he clearly saw paint as a >> good. i think he exported that to washington. and i think he has exported to his party. and i think that has had a massive trickle-down effect. >> i think thates is good placeo end. [laughter] thank you so much. [applause] ♪ weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday in american history tv documentsmerica's story and on sunday book tva brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for cspan2 comes from these television companies and more including comcast. >> are you thinking this is just a community center? no, it's way more than that. comcast is part of the 1000 community centers to great wi-fi enabled list of students from

low-income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. ♪ comcast, along with these television companies support cspan2 as a public service. >> good afternoon or good morning. good morning brenda feels like afternoon already,. summer. welcome back to the gaithersburg book festival i am a former member of the gaithersburg city council and a proud supporter of the book festivale since its inception. if you join us for the first 10 book festivals, welcome back. it is really great to be here in tuperson this year after two yes of virtual book festivals. as you know, gaithersburg is a city the values and supports the arts and humanities been replaced too bring this fabulous festival thanks imparts the generous support of our sponsors and volunteers for the volunteers are wearing these bright orange shirts. if you see them and she was a thank you. if you see our sponsors they are the ones walking aroundth the money falling out of their pockets, say thank you to them

toout. before i introduce our author, let me makece a few announcemen. please silence all of your electronic mobile devices. for the latest updates about the book festival make sure you're following the gaithersburg book festival on facebook and twitter. and he post about the festival if you are one of those people who are social media savvy please you gdf #. your feedback is really important toll us. surveys are available on our website which you can access gaithersburg book festival.org or by using qr code that you will sleep displayed prominently around the grounds. by submitting a server you'll be entered into a drawing for $100 visa gift card. we hope you will spend in our bookstore. michael will be signing books immediately after this presentation in the air-conditioned comfort of the activity center. so please meet him there. copies of his books are on sale

and the politics and prose star which is also in the activity center. a quick plug for buying books, remember this is a i free event but it does help our festival if youoo buy books, lots of books. the more books we sell at our events the more publishers want to send their authors here to speak with us. purchasing books from our partner politics and prose help support when the great independent bookstores, booksellers in the world. and it benefits our locals economies, supports local jobs and by the way books make great gifts. if you enjoy the program please stop by the bookstore and the activity center and purchase the booksur. our presenter to our author today michael dobbs is been a correspondent for reuters and the "washington post" in eastern europe, paris and moscow parties covered the collapse of the soviet union, written about the history of the cold war in a recent biography of madeleine albright. for the thousand eight

presidential campaign he returned to the post to lawn launch an online fact checker: we have michael to thank for that. king richard, nixon and watergate in american tragedy at michael's most recent worker counting the days following the landslide reelection victory of nixon in how the investigation of watergate blew it all out. reading king richard for me, brought me back to college days when all this was happening when crowded into tv lounges because that is how we watch tv. it was a shared experience we watch the select committee hearings instead of going to class. it was educational, it was riveting infirmity people was dramatic. like the title suggests a story is a shakespearean tragedy. no heroes in one notorious figure character in the center of it all. watergate for me is like a car crash that yous cannot turn away from. and with this book, michael shows it to us albright helps us relive it again but this time in

slow motion. so i'm looking forward to what michael has a say about his book in the process of writing it. so please join me in welcoming michael dobbs to the gaithersburg book festival. [applause] >> well, thank you very much. as was explained can you will hear me? i am a former journalist at work for the "washington post". and after 30 years of being mainly a foreign correspondent, i turn myself into a historian in actually to distinguish myself from all those presidential historians out there, i call myself a presidential crisis historian. i try to focus on not just in the entire lifee of somebody, writing biographies like the biography of nixon, i try focus on the most dramatic moments of

that person's life when they faced an existential crisis of one kind or another. i wrote the book about the cuban missile crisis called a one minute until midnight. which is about the time in 1962 when the world came closer than ever before or since perhaps with the exception of the current time to some kind of nuclear exchange. obviously that was the ultimaten crisis that a president can face. but nixon also a face a crisis pretty face a personal crisis he faced a national crisis, and that is a crisis i've tried to describe in this book. so why did i call it king richard? actually i don't think i'm very good at titles. i think kingca richard is a prey good title because it summed up the spirit of what i was trying to do.

obviously that phrase evokes a shakespearean tragedy. shakespeare wrote king lear, two plays richard the second and richard the third period but also there is a connection to nixon's life. his mother out in california as you probably not came from a poor quaker family and migrated to california from pennsylvania. she called her sons she nameden her sons all three of her sons after the kings of england. she named richard the lion heart. two others were named after other english kings. in fact they died when richard was a very during his childhood from tuberculosis. so he had a tough upbringing. he climbed all the way from this

dirt floor background family in california to become president of the united states. and then, the same qualities of assistance and drive in hatred of his enemies and determination to get even, the qualities that it carried into the presidency then ended up bringing him down. which is to me mary streaks shakespearean story. tragedy have it hero with a fatal flaw pretty has been capable of greatness. but the fatal flaw brings him down. i think that is the case with nixon. so that explains why i chose the title king richard. it evokes the subtitle of the book is an american tragedy.

we can talk on the questions and answers about whether you agree with me that nixon was a real tragic figure or not. so i want to talk a little bit about my approach to writing. i'm a formal journalism not a professionally trained historian. therefore i tried to tell history as a story using techniques of fiction to applied to nonfiction. actually a lot of journalists have become outstanding popular historians. eric larson is another example. and at the "washington post" one of my members mentors was rick atkinson. then roads, is now writing a trilogy of the american revolution. but these authors, most of them

former journalist have these techniques of writing nonfictional history that using fictional techniques of developing characters using plenty of dialogue, creating scenes and moving from one scene to another. no course of your right nonfiction every bit of it has to be backed. one of the reasons i chose the subject of nixon and watergate as you do not have to invent anything because historical record is so rich and it is much more interesting and much more colorful. i got a great imagination but if i was a novelist i don't think i could invent many of the lines brought up in watergate. and of course we have the tapes which is an amazing source for

real life. okay, so how do i write this book? i focus on nixon's reelection in 1972. this is six months after watergatese. it was inaugurated for the second time as president one of the outstanding election victories in american history he had one by the largest popular vote margin up until that date. you have the country behind him. he thought it larson put watergate behind him. watergate's june 72 is reelected in november 1972. my book begins the scene just before his inauguration in january of 1973. action the 20th of january ,

73. nixon is feeling pretty a good about watergate. is about to conclude a peace treaty with north vietnam. he had his big opening to china it's been a claim is a great foreign policy president. this little matter of watergate does not seem to be that important. even supposed to run out of leads to investigate. and then suddenly in the space of a just three months or actuay 100 days it all falls apart. this very discipline presidency unravels completely connection and facing the greatest personal crisis of his life in the countries based on the biggest political crisis in american life. i'm interested in how this happened it's an incredible story the unraveling of a presidency which you are able to witness from the inside.

thanks to these tapes. so i beginin the story, it is 1h at noon nixon's going to take the oath for the second time. he had a favorite room in the white house which is the lincoln sitting room. the corner of the manchin on the second floor overlooking washington monument. intact are the smallest most intimate room of the white house. nixon got to go there, there's a roaring fire going. ensure his daughters liked to joke in the height of summer on a day like this, nixon would go to his cubbyhole in lincoln's sitting room and have this fire going set by his faithful retainer sanchez. then he had the air conditioning sgoing full blast to counteract the fire. he would write on his general written pad.

this while basically this is what he's doing the other early morning hours. he cannot get to sleep is too excited, i think he thought why did she want? tell the american people and the next day. and 104 ame causes crony chuck colson and they start talking about everything he wants to do in the second term. and among the things they want to do in the second term all the antiwar trials are going even with them. it cap is tremendous triumph and securing as they say it. they're going to screw the enemies of the going to be jesus out of them. then they start talking about

how they can screw the "washington post". he hates the "washington post". so he has a plan to drive down the share price. i think it's $38 and he has succeeded in driving down to nc says $25. or actually $28. he is boasting about this to nixon present must enjoy about his great. thee oddly enough their stock ad starkly more as i told you last part and is now $28. that is too bad nixon replied sarcastically. is not a shame sent colson's questioner exploded he doesn't suck december and in record earnings. it has dropped 10 points, keep them busy nixon instructed. it was going to a.m., finally time to go top bed.

theer president had to be up eay the next morning for the inauguration day ceremony. he said good night to special counsel hung up the phone. two floors below in a locked cabinet in the west wing basement 4000 real to reel tape recorder stop working. if any of you did ap literature in school you will know for example i think it's called foreshadowing. you put in a littlest detail to suggest what is going to happen later in the story. so i'm introducing the typical orders and the tapes as a character in the book. they are very important characters they are witness to everything that happens. they are also in nam and of course. the agent of the tragedy. i am convinced had nixon not

tape himself then he would have survived. instilling the existence of the smoking gun for his own tape recordingssi that eventually led to his resignation. the tapes have incredible historical importance. they also have an importance for history. we are never again going to get as instruments a look at what is really like to be president as we do during this very crucial period of nixon presidency. no president, because the president of nixon is ever going to tape himself the way nixon did. we can say that for sure. this historical record is never going to exist again. trump tweeted a lot. i'm sorry the tweets are

intended to be public in the first place. the tapes were not intended to beer public. tapes are private documents nixon neverer intended to become public pride when they did become public he was horrified by it. so, nixon was not the first president to tape himself. actually taping in the white house began with franklin roosevelt who taped a few of his press conferences during the second world war because he was angry with the press about misquoting him. he thought he had a device in his desk. but he got fed up with it after a few sessions and stop the practice. but then after the war kenny tape himself or he taped hemeetings in the cabinet room down the corridor from the oval office.

and i drew on those tapes to write my book about the cuban missile crisis. they are a very valuable source. again kennedy was able to turn the tape recording on and off. ands. then johnson taped himsel. he taped his conversations. the difference between all these former presidents and nixon wasn't some genius in the white house thought nixon is a technological clutch to say the least. it is very ham-fisted with technology. no one is ever going to trust you and you are not going to trust yourself to turn on the tape recorder when you want too. salons have been tape recording system without an on/off switch, imagine? it will take everything. it will start recording when you go into the room. think of that in your private houses a few tape recorders that record absolutely everything that is said whenever he walked into astin room.

or whenever you picked up a telephone.ha they thought this was a great thing because nixon would not have to worry aboutneon it. but in the end it proved his undoing because they tape system recorded the good, bad, the ugly, the illegal it's not just all terrible things on these tapes. but some intimate moments with his family, his daughters a showman a different light. there is also the illegal s stu. so with retrospect this was the biggest act of self harm at a president could ever do to himself. but for a historian or for hopefully for a reader it's an incredible gift. it's the gift that keeps on giving as people say. it enables us to seet the presidency unraveling before our eyes. and the president facing his incredible strength to think of

the stress in your daily life. think of it dealing as a president trying to deal not know if the crises of the country but crisis in your personal life and that is all we have here. i sometimes say my ambition was to make the reader a fly on the wall to all of these events that normally people like you and me would never get to see, to witness. and we can imagine ourselves in a fly on the wall in the white house or camp david, or that lincoln sitting room. but actually think of better analogy a bug in the desk. they actually drilled holes in the desk in the oval office to plant their bugs. so the perspective we get is exactly that. being a bug in nixon's desk. comes in with a cup of tea they start moving company cups around on the table.

you get a screech nixon puts up his feet on the desk. ito sounds like a thunder roll r something. that is how we are listening to this. okay, so what interested me and tells very discipline presidency fell apart. and how one thing leads to another with all this unintended consequences. now after watergate happened in june of 72 there's an election in november. so they figure it nixon ordered a lot of things. there's no evidence nixon actually ordered watergate. he certainly cause it to happen create the culture in which it happened but he did not actually order the break-in. so had he been honest with the country in the summer of 1972 he could've blamed it on a few of his aides and probably got away with it. it's instinct there was an

election immediately two or three months time, was to cover it up. and that is what brought him down. it wasn't watergate it was the cover up. he understood that himself cover up that always destroys people. it happened in his case. so there's a guy called jim mcgruder who is far as we can tells the person who authorized the break-in. he c is at the committee to reelect the president. and mcgruder lied before the grand jury. and before the fbi. his rash well, we were covering up a burglary we are safeguarding world peace. in order to save world peace is essential nixon be reelected as president is the way he saw and probably a lot of presidential

aides think. so that was his rationale, his justification. then one thing leads to another there. engendered 1970 nixon is reelected. he thanks he's got watergate behind him. but something happens that is a trigger for this unraveling an instructor is the guy called james mccord who is one of the supervisors that bugged former fbi and cia go. he'd been arrested because he had connections to the burglars. he was sitting in the d.c. jail which i described my book it's the most unpleasant place you can imagine particularly back in the early 70s. and he is thinking to himself i am he is an upstanding -- he considers himself an upstanding member of the community. you live not very far from here pretty could've been one of your neighbors. he thanks to himself why should i go to jail when the shock mcgruder is getting off scottwh

free? what's more there writing flattering profiles about him. the writing that the inaugural festivities at that time. so mccord is not willing to put up the same rights to the judge and says perjury was committed in this trial. contracts orders for there break-in which much higher up. it wasn't just the burners that had the thought to break and read the orders came from higher up. particularly mcgruder. so that triggers a whole long episode of one of nixon's aides running forw cover. one nixon aide accusing the other in nixon himself had a very colorful expression for this. he said aides are going to start passing on each other when you start passing on the president, excuse my language. but it is actually nixon's

language. so this book describes how this happened. the fingering of him with john dean in his future. john dean turning trader on nixon and cooperating with the prosecutors. in shakespeare or incorrect tragedy you have hubris then you have crisis and then you have catastrophe and then you have at the end some kind of catharsis. some kind of revolution. and so this is what happens you have the humerus them thinking everything is wonderful and will solve the watergate problem. when you got' the crisis that te call lesson to the o judging of the catastrophe on the aides turning on one another and finding nixon is being forced to march with his two closest aides

alderman and ehrlichman. in nixon coming very close at a that point to thinking he has resigned himself. he managed to hang on for another year. he hangs on while there is a big fight and probably all remember whether or not the tapes will be published. so, we see the other quality or characteristic of a h tragic sty is you have to see the hero suffering. and i think we do see nixon suffer. we see the human side to him. since i love you that there is a pause, like my brother. i think he is referring to his two brothers who died of tuberculosis when he was a young

man. it was painful for him to get rid of holderman as it was to lose his two brothers as a young man. it was not like trump and his fire people bike tweets. for nixon is extremely painful. he says to kissinger at one point, nobody will ever know what they put a president through in a time like this. we can talk about whether or not nixon is a true tragic era. we can talk about some of the great minds of watergate. i love the line holderman says to dean, once the toothpaste is out of the tube it's going to be very hard to put it back in. which described the problem they faced. once they started talking and dean started talking in particular is very hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube

required there is nixon to david frost. this is after his resignation. he said i gave them a sword, meaning his enemies, the stitch it was a rush into my wounds. if i'd been in their place i probably would've done the samew thing. there's nixon on his own downfall where s he says -- alws remember others may hate you but those who hate you do not win unless you hate them. and then you destroy yourself. i think that pretty much sums up the tragedy of richard nixon. so thank you very much. have a good night. [applause] [inaudible]

[background noises] >> how you handled the erasure in the tape, did you skip over what did you do? works here referring to 17 a half minutes action on the first tape recordings of money for sessions after watergate in july of 1972. my story actually begins in january of 1973 in the way i tell the story. i'm not trying to include every single detail from the beginning of watergate. i'm focused on the downfall of the president the unraveling of the presidency. but since you asked about that incident i think it's pretty obvious that was deliberate. the national archives a big investigation into that. it's not one sort of accidental

pressing of the recording button. they're about about 30 pressings of the recordd button. ivan dixon or grosse pointe woods' secretary. he is not done veryy efficientl. there is an embarrassing stuff on that 17 minutes. i don't think it was in the more embarrassingea than a lot of otr stuff on the tapes. the reason is nixon repeated himself a lot. you have not found one little bit of damaging stuff on one tape with no reference to someone else. that meeting we have another source which she kept a private diary. every night him go into court's private diary. and then that was typed up. that was spent in a private diary so he had no reason to hold things back he writes what

happens in that session. there's a discussion i of coverp and my point is that wasn't any worse than a lot of other tapes. i'm inclined not to pay so much attention to that. of course everybody was interested in what happened, how this had been raised as one of the big mysteries of watergate. i think it's being exaggerated actually. works i hope you will give a nice long answer on this historical perspective. i am an undergraduate. a couple comments to get you to shed more information for us it really is nixonot self implosio, right? that sucks agents a lot of drain tricks for years these biases that everybody does it. i b feel like we've learned nothing as a culture. fingers bent revisions and

rehabilitation packages diane sawyer excusing the thugs. look back now, to be honest the republican party ended up being vengeful. they felt like they were decapitated their leader. the "washington post" i did in s selfs imposed by thugs. there's a discord from this moment if you contact us from yourts perspective now restaurat near comments, did we learn anything, thank you. >> actually we are 50 years from the watergate break-inn june 1972. next month over the 50th anniversary of the watergate break-in. which gives her a certain detachment in historical perspective. everything is relative. of course nixon committed criminal acts while in office for which she was forced to resign. and as they sayve they cover-ups

technically called obstruction of justice. i ain't going to prison for that. some people say it my book is more sympathetic to nixon and some other books i don't think sympathy is the right word but i do think it's important for a writer to tell the story to the eyes of your protagonist. a lot of it is through nixon's eyes are things that happen in presence. and i would like since you're obviously not af nixon fan, i'd like to mention a couple redeeming qualities. first of all nixon never questions an election. [applause] the presidential election of 1962 was a much more close run election for the last election nixon suddenly had basis for

challenging illinois and texas. but he didn't but he had a grudge from it. he that they have screwed me and i'm not going to allow myself to be screwed again. but, he resigned. i think the system did actually worked in 1972. and i think the system in recent years. weekly the question of the steaming of the election which challenging the results of the election was reader wrote to me and he said thank you for your book prison about research and interesting. however richard nixon was not a tragic figure in any way. he was a spiteful, hating and conniving sleaze ball.

[applause] no moral compass in any way. i am 74 years old i wish i could piss on his grave before i die. [applause] obviously lacks a certain strand of opinion of their about mick nixon. i will read my reply to him. thanks for your notes. [laughter] glad you liked the book, even if you hate nixon. as if hope you'd notice a run on the principle of show don't tell. i try to capture a dramatically. in nixon's life in the country's life is in vividly as possible. the way a novelist or a playwright might while sticking strictly to historical facts. it's up to readers like you to decide for themselves what lessons should be drawn from history, from the story. as for the subtitle to an american tragedy that can be interpreted in different ways.

a personal tragedy, a political tragedy or national strategy. perhaps all three comment take your pick. that pretty much describes my approach i i think. so i thank you. i'm not read your bookri yet. i was wondering if you bring spiro agnew into the story and did his actions and to the corrupt aura around the nixon administration to make it worse for nixon?in works and former governor of maryland you're talking about? [nixon bit part entrance. actually the same time this is all going on the president the vice president is facing his own investigation and crisis. nixon used to joke. it canan be quite humorous. said one thing i've really got

going for me i think it rid of me they will get nixon wanted because the answer was no. because as eventually as you know he was forced to resign. that cleared the decks for getting right of nixon. so mention that in passing in response. thank you, couple comments on technology about tape recorders in our homes, they are in our homes and her name iss alexa. curious about when you're developing this project, how were you able to work with or collaborate with carl bernstein and bob woodward if you did? >> into of them from the "washington post". i did not -- i asked woodward

for a glove, he agreed and said he had a book to write and focus on silly did not give me a blurb. anyway, no hard feelings. [laughter] i really did not feel the need to do a lot of interviews. talk particularly woodward often about watergate. i am investing in the whole question. mark felt the question was who was deep throat? that comes out of this book. but i did not really need to talk to people 40 years or 50 years after the events. i had enough problems listen to all these tapes the contemporaneous material is so rich and it is much more valuable and much more authentic than people's memories of 50 years later. so if you want to get woodward's perspective on something he's written lots of books and you can go in by his books. i did not feel the need -- is

not woodward story. plus this unraveling of the presidency, i think all the presidents and men have created a distorted version of journalist bringing down the president. 'm i think you know ale president's men has created kind of distorted version of the journalists bringing down the president and the journalist certainly played a role and the washington post played a role and woodward and bernstein played role, but it was only one role that were other people. there were the investigators. there was the you know, george chirico who i mentioned and all these people, you know, there was an internal dynamic. inside the white house, which we didn't know about the time, but you know all these people turning on each other magruda turning on dean and dean turning on magruder. and that was all hidden from view at the time. so, you know, i like to think that well think all the presidents men with a first rough draft of history told from the perspective of the reporters 50

years later you get many more interesting perspectives so i didn't want to rehash all thatr. stuff. >> i think the book is very even handed for a criminal like richard nixon. [laughter] i would say there were heroes in the story in the way we look at it. some people think john dean is the hero. it was interesting to hear the rendition of how he came up with thistr testimony but the central one and perhaps most important was alexandert butterfield who doesn't give much credit even though we have all these tapes thatat basically once he explaid the tapes were there it confirmed everything dean said and all the others actions. so maybe you want to comment i

think there are heroes in the story but it's not protagonist. >> you mentionedr butterfield he is in the average political. he'd been in the air force i think haldeman recruited him to the white house but he wasn't a sort of a party guy. he was in charge of the paperwork but also the system so he wasn't going to blow the whistle on nixon but if he was called and asked a direct question about the system he was going to answer honestly so that is a great perspective for a civil servant. you don't go out and put a knife in your husband's back but if you are called to testify by another branch of the government

ortl investigations that is what butterfield did so i agree he is a hero and without his actions and those tapes, nixon wouldn't have been forced to resign. >> thank you so much. it's interesting dean comes up as a, quote, hero and has been rehabilitated and is now a commentator everywhere you go. there is a serious right now called gaslight which is as much about dean and i wonder if what we are seeing as this not comfortable in his own skin low-level finger but not a very high level player is the dean that was in the white house. >> he is neither to me a hero

nor a villain but perhaps a mixture of the two. sometimes there are shades of gray and ius think that he also illustrates this the people have different motives for whistleblowing and not always honorable. in dean's case he came to detest nixon but the first motive and actually he's pretty smart, smarter than any of the others because he solvere a threat whih was of him goingan to prison soe was nott, prepared to go along with that but he had personal reasons for that. so you know, something like dean is a good example many people with mixed motives not just black or white but somewhere in between. i think he's a good example for that. i haven't seen gaslight but

martha mitchell, she is an interesting character and she sort of blew the whistle early on but was also to be a pretty impossible woman to be married to i imagine. i have some sympathy for john mitchell but i have to say have you all seen gaslight? i've had enough of nixon and watergate. [laughter] anyway. you talk about the nixon story as a great tragedy but it's really the elements of human nature, and that just kind of repeats itself over and over. i wonder if you care to talk about any similarities with the

situation with trump and januar. tell us what you think is going to happen withh the various players and their motives to cooperate or not. >> as was said i tried to be bevenhanded in terms of rating presidents i considered trump to be far worse than nixon because nixon of course he hated being forced to resign. he hated his enemies and everybody else, but in the end he respected the system in 1962 and again in 1972. there are many elements of the politics you could draw a straight line between the silent majority, the card, southern card, you could draw a straight line between nixon and trump in many ways but in terms of -- i mentioned one of them nixon is a more human character.

you see him suffering and in these tapes having conversations with his daughter. of course he had family. i go into some of the crisis they faced but he was a loving family person ultimately. perhaps in 50 years time we will get a different view of trump i'm not sure. i can't see the human qualities in trump. i can to see the basic respect for the system and certainly can't see nixon whatever else you think of him he was a brilliant mind. there might not have been such a great idea now but nixon was a very creative foreign policy thinker that read deeply about american history. so perhaps i i am way too closeo

trump but i put them into different categories. and i think that to me there's a lot of things i could expect from trump but the end of it was january 6th and questioning the results of the election which is a continuing threat to the democracy inin my view. [applause] for this year's competition, we are asking students to

picture yourself as a newly elected member of congress and tell us what your top priority would be and why. complete a five to six minute video showing the importance from opposing and supporting points of view. be bold with your documentary. don't be afraid to take risks. this time to get started. 20. deadline is january 20th, the competition rules and tips on how to get started, visit the website on student cam.org. critical race theory in colleges, yes maybe even