mailer has it all in his book on the miami convention and chicago, and he mentions he was on the 19th floor. he does not say who he was looking out the window with. [laughter] but it was an incredible event, and hunter thompson, yo later -- who later became a friend of mine, because of what happened at michigan and balboa ca that evening. no doubt it's a major

contributing factor. one time nixon kept calling me about two in the morning. what's going on, pat? he's afterring this in key discane, and i said, sir, it's 2:00 in the morning, i opened a window and held the telephone out, and you could hear these obscenities quell yelled about richard daley which i cannot repeat here, and you have -- so i held it up for about 30 seconds. that's what's going on here, sir. [laughter] in closing, let me just talk about the fall campaign which, i mean, i think is a testament to hubert humphrey. he had a hellish time in september. all these things they were saying about him, he couldn't speak, he wasn't allowed to talk, and he was just broken-hearted over it until finally he gave a speech in salt

lake city saying, basically, i'll halt the bombing, i will move with the left and get our troops out of vietnam and bring them all home, good wyoming to the -- good-bye to the war. and the left came home. and at that time the george wallace voters -- let me tell you what the polls were one month before election. george wallace was at 21%, hubert humphrey at 28% and we were at 43%, 15 points ahead of humphrey. the election ended 43-all. hubert humphrey almost put the boss, the old man as we called him, into the history books alongside tom dewey. all those democrats started coming home from wallace to humphrey, and he got 'em all. it wasn't until four years later after the white house that we really put together that 49-state new majority. we did have a final -- nixon believes and he wrote that the

final telethan that we had, we had a telethan four hours before the election -- telethan four hours before the election. the volunteers would write the questions down, and they'd take them into a back room where i was and where shelley and rose and mark were, and the questions would come in. they'd give them to me, and i'd say, well, we could frame this question a little better, and we'd send them out to bud will kin soften, and he would -- wilkinson, and he would pitch the fastballs right down the center to richard anybodies son. nix sob. roger ailes was 28 years old that last night. so this is what the whole story and the book are are about. and it's a, to me, it's, i mean,

it was an ip cred are bl history with an incredible man who you just, i mean, his perseverance, his courage, his ability the get up from defeat again and again and again is just unbelievable. it really is a testament, and i don't want care which side of the politics -- i don't care which side of the politics you're on, the fact that he came back the way he did. we all know and people say what do you remember nixon for, china or watergate. those two things. but let me just list some of the things he did very quickly in his first term before watergate. he ended the vietnam war, brought our troops home, brought all the p.o.w.s home. he opened up china to the world and the west. he negotiated the greatest streakic arms agreement since the washington naval treatment of '21-'2.

he rescued israel in the yom kippur war. he brought egypt into the west. he ended the draft. he gave 18-year-olds the right the vote. he desegregated the south. it was only 10% desegregated when johnson left office, 70% when nix sop left office. he created the epa, osha and the can cert institute. he -- cancer institute. he won a 49-state landslide, unbelievable. here's the biggest loser of all times, 49-state land slide, 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's a near-great or a great president. but that's the, that's the man i

knew as the boss and the old man. thank you cell very much. [applause] >> thank you, pat. thank you. thank you, pat. pat's 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 the 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 do you think the current republican party can do to shift the majority back to the right?

>> i don't, you know, the question is when the, a republican today can replicate what richard nixon did in creating the new majority, that 49-state coalition that reagan recreated 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 are another country right now. we have changed dramatically. demographically we're a different country than we were. today you can rook at 18 -- look at 18 states including four of the mega states, california, new york, illinois, pennsylvania, have gone democratic six straight times. can we get those states back? you've also got a situation where the great society and the social welfare state, people -- you must have 100 million or more americans depend upon government benefits of one kind or another while half of the

country is now exempt from the federal income tax. so how do you get back folks who when you say we're going to cut government which means you imperil their benefits, but we're also going to cut taxes, but they don't pay those taxes? so the it's a much tougher haul. i think the republicans can win in 1914, i -- or 2014. here we are, right back where i was. [laughter] in 2014 i think they will win the senate, but 2016 is an uphill, is an uphill run. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> paul carter from whittier, an attorney who produced that great map that shows richard nixon's history in southern california in orange county, and he's writing a book about richard nixon, native sop, which'll come out next year. >> thank you very much.

i was wondering if you could give us your thoughts regarding whether president nixon b had a so-called southern strategy. >> the -- well, clearly, we wanted to, we wanted to -- nixon went into all 11 southern states in 966. he went in and campaigned against george wallace. and i've described that in my book if you've read the book. the libel against richard nixon is that he used racist tactics to to win the south. that is false. people that did that were democrats; woodrow wilson resegregated the federal government, carried all 11 southern states. fdr put cactus jack garon -- garner of texas on his ticket who had imposed a poll tax. fdr put a klansman on supreme court who had blocked the

anti-lynching law. so for decades the democratic party used the issue of race maintain the so lidty of the northern liberal southern coalition. what happened was adlai stevenson. the states wallace carried were the same states stevenson carried againstizen lawyer. was that because stevenson was a tougher guy in foreign policy than dwight david eisenhower? no. ..

and 1964, 1965, 1968, and desegregated the south. once the that was off the table, naturally the south moved from its conservative conviction but only after the desegregation. i'm happy to take that on. the liberals wiping and complaining. none of them wind when fdr, won all confederate states every time he ran. >> pat, we are live streaming this program tonight, and we asked our viewers to submit their questions on e-mail, and i'm going to ask one of them, from gary kim of denver,

colorado. what are your memories of election night, 1968? >> well, they're fairly terrifying. [laughter] teddy white in his book, says, -- some of you know the fella's name. he said coming across the country -- what we did is after we had our telethon that monday night, we got on the plane, and nixon flew across the country as the country was voting, and my hands broke out in hives, and -- i've never been able to explain it. i'm sure it is nerves. bit teddy white writes in his book that, on the night of the election, buchanan and finch were the most nervous, and bob haldeman, the most confident. and i think that's right. let me tell you a story. on saturday, before the

election, i got a call from john sears. one of our political guys, and he said, pat, tell the old man that michigan is gone, and we're three down in harris. the hair's poll had humphrey at 43 and us 40. if that were try election was over. so i went in on saturday, went into nix''s suite, and he and b.b. were in front of the television watching the oregon ducks play usc, i think, and i explained this to him, and he says, okay, thanks. and i was really -- i honestly thought we were going to lose the election. until the returns started coming you saw more and more that humphrey cooperate win because -- couldn't win because wallace was taking votes from the democrats.

and the question was whether we would lose, take california, and have the election thrown into the house of representatives were the democrats were still dominant. i was at the waldorf-astoria and i stayed up until 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, and then i went down and got in my room and fell asleep, and i woke up, and it said, nixon's gone to key biscayne. so they left me there, and -- but i waited until 8:00 in the morning until they finally decided illinois, but we didn't need illinois. >> thank you, pat. a business graduate from usc, we had a question from somebody from ucla, so i'm going to balance it with mr. mcfarland from usc. >> mr. buchanan, so, of all the daily press summaries from your office to the president, what was the most positive news you delivered to mr. nixon other than the lex of '68 and 72:00.

>> all the news summaries? the best news that came into richard nixon? an awful lot of -- can't even think of any particular one. it went into nixon -- i tell you what he did. let me tell you a story. i did briefing books for all of nixon's press conferences. by the time i got there, it's figured out a system. ziegler and i would work on the press and study the issues, and i would write 25 or 30 questions and answer them. nixon wanted the answers reduced to 120 words, and at the end of that, nix con -- ziegler and i would get together and send a memo, predicting what were the most likely -- we had to have 25 questions answered, foreign and dome, most -- domestic, the most

likely 15 questions he would get. so nixon went out -- we did very well. had a good record. so one time, i got -- i send him the bz memo, and i predicted the questions, and i had the other questions in the book, and every single question the press asked, on every issue, i had predicted and had an answer in the book. just 100 on your test. okay? i get a call after the press conference was over, and nixon said, buchanan, i see you predicted every single question they would ask. and i said, yes, sir, i believe we did. and he said, that's good. but there was some questions in the book they didn't ask. next time leave those out. [laughter] click. >> a question from former state

senator dick mountjoy. >> is that dick mountjoy over there? >> used to be. pat, i'm really concerned about the country and concerned basically about the invasion that we have coming from the south. and my question is this. kind of off the subject, but do you know of any other leader of any country that ever plotted, planned, and encouraged the invasion of their own country? >> well -- [applause] >> well, i do believe that one of the first responsibilities of any president of the united states is to secure the borders

of the individual states of the union, and i regret to say that congresses and presidents of both parties for the last 25 years have failed to do that on our southern border, and we have a hellish problem, and a long-term peril to the unity and cohesion of our nation, from an invasion which is now running up to 12 million or more people in the united states. and i think unless we get control of it, we're in peril of losing the country we all grew up in. it's been an issue, as you know, since i first launched my own political career, which wasn't all that successful. but i'm very apprehensive about that and i do not understand why the incumbent president of the united states cannot even go down and take a look at the crisis on the border, and is shooting pool when he should be down there. and so -- [applause]

>> that's my view. >> mr. buchanan, my question is a counterfactual history question. if nixon would have won the eflex 1960 rather than jfk, would we have had a cuban missile crisis? we have had a bay of pigs and how would he have handled vietnam? now, we know from crush khrushchev's diaries and what have you, he thought john f. kennedy was a lightweight. i don't think he would have that that way about nixon. >> guest: aggrieve that cruz -- i believe that khrushchev saw kennedy hesitate, launched the bay of pigs, a complete debacle. then he ran into kennedy at vienna, and even kennedy himself said that khrushchev brutalized him. he didn't put up the berlin wall

and got no response except for kennedy called up my friends for one more year in the service, and that persuaded crews chef he could get away from putting missiles in cuba. he would have never done that under eisenhower and i don't think he would have done that itch richard nixon had won the election at all, and i don't think richard nixon would have sent those fellas into cuba unless he was determined that invasion would work. so i think it would have been a different situation undoubtedly. but we can't -- i can't know with regard to vietnam? i'll be honest, is a point out in my book, i supported the vietnam war as an editorial writer from 1962, supported kennedy in the missile crisis, and i think that the whole country at one point when johnson maybe was 65, but lyndon

johnson had the support of 70% of the country and the vietnam war was supported by 80% of the country. so i don't know with regard to vietnam, but i don't think khrushchev would have trifled with rich yard nixn the way he did with john f. kennedy. and you recall, brezhnev threatened in the yom kippur war -- there soviet airbornes moving to bases and soviet ships were coming, and some of them armed with nuclear weapons. you saw nixon had an all-out airlift to save israel. it was a very tough time. i was in the president's oval office just before the so-called saturday night massacre, talking about richardson coming in. i was in the oval office and

richardson was outside and nixon said there's no way i can be defied by a member of my own cabinet when you have russians looking at me and wondering whether i'm going stand tough in the middle east. so he had to get rid of richardson at that time. the ball had started rolling. i spent 45 minutes that day and i went out and saw my old friend, eliot, walking in to get his head chopped off. >> pat, over here to your right. a professor from break and, and he wants to ask a question about the future of u.s.-china relations. >> thank you, mr. buchanan. i'm a professor at universe in china, and i know that you were there from the very beginning of the relationships with china. if fixon were alive -- if nixon were alive today, what would he say about where the future relationship of both china and the u.s. are going in.

>> nixon, president nixon, again, in my book -- again, some of these thing is got by going back into my files and i hadn't real iowaed what was in there -- realized what was in there, and suggestions from thing is wrote to nixon. one of them i got out -- it said nixon wanted -- run down what rockefeller said on chinese. this is '67, i believe. so what? and when we ran it down, he wanted to know if rockefeller was in favor of recognizing china or moving to engage it. richard nixon believed very much that in the the united states and the soviet union and the united states and china, had to manage this relationship, which was going to be troublesome, and going to have a lot of rough spots, in such way that we never went to major war against each other. i mean, he really believed

that -- he believed in his own capacity to achieve this. now, i'm much more of a skeptic than richard nixon was. he did believe he could create a generation of peace. and i think china was a very large part of it. how did he manage the relationship now with china and japan? i think he would be talking seriously and strongly and directly to the chinese, not to ruin all of the benefits that have come out of the relationship as it has grown in the 40-plus years since he went there. and that's all i can say. but he was very proud of the fact that he had opened china up and he had gone there to the people's republic. >> in the middle of the room, our final question from a young man from laguna nigal. >> with what is going on in the

middle east and the united states and russia seem bows playing this game of tactics or whatever you want to call it, you mentioned before that egypt was removed from the eastern bloc and into the west. now it seems that that's either going to be slowly going back and the other middle eastern states are going back to russia. how do you see that playing out? when you watch these things, what's going through your mind? you watched it go the other way. >> my view is -- i don't -- my view of the russians is different than a number of folks. i think putin -- there's no question he wants crimea back. putin to me is responding to what happened when his guy basically in kiev, whom he had cut a deal with, to have them -- ukraine come into his economic union, was dumped over by the crowds in the streets in kiev

that were encouraged by the united states and mccain and all the others. i think he saw that as sort of like a coup d'etat, managed by the americans, which tore away -- he said they're not going to get my naval base we have had for 200 years, and salute nato soldiers. so he got that back. i don't see him as the big player in the middle east. i don't see russia as the big player in the middle east at all. i think the middle east in a way is going its own way. it is in the -- it looks to me -- you can fine out what's going on in the middle east by studying the 30-year war in europe, catholics and president -- protestants and the temperature turmoil, and i think that that is going of its own -- that sort of started on its own track, the middle east. but ukraine, i'm a little

apprehensive over -- it's a terrible horror that took place with that downing of the aircraft. but that is -- the downing of the aircraft -- it was not deliberate mass murder but no doubt the folks are dead. somebody made a horrendous military backgrounder and brought that down, and now putin is on the spot, and many republicans are calling for weapons the ukraine but if you encourage the ukrainians to arbabsiar their provinces and humiliate the russians you putting putin at a point where he has to respond, and if the ukrainians try to take back crimea, there's going be a war and ukrainians are going to lose, and if we put a lot of weaponry and everything else in there with the ukrainians, you'll find the united states and russia face-to-face there. so, i'm very apprehensive over what is going on in ukraine. with regard to the middle east, i just don't think the united states should go back in there

with more and more troops. why if the iraqi army will not even fight and defend mosul, should american troops have to fight and die to retrieve it for them? [applause] >> that's my view. i see the guy who -- ron sieger stops the press conference. >> thank you. thank you, pat buchanan. let's show our appreciation for a great presentation. [applause] >> pat, don't leave before i present you with our great gift, what would nixon do mug, we expect to see you using that on the mclaughlin group and other places. thank you for coming, you and shelly know this is your home away from home so please come back. ladies and gentlemen, pat will

be in the front lobby signing your books which coincidentally are now on sale in our museum store. for those on television, if you would like an autographed book you can order it via nixonfoundation.org. thank you for coming, god bless you and god bless america. >> interested in american history? watch american history television on c-span3 every weekend. 48 hours of people and event that help document the american story. visit c-span.org/history for more information. >> pleased now to be joined on our set outside of the history and biography room, by former justice of the supreme court, sandra day o'connor. this is her fifth book, stories from the history of the supreme court, out of order, just cities o'connor. five books. when did you discover you

enjoyed writing? >> guest: all you do as a justice is write. so nothing changed there. there were just lots of things to write about and tell about. >> host: what are you doing at the book festival today? i don't think you're talking about your book. >> guest: no, not really. i know jim billington, who is head of the library of congress, and my brother has a new book out, and so jim billings told me i had to bring my brother, so i said i would, and that's why we're here. >> you were in conversation with allen day, who is your brother. what is his book about? >> guest: well, about -- for a long time he had some wild horses, most of them in the country, and he had two ranches up in north dakota, where he could take these horses and keep them for a while, and the federal government had the responsibility for them, so they paid something for the care of