>> host: author craig shirley you've written for biographies of ronald reagan. >> guest: the chapters in his life the first book i ever did was reagan's revolution and that was in 1976 after gerald ford to which he narrowly lost in 1976 and the next look was about the 1980 campaign and that took four years to complete.

i have another book called last act which is about reagan's postelection years. no one has ever done a book on his postelection years and what he did. there was a lot of living that went onn for 13 years after he left the presidency and then passed away. he flew hot air balloons. long before he contracted alzheimer's and then i finally did another book on reagan. this is about -- reagan rising in the period between 1976 and 1980. it was a very important time for the conservative movement and american politics. the panama canal treaty and as an issue in tax cuts raising is an issue. all sorts of issues and of course at the time he had jimmy

carter to push against so he was advocating a certain view of government and conservatives were pushing back with a different view of government so was an important time for the american conservative movement led mostly by ronald reagan definitely the panama canal treaty helped propel him to the 1980 election and so now i'm working on two more books on reagan including his real true ideology and another one on reagan's skills as a negotiator. he is underappreciated in that regard. he was skillful. he was in the screen actors guild and both with tip o'neill and mccaleb gorbachev. he was underappreciated for many

regards and one of them was as a negotiator. it's been a fun ride. they are a number of good storiesf that i am proud to be part of the ranks. >> host: craig shirley when you talk about when you talk about israel ideology? >> guest: that's a good question, peter. reagan was never as conservative as conservatives wanted him to be. he was much more pragmatic and much more temperate in his outlook on the world than a lot of conservatives wanted him to be. he negotiated treaties with mchale gorbachev including the elimination of thousands of nuclear warheads and when he ran on the missile in the 1980 part

of this campaign was was that we were behind the soviets and we need to t catch up and we needed to catch up to the negotiating table and to agree to reduce nuclear armaments. he was proven right of course and it only took eight years really before we saw the winnins of the cold war and the destruction of the soviet union. >> host: craig shirley in year look last actas you talk about e emerging legacy. what does that mean? the >> guest: oh the emerging legacy. it's interesting because in webster's dictionary there is not obama-ism and there is not bush-ism and there is not trumpism but there is reaganism. reaganism he would contend and a lot of scholars would contend

and i contend it's a separate and distinct individual ideology in itself more of a hybrid between libertarianism, conservatism and other elements that go into it. it was his own philosophy and he enacted much of it when he was president. not all of it to be sure but he had a different view of the world then most other politicians did at the time or even now and there's nobody who's shadow is cast more over the republican party and ronald reagan. he is the uber leader and he has eclipsed even i think abraham lincoln as the icon for the republican party. >> host: somewhat argue that ronald reagan and nick gingrich

who you've also readit about in donald trump are the outside figures of the modern republican party. would you agree with that? >> guest: i absolutely agree with that. they certainly are. gingrich and the revolution of 1984 trump and his populist revolution four years ago. all of them represent different periods of time and philosophies of republicanism and i hate this phrase big temp but it's the big 10 of ideology with abraham lincoln down through the ages. >> host: when did you first meet ronald reagan craig shirley? >> guest: i first met ronald reagan in 1978. i was working on a campaign in gordon humphrey was considered by everybody at the time as a

longshot and actually handed up winning over the incumbent by 6000 votes and reagan came up and campaigned -- it was new hampshire so is an important primary state the first in the nation at the time and reagan needed to win new hampshire in 1980 and he came up for gordon humphrey and the gentleman running for re-election at the time. he came into the new hampshire hotel and did film commercials for gordon humphrey. he was accompanied by two aides who quickly disappeared so governor reagan and i just sat there inn the lobby and were in complete awe of this man. he was completely friendly and

completely jovial. we talked about high school and college sports while we liked what we played and he was utterly charming utterly kind and here i was this 21-year-old kid talking to the national leader of american conservatism at the time and a leading senator for the republican nomination and he showed me nothing but kindness and generosity of spirit. those are memories that will be with me for the rest of my life. josé talked about how you sat down in the hotel lobby and chatted but you also recount and the last act the story about hi, post-presidency office and the phones were up correctly. >> guest: yes, that was a story that president reagan's chief of staff they had rented

office space for former president reagan in century city and ironically there was a terrorist disaster. it was in the building and the office is being assembled and the reagan's, reagan was not supposed to be in office for several weeks or months. he had his own house in bel-air and did lots of interviews and he showed up at the office and here i am, what am i supposed to do?

he hastily ran around and rearranged the boxes and set them up in the office. he had a phone and a pad of paper and they thought he'd be okayht for short time. but the phones had been routed incorrectly so they were going to the reception desk, they were going to g the office and he answered every one and even if joe was calling a wanted his picture taken with the president reagan would write it down and came out a couple of hours later and handed the list of craig ryan and said these people want to meet witheo you. but everybody he took down was called back and got their pictures taken with ronald reagan except for one fellow. after he was on the list he

wanted to come back and bring one of his neighbors and he said no. once is enough so he didn't get thee chance to come back a secod time. >> host: sub through what are some of the topline things in your view that ronald reagan accomplished as governor of california for eight years and is president for eight years? the >> guest: well he was a nail fight and thought he would do a lot more than the action he didd in his first several years and he started to address the affairs of government more diligently and was able to -- he enacted the huge tax rebate at the time in 1970 something like $500 million which it was an the time.of money at

there were many antiwar protests going on at berkeley and other campuses. there's one story there that perhaps is apocryphal but reagan was at a college campus and there is a hippie carrying a sign and the sign said make love, not war and reagan looked at the sign in turn to his agent said from the looks of him i don't think -- [inaudible] he had tried to regan is government and welfare and he was a very successful governor. at the time california was the sixth largest economy in the world. think of that. just one state alone the sixth

largest economy. he reformed welfare and police protection was boosted to a greater degree. he listened to their concerns and their complaints not that he could actually do anything about vietnam but it meant a lot that he would talk to young people. he did a weekly show called students ask governor reagan a weekly television show and he would talk to high school and college students and answer other question which was unheard ofwe at the time. he actually loved it and he was quite able to handle all of their questions.

the "l.a. times" when reagan left the presidency it was very rough and reagan for eight years but they acknowledged that save the state from bankruptcy because when he became governor he was running a million-dollar day deficit and increasing by a million dollars a day and he turned it around in eight years into a surplus and save the state from bankruptcy. but as president it was exactly what he said he was going to do. when he ran in a teenage -- 1980 he wanted to turn around the economy. he was going to restore american morale. he did exactly all those things. as we all know he defeated soviet communism and the cold war. inflation when he was running in 1980 and his rates were something like 18% and inflation

was almost tied. the value of the dollar was at work today what it was yesterday so it was really devastating to people's savings especially senior citizens. turn around the economy and created jobs. when he left office inflation was up 4.7% and the restored american morale. his approval raiding from all americans with something like 73%. when he left office in january of 1989 his approval raiding was 70% and it was higher even than fdr's when fdr passed away in april of 1945. it was higher than dwight eisenhower's. it was the highest in a long

long time and he is remembered as one of the -- presidents along with lincoln and franklin roosevelt. >> host: he's been a lot of time talking about deficits but they grew under his stewardship. >> guest: that's true peter. he wrote in his memoirs they were at two things he was disciplined at best disappointed and that he couldn't do more in an one with the deficit and the other was abortion. on the other hand the deficit is explainable as what we know was the peace dividend. it was necessary to build up america's defense and flashed and cut for years during his time in the presidency. gerald ford i jimmy corder --

jimmy carter --/national defense. there were many in 1980 hurrah stamps. the soviets were practicing their newest technology including the bomber which was supersonic and quite deadly. that was his commitment. and a stronger sense this was the deltas of that was created but millions of people have been imprisoned between the iron curtain in poland and other countries and russia itself that

it was a price worth paying. 3 million people were present behind the iron curtain. closely you talked about him being more pragmatic than he was given credit for. is h that going to hurt his legy among conservatives? >> guest: i don't think so. i think his legacy is pretty well cemented among conservatives. his library in simi valley and california still the most visited library, the most visited presidential library in all of america. some call it the reagan library which is not correct by the way. simi valley is off the beaten path somewhat inured more people go there then go to the kennedy library for the clinton library

or the bush library. he still remains to this day. popular president. >> host: in march ofof this year your wrote to nays that reagan was a populist but he had the articulation and intellect of a -- and reagan like trump ran at a time when many americans also had grievances against the establishment. unlike trump he made every talking point and every speech uplifting something trump could never do if his life depended on it. guess you are yes, yes. i'm glad you quoted that. that's the central difference between trump and reagan. reagan first of all was reelected and trump wasn't. second of all reagan have a much higher approval raidingg than donald trump and third of almost

of trump's legacy is derived from ronald reagan, the idea of conservative judges more tax cuts not just to stimulate the economy but stood for personal freedom and increase the power of the individual. that is what he was about. there was a time in 1981 after he was elected president just after he was sworn in and he was meeting with a group of conservatives and he told them yeah it was really about extending personal freedom. he knew t his power was finite. you can't put it here or there. he wanted to go back to the time of the founders and framers and give the active citizenry more power and more of their own

money. that was a real motivating force along with tax cuts was expanding the power of the individual. you know you look at his speeches and how many times he uses the word individual or individuality or something other. this was the core of his philosophywa was a small respectful government that could govern this country. that wasve his philosophy and it became his philosophy starting in the 1940s and it evolved over the 40s and 50's and i'd say in 1980 he had been a social

conservatives. >> host: was in 2017 that your local reagan rising the years 1976 to 198097 came out. i want to play a little bit of video from 1976 in kansas city. >> if i could just take a moment i had an assignment the other day. someone asked me to write a letter for a time capsule that's going to be open and los angeles 100 years from now in our centennial. sounded like an easy assignment and they suggested i write something about the problems and issues of the day and i said i would do so writing down the automobile mccain at the blue pacific island with amounts on the othern side and that could help wonder if it was 100 years from then and as i tried to write you are going to write for people 100 years from now.

will they look back with appreciation and say thank god for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom to this 100 years later free, who kept their world from nuclear destruction. and if we fail they probably won't get to read the letter at all because it spoke of individual freedoms and they won't be allowed to talk about or read of it. this is our challenge. this is why here in this hall tonight better than we have ever done before we got to quit talking to each other and about each other and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in numbers than we have w ever been but we carry te message they are waiting for. we must go forth from here united, determined and what a great general said a few years ago is true. there is no substitute for victory.

[applause] >> host: craig shirley what did you here quite >> guest: tinges thing that speech was so, so important for reagan's future. first of all i wasn't there in 1976 at the kemper arena which is now since gone destroyed in a tornado some years ago. i was working my way through college and i wasay slinging hah at a restaurant in cape cod but my wife was there. she was working for the campaign and she was on the floor that night and she told me repeatedly many times we talked about it, she said it was the most brilliant reagan speech but i

wrote the book -- and if field director was on the floor also and standing next to someone from florida. after reagan gave a speech he muttered oh my god we have nominated the wrong man. at the time we needed 1130 votes for the nomination and he won by 50 or 60 delegates and lost it by 80 some so was very slim and very narrow. there have been accusations over the years that there were some hanky-panky in the new york delegation and a few other states but it was pretty clean as for as i could tell. there were accusations.

there were a lie detectors and one police i officer said polygraph tests came back negative. he said it was the first time i've ever heard a politician telling the truth. the speech itself is so important. reagan -- there were newspaper articles and columns at the time and "newsweek" had an article writing about reagan's political career. he was 65 years old and he had been around the track twice in 1968 and 1976 and both times he lost. most people assumed that he gave the speech and what's interesting is that fall he was

out campaigning across the nation. there were endorsements and fund-raisers and things like that and everywhere he went, everywhere he went police officers bell captains flight attendants joe citizen on the, street, everybody came up to him and said governor you've just got to wood run one more time. i think that convinced him to try one more time and he wasn't going to try. that was probably it for him but there was one time he was on an airplane and people were coming onto the plane and this woman came on and she embraced him and she said oh governor you've got to do it just one more time and sitting next to him -- before he

passed away i interviewed him and he told me the story. he was sitting next to governor reagan and he turned to mike at the time and he said i guess i better do it one more time. so it was the outpouring of that speech and it's interesting because usually his intentions as a nominee who is the last speaker of the night but this night in kansas city it was ronald reagan -- ronald reagan who was the last speech and it was a last-minute idea. reagan was not supposed to speak to the audience but he was the head of a badly fractured party half were for gerald gerald ford and are for ronald reagan so at

the last minute they urged reagan to come down and reagan did interviews in kansas city and there was one interview with tom brokaw in the skybox which brokaw says -- and reagan says no but all of a sudden 17,000 people asked him to come to the stage along with the ford all the while chanting we want reagan, we want reagan, we want ron, we want ron ricci reluctantly leaves the skybox and goes to the podium and he is now prepared speech. it's not on the teleprompter all extemporaneous. can you imagine the pressure live on three networks giving a speech before 17,000 people in the home run box? it was said great review of

reagan's harpy talked about the soviet missiles being able to wipe out america in a matter of minutes. they told you what was really on reagan's mind and mike was accompanying reagan and the governor said tim mike what you think i should say he needs a governor you'll think of something. >> host: ronald reagan went on to win elections in 1980 and 1984. 1014 electoral votes and 62 total for jimmy carter and walter mondale. good afternoon and welcome to booktv on c-span2. this is our monthly "in depth" program with one author and the look at his or her entire body

of work. craig shirley is our guest. he has written seven books. we talked about some of the reagan books including reagan's revolution his first one i came out in 2005 rendezvous with destiny came out in 2009 and then he switched topics in december of 1941, 31 days that changed america that came out in 2011 we will be talking about that as well. the last act of final years in emergent -- emerging legacy of ronald reagan they came out in 2015. and a citizen newts to making other reagan legacy came out in 2017 in his most recent book is on mary ball washington the untold story of george washington's mother that came out in 2019 and we will be discussing that as well. this is an interactive program and we want to hear your voices

and here's the come participate in this this program if other craig shirley predicting call in (202)748-8200 if you live in eastern and central timezone. for those of you in the mountain pacific timezones (202)748-8201 and he can't get her on the phone lines and you want to participate you can do it in a variety of ways. number one the attacks than this number is only for text messages or please include your first name and city if he went through (202)748-8903 and will be looking at comments on our face but they don't our twitter page our instagram page. just remember @booktv is our handle their and finally you can e-mailnd but tv @c-span.org. we will be scrolling through all of those numbers and all those ways of contacting us in just a minute so you can participate

and we will be taking your calls in just a minuted as well. craig shirley in the midst of writing iger phase in ronald reagan do switch to december of 1941. what inspired back? >> guest: that is a good question. i remember at the time, i was born in the 50s and i obviously didn't remember world war ii but id had parents or grandparents who did and every sunday afternoon after church we had dinner at one of my grandparents house is and there were lace tablecloth and white linen napkins and they'd take ham or turkey were roast beef and invariably they would be various relatives and inevitably the conversation turned toward and my grandpa would say -- and

they would talk about their exploits and experiences because world war ii was a national experience. everybody sacrificed during the war. everybody had victory gardens. victory gardens accounted for one fourth of all vegetables grown in america for several years during world war ii and my father was a boy scout and the government used the boy scouts to hand out promotional posters atst restaurants and churches ad other locations where people gathered in a loose lips sink ships andhe other promotional posters and my mother had a victory garden. my grandfather started -- three

times in three times the draft board said you were 41 years old and you are lined as the dot we are not that desperate so trying and failing four t times, three times he became a civil -- civil service them. my grandmothers are both rosie the riveters. one grand mirror what does -- grandmother was a specter but i can imagine what a lawman specter would do that they were inspection machine there's in new york and they would come down recently line and she picked one up and setan it down and fire at the target and set it down. i saw one time her industry badge and things like that but everybody in my family including my uncle who paid the ultimate

sacrifice, my father was too young for wolves were to ensue asd his brother ronnie but ther oldest brother barney was a navy rig operator and was killed in action in the pacific. they were shot down when they were making a bombing run and southeast asia. ironicallye he was killed on hs 21st birthday in 1945. barney became a cherished memory for all of us and he still is today. they used to talk about their gas rationing and your meat rationing and bread. there was pearl harbor obviously

[inaudible] but they never talked about the effect december 7 heavenn civilian americans and how america changed literally overnight and i meangh literally overnight and how the war impacted the national mood. something like three weeks after pearl harbor ford motor company and fischer auto body parts and goodyear rubber stopped making cars and by the way they issued proclamationsoc on how many you could use.

they stopped making cars on the orders of united states government started making b-20 five bombers out of fabricated auto parts. you couldn't use -- the government sent out a memo to radio operators and radio station holders you cannot use video owners and operators. you can't use them for promotional purposes. you can do that. he couldn't ride cast. they took a loose lips sink ships quite literally and gave instructions to these radio stations on what they could and couldn't o say and everybody followed the orders because they believed their mission was at risk and the nation was being

threatened. it's fascinating how much, how homogenous our nation was in 1941 versus today. the only thing i compare to obviously is september 11 when the planes ran into the world trade center and the pentagon and their national units only lasted for a couple of months and they soon bickered among themselves over union issues. we stayed unified as the nation the day after december 7 and stay that way until 1945 when the japanese finally surrendered to douglas macarthur in world war ii. >> host: craig shirley the

book is divided by day and the first was december 31. have prepared was the united states on december 1 for a major war and how much of a surprise to the american government was december 7? the. >> we were not prepared at all. we had come within one vote a month earlier to dissolve or standing army and they believed was october of 1940. dissolving the standing army which would have sent hundreds of thousands home at the time who were not radel tested but they were trained. we had powder keg airplanes. we were not prepared for war at all.

our government was interestingly enough and something we discovered that the fdr library my son and he was my head researcher on this book and he went to the fdr library in upstate new york at fdr so many came across a memo from the officer of naval intelligence written on december 4, 1941 a 17 page memo stamped top secret and it was declassified in the 70s but it was sitting around gathering dust. enter found it and three days before the attack this memo from the office of the naval college v. gave out in detail -- so the office of naval intelligence did

an assessment of where the japanese might attack including the panama canal wake island the philippines and indonesia and the hawaiian islands. this memo was given to the president three days before and no action was taken to send the world a warning out to our field commanders on december 6, 1941 that it was not a disclosure of your ships a and planes to minimize attack and all the things they should have notified of the they weren't. this memo interestingly enough wasin unnoticed until andrew fod it at fdr's library in new york.

>> host: how was the economy? the eight years at the air at that point in what was the economic situation in america? >> guest:t: it really, it's a nuanced answer. i will take a minute here to answer. the new deal as an economic strategy was a failure. unemployment in 1933 was almost as -- as it was in 1941 and it had been before the work of the new deal which was good because it gave people hope and that's important. always important because without hope there is no future. economy itself did improve. there were some mistakes and one was smoot-hawley which raised

tariffs on people coming into united states and fdr didn't cut taxes. there were so much money in circulation and the other thing to us the failure of the new deal in my opinion was focused on production rather than consumptioncu and to achieve a growing economy uniquean consumption. it's not enough to -- you have two sell it and use it. so ford or gm could make all the cars they want and they did but if people don't have the money to buy one then it's beside the point. until the advent of -- was when the u.s. economy really started

to perk up. the and the japanese inan the pacific and they were consuming american products that they were either borrowing or dying or we were donating. the american economy began to perk up because we were producing items that were being consumed by the british economy. we moved into mass production of ships and planes and guns and uniforms and foodstuffs and all that and everything was devoted toward the war effort.

everything that was humanly thought of was made by the national government and the american people. >> host: craig shirley before we got before we go to calls it should be noted you are not a full-time author. >> guest: i also, i wear many hats as a matter of fact. i used to coach youth and high school coach in a few years ago i was going to finish up innate -- and i also own a small public relations firm here in virginia with conservative foundations and think tanks and authors. and shirley and mcvicker and

mys partner mcvicker. never miss the payroll of 35 years. i'm also a farmer. >> host: let's hear from our callers. a little bit of american legal history and world war ii history. michael lind deerfield beach, florida. hi michael. >> caller: hi. you guys are always so amazing. reagan was so amazing because of his popularity and i think it was his positive conservatism my opiniontunate in to the democrats is the same as trump the trump is different and reagan was -- but it needs a more precise metaphor which

would be a precise temperature control otherwise it's solid as eyes but it was slushy. what i mean is the balance between positivism group interestre in abundance versus fear a mindset of scarcity. right now in our current contest with trumpism we are seeing a mortal battle in some cases of one versus the other and what he had a sense of what was most important is they needed temperature control. he mentions -- and they created this thing by the governor. the governor was their social context. >> host: hey michael before we get too deep there. quickly you are a fan of ronald reagan and not so much of donald trump, is that correct collects >> caller: correct.

>> host: thank you sir. let's hear from craig shirley. >> guest: thank you for your interest and i'm in that same camp myself as a fan of reagan and someone who grew to admire reagan. donald trump did have a varied good story to tell as president and hisfo handling of the vaccinations and deregulation. there were some issues that i take issue with him on in a take issue to his personal behavior as far as what he has said and the comment he made which in my opinion were very presidential. and that's his legacy so it still to be determined before

irrational address it but it was simply a detour in time or was it something more important? i tend to lean more that it was something more important but in a shorter nuanced contexts. right now we are moving to the left ever since george w. bush back in 1988 and his son and clinton barack obama and others moving to the left where as we were moving to the right before that. there was a rhythm and american presidencies that we go through. i agree with michael that

reagan's legacy is important and by the way i'm writing two more books. i just finished april 1945 and that is the canyon but to my book december 1941 and the reason i did this book 1945 is almost everything happened in 45 including franklin roosevelt passing away in hyde park new york in his boyhood home. mussolini being taken down by the mob and okinawa island which was the final staging before the invasion of japan and auschwitz was discovered that cow was discovered and allied troops most especially the troops

closing in on berlin and there were just so many things have happened which is why devote the time with this book really comes out early next year. >> host: you -- u.n. ashland virginia. >> caller: thank you for this wonderful program. it's interesting to look back andst see a lot of things that e aren't aware of and and i hope that mr. shirley will bring more things at a positive way. i the poem in the reagan library. i can give it to you to see the proclamation he made where he proclaimed number 5139, where he proclaimed december 13th, 1983,

national care and share day asking nonprofits to do what they can to help the less fortunate. that's a positive message that needs to come out even more in these times. i did to see if he could comment on two people. i received a letter from a friend of president reagan, charles wick, who headed the information agency, related information i sent to him concerning the company of the future now in the early 80s and roy:had a relationship, charles was introduced him to president reagan but ray cohen was donald trump's maine mentor. i want it to see if he knew much about those two gentlemen? >> guest: charles wick was an old and dear friend of the

reagans, the hollywood days with the reagans, later involved in a political framework, reagan appointed him to not radio free europe the other broadcasting part of the government. they were very very close and they use to spend christmas together every year. reagan was particularly fond of charlie rick and his wife. they were close politically and geographically. as far as roy cohan, when you are president of the united states a lot of people come away thinking the president is going to take their advice and

listen to some, and and was important to joe mccarthy in the senate subcommittee investigating sabotaging the united states government during the red scare in the early 50s, but don't want to test this version of those who passed away but he was a self promoter and he made himself more important to reagan than he really was. reagan had his framework how to run the country and govern the country and his worldview was already set. there is little you could point to that he had any influence over. he simply met him once or twice

and that was about it. there were several letters. invitations to nancy reagan when they were in new york and the political analysis was to stay away from him, give them as wide a birth as possible. his influence is pretty outsized considering who reagan was at his advice he took. >> host: bowl is in sylvester, georgia. >> caller: thank you, it is wonderful program. the first thing, i live down the street from pearl harbor, a battle that commended the uss ward, decided the major japanese submarine that morning, the other thing i want

to ask him one of the books you wrote about reagan between 76 and 80, i remember reagan debating bill buckley about the camera part -- panama canal treaties elevating reagan international status in his own party. >> it sure did, go ahead. >> host: his son, your turn. >> guest: the panama canal treaties, everybody was talking about it in 1977, 1978. they had gone back when the isthmus of panama was dug out under teddy roosevelt's administration and the panama canal was created. over the 70s, 1960s in 70s we had control and jurisdiction over the panama can now.

there was this anti-imperialism belief or theme in america is that we should return the rights of the sovereignty of the canal to the panamanian people but panama at the time was being run by a dictator who reagan referred to as a tin headed dictator but there was a great debate inside the republican party over the panama canal treaty. reagan was supposed to relinquishing the treaties to the panamanians. the other conservator in favor,

reagan was leading a national campaign against the treaties and he participated in the panama now squad, there was much deeply in the senate and national coalition and newspapers and it gripped the nation for a long period of time, and passed the senate, past that by one vote so the jurisdiction of the panama canal was returned to the panamanian people. reagan used it to maximum advantage to keep himself in

the public eye and keep himself focused on a public issue requiring the imagination of millions of americans and it really helped him and it helped the republican party. i remember my interview about president carter for my book "rendezvous with destiny: ronald reagan and the campaign that changed america," he pointed out every democrat and republican who voted for the panama canal treaties lost in 1978-1980 and he felt as a result of voting for those treaties, it was an issue in the country at the time. this was just after the vietnam war and watergate and became an issue of national pride. the panama can now, my grandmother was high about it at the time because she grew up in an era where the panama canal was talk to her as one of the 5 wonders of the world and

was important to the american people. we conquered malaria because of it. out but schweitzer, and tried and failed to build the panama canal, we were successful and it was important to the american people psychologically to hold on to the panama can now and it became an issue, not a complex issue, wasn't about american imperialism, just american sovereignty and rights and the soviets were itching to have the panama now so they could easily move their fleet between the atlantic and pacific ocean. it was a hot issue at the time

and i salute your neighbor and thank your neighbor whose panama city now survivor. it is a wonderful thing he did and a great sacrifice he made so thank you to him. >> host: we have one hour left with father craig shirley. here is how you can participate, 200 to the area code for our numbers, 748-8200 for those of you in the east and central time zones. if you are out west you can dial in at 202-748-8201. if you can't get through on the phone lines or would prefer to send a text or written message we can do that in many ways, our text number for texts only, include your first name and city, 202-748-8903. when it comes to social media if you would like to make a comment,@booktv is what you need to remember.

email, booktv@c-span.org. dirksen senate office building 0 -- craig shirley, we referenced william f buckley but i want to ask about him and milton friedman and their effects on ronald reagan's thinking. >> guest: it can't be measured. reagan was a personal friend of bill buckley's, they exchanged many many letters and bill buckley was also a friend of mrs. reagan, nancy reagan and they shared a lot of letters, got together socially and things like that and the national magazine, it cannot be underestimated in its role in the conservative movement beginning in the 1950s and defining conservatism and rejecting john burke society

and other things like that as part of the american conservative movement, they were extremely close friends and also milton friedman won the nobel prize for economics what he's teaching at the university of chicago, was a national celebrity. in the 70s when pbs was running a series on economics contained a lot of interviews with friedman but speaking in spite of reagan's policies including tax cuts and budget policies that helped restart the economy as a means of adding dollars to the workplace. >> guest: the reverend robert hyde from syracuse, new york,

emails in to you, what was nancy reagan's role in his success and what do you think of karen multi-apps new biography of her? >> i haven't read the book yet. i'm sure it is a very good book. she is a good reporter with the washington post. i've known her for years and what was the first part of the question? >> host: what nancy reagan's role was in ronald reagan -- >> host: nancy reagan was invaluable to ronald reagan. if reagan wanted to be best shoes salesman in the world she would have made sure he was the best shoes salesman in the world. he wanted to be president of the united states. she was not a cookie baker, she was a traditionalist, she was

elegant, she was beautiful and she had a very good mind on her folders and a lot better antenna for detecting people who were using reagan to their benefit. and she was good at keeping people away who were not going to help her husband or were going to hurt her husband. she famously was involved in sacramento when he was governor and more so when he was president of the united states, true partnership, one of the great romances of white house history going back to george and martha washington. some presidential couples are more estranged than others but they were normally a loving

couple, the same bed together and things like that but a political team. her influence was much more subtle vanilla roosevelt's was, but she was equally effective as the first lady was not as effective as owner roosevelt but she was very effective. mrs. reagan was wonderful to me over the years. i remember when i was starting my first book on the 76 campaign i was having trouble with the reagan library and she caught wind of it through a mutual friend of mine who has since passed away, who was a friend of mine and no book had been written on the 76 campaign, one of the most

thrilling campaigns we ever had. all the gubernatorial presidential campaigns. it was exciting. these files the library had been sealed and hadn't been catalogued, weren't a priority like the presidential files were but to open up the policy for my exclusive use for my book on the 76 campaign. i will be forever and ever to mrs. reagan and on her memory. >> booktv has covered karen tumbledy on the biography of nancy reagan. we covered her at an event at the ronald reagan library. in montgomery, alabama. please go ahead. >> caller: good show, gentlemen. i'm celebrating my sixteenth birthday today and i wanted to

share a story i remember my dad saying in regard to fdr and the day of infamy. he had two other brothers and four sisters and i remember him saying he had one of his siblings, one of my aunts driving on their way to see my grandparents, and the bulletin came over the car radio that the japanese had bombed pearl harbor and my dad and my aunt looked at each other and were thinking the same thing. there oldest brother was a chief petty officer stationed on parole so a lot of things were going through their mind. my grandparents did not have a radio so my dad and my aunt decided not to say anything to them when they arrived. likely mild goal called.

it was an inordinate amount of time they heard from him. you can imagine what they went through. as time went on, my grandparents got worried the japanese burned pearl harbor. my uncle called and he was in sick bay is a recovering from an appendectomy, thank god he was safe. >> host: can you bring this to a wrap? >> yes. so basically nationalism was running very good. my other aunts worked in a cheese factory making military belts in connecticut. my other two uncles, my dad served in the marines, my uncle in the navy and my other uncle in the army. it was a time of being proud to be an american and i want to

say thank you for writing about world war ii, it was the greatest generation. >> in montgomery, alabama, anything you want to add to that? >> guest: thank you for your service. it was a time of great patriotism and great sacrifice. every family sacrificed in world war ii in large and small ways, sent his son off to war or brother off to more, or they had victory gardens or sacrificed or taxes or bought bonds but everybody made some type of sacrifice in world war ii. a remarkable time which we probably will never see again in this country, not that level of focus.

>> host: an email from mark. do you think carter would have been reelected over reagan if the iran hostage rescue operation eagle claw and succeeded in 1979? >> good question. it is hypothetical obviously. in this book and other writings i talk to president carter about that. i think it is possible he might have won, the wave of euphoria on release of the hostages. might from the election on. on the other hand eagle claw, months before the election and people start to focus on the

real issues at hand, high inflation, unemployment, soured relations with the soviet union and other things claimed as failures on the carter administration so i'm not sure. if anything it may have made the election closer. it may have been lower for ronald reagan than it was in 1980. >> ellen in brighton beach, florida, good afternoon. >> caller: i just wanted to tell you something and ask a question, when i was 6 weeks old my father took me to hear roosevelt declare war and my father and three brothers subsequently served a, one getting 13 medals but my question is about breckenridge won.

in 1935 in april we found out about auschwitz and dachau. i understand the state department knew about it all the time going back to the 1930s and almost single-handedly kept the information from going to any newspapers. are you familiar with that story? >> i think your present family for their commitment to the war and one thing you mentioned was franklin roosevelt. i don't think it did president roosevelt justice. the new deal was economic failure. it was still a social morass, success and fdr's greatest success was in defeat of the empire of japan and nazi

germany and winston churchill, literally saved the world and saved europe and saves america and saves the pacific from the axis powers so no amount of praise can be heaped on franklin roosevelt for what he did in world war ii whereas the new deal, there is no debate. the recently won world war ii. and that story, there is no evidence to prove it. auschwitz was first opened in

1933 or 1935 or something like that. the us government may have known about these things, probably knew about these things but there's no paper trail to follow, nobody to talk to about this so i had to rely on what was available to me at the time which was fdr documents, truman administration documents documents of newspapers and things like that and that is when auschwitz and the other camps were discovered, was in early 1945. it would be the subject of a very good book or article or speech or discussion over when the united states knew about auschwitz and if so why they move to stop it earlier. that is a very worthy topic of discussion.

>> host: your book "citizen newt: the making of a reagan conservative" came out, is newt gingrich a friend of yours? >> yes i consider him a friend, i don't know if he considers me a friend. was an authorized biography, three four years to finish it. it is about his time, his childhood in 1994, established himself as one, certainly one of the leading political figures in america today. you have to think long and hard to come up with the someone who had as much influence over the national political debate is newt gingrich has had and still has today with regular commentaries and social media comments and fox news and his columns and speeches.

he was cooperative in this book, i had a limited access to him and his papers, to talk to him about everything going on in his campaigns, as house minority leader, how he constructed the contract with america and basically we talk about everything. we talk about reagan, we talk about gorbachev, we talk about clinton, what he thought of clinton, how gore and so you have to go back to henry clay who was speaker of the house in 1820s or 30s to find a national political for you with as much effect on the political debate and not the president of the united states as these two gentlemen, henry clay and newt

gingrich and his place in history, the conservative movement and national political debate, his place in history has issued? >> you think nancy pelosi has the same status today? >> as a woman yes. she's not an idea factory the way gingrich is or was but she probably understands power better than he does, she was never run out as speaker or challenged as speaker, her authority is supreme and certainly this from a political standpoint, an admirable woman and has done much with her two 10 years as speaker of the house, she didn't do the revolutionary things gingrich

did. gingrich reform the house post office and the house bank and went after corruption left and right in his own party and the other party much more so than anybody else did, much more so than nancy pelosi did. they are similar and they are different. she understands power better than he does, he understands ideology and movements better than she does. >> in 2018 in the atlantic this was written about newt gingrich, few figures in modern history have done more than gingrich to lay the groundwork for trump's arise, during his two decades in congress he pioneered a style of partisan combat replete with name-calling, conspiracy theories and strategic obstructionism that poisons america's political culture and plunged washington into permanent dysfunction.

>> i reject that. animosity because the two will parties going back to the civil war when they literally went to war with each other, the democrats were proslavery and republicans were anti-slavery and 600,000 men died as a result of the fight between two political parties. newt gingrich is not to blame for that he is a tough fighter, went after corruption when he saw it in defendant people who needed defending and saw that too. his motives were most if not all your. i talk to many people who work for newt gingrich and talk to

him at nauseum and came to the conclusion, a good man who because he has been so successful invites criticism and sort of like a critic would be a liberal and is envious or bus opposed to newt gingrich's ideas and strategies and philosophies. >> host: pat in keyport, new jersey go ahead with your question or comment for arthur craig shirley. >> caller: it -- former presidents to give speeches, what you look at now 30 years after the fact, ronald reagan taking one or $2 million for a couple speeches in japan, was that an presidential, unseemly?

>> do you think it was? >> i look askance at this. i don't know what to think of it seeing how other former presidents like the clintons cashed in on the presidency. this is the first one i remembered in my lifetime. >> a good question. may be if i was there advising him, i would advise him, he needed the money at the time, i know that, the japanese were willing to pay it so why not? on the other hand, probably for a momentary time in history diminished the luster of his legacy but not completely, only in a transitory sense. you still regarded one of our greatest presidents and this is not topic a, usually it is iran

contra when people raise a question about the reagan presidency or his hard-line early on with the soviet union or whatever are the points as opposed to his first presidency but i understand your concern and it is a valid one and one that i don't have an answer to unless there was a time i'd been in a position to advise him i may have advised him to do something different. >> host: what is your take on iran contra and ronald reagan? >> guest: it was unusual, honest for hostages, it was illegal into the boeing amendment and the logan act by an individual engaged in

foreign policy and oliver north, lieutenant colonel oliver north who was out of control, operating out of the basement of the white house, there was a turnover in the chief of staff position, supremely competent jim baker was a role model for the white house chief of staff to don regan who was supremely incompetent and was fired by reagan. the phone on mrs. reagan earned her iron justifiably, he had his own personal staff, still equipped to serve the president of the united states, his chief of staff, at the end reagan took responsibility, it happened on my watch.

the argument is whether reagan knew about it or not. reagan said he didn't and he wrote in his diaries he was mad at oliver north on this deal, the logs did not show all of her north there to brief ronald reagan, the proof was on reagan's side but it is a black eye on his administration, intentions of freeing hostages in the middle east, tugged that reagan's heartstrings, the hostages being tortured, nobody profited from iran contra or made money. it was a violation of the boeing amendment and reagan

took his lumps and it was something that needs to be considered when considering all the aspects of his presidency. in 1986 his popularity, 65% approval, 45% approval because of the controversy over iran contra, cost a lot of staff people their jobs justifiably or not and months long debate in washington in the united states before the matter was cleared up. >> before we ran out of time we have half an hour left and i want to get your most recent book, "mary ball washington: the untold story of george washington's mother". you write mary washington was a woman who used a façade of motherly virtue to cover her

desire to control her son in the same way that humana country to break away from its overbearing imperial matron george had to struggle to find independence in his own life, to step away from the power of his demanding mother. how were you able to discover that? >> through letters, books, contemporaneous accounts and the obvious truth like for instance when washington was 14 years old, the american colonies were under british rule and he wanted to enlist in the british navy, mary wrote a letter to her relative that came back and said under no circumstances let george become

a cabin boy, he will be treated terribly. there was a cast system in the society, the british navy, the royalty flourished, subjects and lesser people and way at the bottom of the list would have been american cabin boys and this is a time that british admiralty kept laws including one third of british cabin boys died at sea, washed overboard, killed in battle, caught scurvy, there were many ways british cabin boys, all have an boys in the british navy die at sea and they were serving with some really s who were

drunkards and bums and all sort of nature, going through brothels in london and grab men and train them to become seamen so he would have been with a really rough crowd, maybe dangerous crowd and in so doing she told him he wasn't going to become a british cabin boy and she changed the course of history with that decision and probably saved his life as well. there were other times in her life, she either changed the course of history or failure his wife were both. >> what got you started on mary ball washington? >> two of my favorite

presidents are george washington and ronald reagan because i fascinating, they both had many different interests and pursued many different careers, the military and politics and things like that. after i discovered others, books written about washington, it seemed pretty well. out but the thing to do a book about his mother because nobody had ever done a book about mary ball washington before and i was on the peninsula of virginia and the ball family, her descendents plastic a stage down there and there was a lot of paperwork, a lot of history, a lot of history including she died, mary herself died in her

80s of breast cancer. just a couple years ago, a woman who owned an empty store, she too died of breast cancer, and followed the genealogical trail. she had an enormous influence on her son her entire life and i to do to record, write this book about him, how he is influenced by her. she's a single mother raising six children a century that wasn't hospitable to women. in 1920, what we don't know, women in that era could not even own property, once they

were holding onto their property from a deceased husband to oldest son as she was doing with a dairy farm, holding it for washington, she was a strong and capable woman because she had to be strong and capable as a single mother. she again is somebody that is fascinating. you can't find everything out about her. i had to decide what to discover and things i couldn't discover and nobody can is where she is very. nobody knows where the mother george washington is buried. there are various theories,

meditation rock where she used to go, big outcropping of rocks. to think and meditate. she may have been buried there. she may have been buried in her cottage, nobody knows. i was limited in how much i can say about her because not everything is not about her like sarah roosevelt, we know everything about roosevelt's mother or other presidential mothers of the more recent era we know about them but mary ball washington we don't. >> host: stephen in latrobe, pennsylvania, go ahead. >> caller: appreciate you being on today and your insights and like to ask a question on the

more personal level for president reagan. my understanding that he appreciated his staff and when a staffer would have a significant event in their life such as a marriage or birth of a child that he would personalize something to the staffer. appreciate you answering that. >> host: reagan had a mixed in -- how do i say it -- debatable relationship with his staff. some staff he was indifferent, other staff he was intellectually curious or personally involved. on the issue of marriages come versus babies and things like that he was deeply involved. he would write the letter, bring them into the oval office for a photograph. there was a zone of privacy

around him and nancy reagan people couldn't penetrate. on the other hand, this was a very convivial letter, a very tender letters to people, giving them donations, there was one famous story when he was governor, he used to get up every morning and get a bench of letters every morning. he got hundreds of letters and staff would break it down, the hate letters, the love letters and people in need letters. he read one from a woman who was in need in indiana and she was raising two children by herself and having a difficult time. he wrote her a letter back and sent her a check for $100. she couldn't believe the president of the united states

would answer her letter and write her a check. yes, this is the president of the united states, ronald reagan's signature and reagan later next month was balancing his checkbook at his desk in the oval office had noticed this woman have not deposited the check so he got on the phone, the white house communications office is famous for -- he had brown hair, get her on the phone, 5 minutes later, her name, address or phone number, famous at tracking down people. they tracked this woman down and got her on the phone and he asked her why, she said i'm sorry, mister president but i want to keep this as a souvenir and reagan so i will send you a check but don't cash both of them.

there were moments of great tenderness, he would donate personal effects. there were many times a showed affection, warmth and kindness to people, for instance, the white house staff is big and complex and things like that but one department he loved it the most was the speechwriting department, probably had the best speechwriters in the history of america with the exception of ted sorensen, kennedy's speech writer but he had a marvelous set of speech rate is. not just order takers but a unique think tank inside the white house and they would come up with ideas and suggestions and tear down this wall and

things like that and came from those traders and sometimes reagan would accept them and sometimes he was involved in every one of them and he would edit and add and move paragraphs around and things like that and he was very involved with him and they really appreciated and loved ronald reagan. >> here's an email from margaret in a place you've probably been, dixon, illinois. thank you for your extensive information on ronald reagan. i live in dixon, illinois, the church that he attended is still going, the school he attended is now a museum. our public library has a large section on reagan. i will check in there to find your book.

i slipped and reagan's home before it became a historic sites. >> how about that? isn't that wonderful story. i have been to dixon many times, attended his church several times. there are two statues of ronald reagan in dixon, one of them on horseback at the river where he was a lifeguard, where he saved 77 lives as a high school lifeguard and other statues, a clapboard house in dixon. it is very important to his legacy and also important to remember he moved around many times as a child. his father was a shoe salesman and well-known as an alcoholic and took jobs in many locations including chicago, dixon and other places in and around

downstate or western illinois so this is important. there are a number of homes he lived in too. in your rank ecology was a pkd member and be -- the church there as well. he once joked he was to serve food in a woman's sorority and jokes it was the best job he ever had. >> host: george in manassas, virginia texts into you can you comment on the importance of the radio show president reagan did from 1976-1990? he goes on to say i heard president reagan speak in 1975, changed me, felt like he spoke only to me was his comment. >> what a wonderful letter. glad he brought up the radio commentary. it was so important.

this is an era before cable television and the internet. you were limited in forms of communication, local television and things like that and local radio and syndicated radio, many have newspapers and magazines and personal letters and spoken word but communication was much more limited in that era than it wasn't that made his radio pronouncements very important and he did over 1000 radio commentaries in his lifetime before his presidency. they were 5 minutes apiece 5 days a week. you had to really keep your wits about yourself to make sure your radio commentary -- o'brien's radio studio in west los angeles at the corner of hollywood and vine and he wrote

many of them. some were written by jeff powell, some by pat buchanan or peter hansford but he wrote the vast majority of them. until the books were published about his radio commentaries and they were syndicated on hundreds of radio stations around the country including a radio station in syracuse and i used to hear the radio broadcast in my parents home in syracuse in the 1970s. people would listen to them every day and they had a great effect on his ability to mobilize voters and seek the presidency one more time. there were lots of people who listened to reagan who later became reaganites after his commentaries.

>> mark in st. paul, minnesota. high, mark. >> my recollection of his address to the congress, president biden indicated trickle-down economics has never worked. i'm curious what mister shirley's take would be on that comment and the economic legacy of president reagan in general. >> thank you, glad you brought that up. i heard that in biden's speech too and it was nonsense, it never was trickle-down economics, simply giving people back their own money. it was an unfortunate phrase that was created by david stockman later we designed in ignominy and has a stain on his record today. it is a false charge and it would be a waste of time to try

to engage. you can't argue with the result. in eight years reagan created 19 million new jobs, he beat inflation, beat interest rates and high inflation, turned around the nation's morale, the proof is in the pudding as they say the proof is reaganworks as an economic, cultural and social and political force from 1981 to 1989. >> host: you wrote recently in newsmax, quote, we've had great presidents and bad presidents and at the moment we are stuck with one, joe biden, who will most be just mediocre. my hopes aren't even that i to be honest. >> myopics tend to be a little rougher than my book writing. biden's problem today is he has

two fundamental beliefs to solve people's problems. reagan when he accepted the nomination for president of the united states in 1980, assembled delegates there, he said don't trust me, trust yourself and that is the essential difference between the two parties, one is a party or should be the party of the individual, the party of belief in ourselves and the other is people are inherently ineffectual in solving their own problems and the government activism is necessary as a means to solve their problems - is the summation of what biden said, historically in the context of what reagan did. i may write another op-ed about that.

>> host: in virginia, barbara, go ahead with your question or comment. >> i have a comment and the comment is i can't believe that you sat there and said that no one made money off of the iran contra affair. there is no way for you to make that statement, you have no knowledge of that which you have the cia, everybody they knew, all the politicians, they were getting paid to look the other way and the military-industrial complex which is the corporation that run the world which is why it was done and who had it done and then you say reagan paid the price politically, big deal, he should have gone to prison.

>> host: craig shirley? >> we should put her down is undecided. >> good afternoon to you. over the years i have heard rumors and suspicions that when president reagan was running for office against jimmy carter, he had representatives in iran talking to the iranian leaders as to not release the hostages because it would aid him when the election team came around. i always wondered if that was true and did some light on that. >> guest: good question. there is no evidence. there was a book written several years ago, several books, one -- whose last name summed up his philosophy,

representatives of the ayatollah, to keep the hostages in iran during the 1980 campaign to enable reagan to win, nothing could be further from truth, george bush didn't fly to paris, france or tehran, he was in the united states the whole time, no representatives of the reagan campaign or anybody from the military ever met with delegates. these are conspiracies that have no basis in fact that are just made up and utterly untrue. i will tell you i interviewed bruce langdon, the charge d'affaires of the american indian to ron in the 1980 campaign for my book on the 1980 campaign and he said the

reason we were released on the eve of the inauguration of ronald reagan was the iranian's were terrified of reagan's a mad bomber and they felt they could push jimmy carter around, they didn't feel they could push reagan around and they were terrified that reagan would take military action, decisive military action if they stayed in to run and that's why the iranian this released the hostages on the eve of reagan's inauguration, this simple fact. >> host: we always like to ask what our "in depth" offers are reading, their favorite books, here are responses from craig shirley, some of his favorite books include mark twain's the adventures of tom sawyer, april 18, '65, katherine boeing, america at philadelphia, tom wolf, the

bonfire of the vanities, and larry mc murphy, lonesome dove. currently craig shirley is reading james swanson's end of days, napoleon's who can grow rich, john region's franklin rinsed and and michael dobbs's one minute to midnight. a lot of history titles but one stood out to me and that is napoleon's -- >> guest: a book that has been around 100 years. my grandmother first turned me onto is when i was a young boy. it is kind of similar to other motivational books but different too. the power of positive thinking. it is inspirational, how to achieve success by different

means, economic means, social means, cultural means and it is a book to read for pleasure and re-energize my thinking every couple years and i have for many years now. as a matter of fact, for many years whenever i had a new person in my pr firm i gave, copy of think and grow rich because it had so much useful information. >> host: another book you're rereading is cs lewis's the screwtape letters. why? >> guest: i love cs lewis. he proved you can be spiritual and be a libertarian. in his case he was a christian libertarian. it teaches about the work of the devil and what he is teaching his ward, how to ruin

people's lives and things to avoid and things to know about. the house is burning down, you hand somebody a box of matches or somebody is drowning you hand them a firehose. .. firehose. what's going on society and culture what to avoid >> documents american story and on sunday, brings you the latest nonfiction books and authors planning for cspan2 comes from these television companies are more including charter communications. broadband it is a force for empowerment and that swipe charter has invested billions

building infrastructure helping technology and empower opportunities and communities big and small. charter is connecting us and charter communications along with these television companies, support cspan2 as a public service. >> beginning now its history and folks on "c-span2", this weekend explore our nation's past was cspan's american history tv, and watch book tv, television for serious readers and today an event hosted by the heritage foundation, scholars address the fundamental question about american democracy and we really need a president. and was a recount of general douglas management of the allied occupation of japan following the end of world war ii. you can find a full schedule of history programs in your program guide or by visiting cspan.org/history and starting out, it is lecturers in history th