captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 >> i think he believed that his -- i think he thought lyndon johnson and -- because he missed the story in the first place. i don't think that would force him into the position he was in. and i remember the night that

bloody saturday. >> saturday night massacre? >> yeah. at that time i was working for metro media and they said you won't believe what just happened, but you better know. he went on thinking he could get away with it all. had he just admitted wrong an got rid of a couple of people, it probably never would have happened. >> help me understand this. did he thi he didn't think he would get a fair shake from the washington press. >> yes, nobody else had been caught up in that mind of thing. >> you've been around for a while, all those campaigns. was it the same kind of stuff as what johnson and kennedy had been doing? >> it was not the same kind of

stuff, but it was -- a lot of questions about his broadcast license and things like that. it's an entirely different thing. when he said i'm not a crook, he believed he was not a crook. he didn't steal anybody's body. what he didn't realize is he was exerting power he didn't have. >> did you get a sense, talking about your surprise, the white house surprise. did you get a sense that the country was changing? you have been director of communications, your goal was to think about shaping public opinion. did you understand the country was moving in a different direction? >> i knew that we were -- the best thing he did was he made it his speech about -- what did you call the public?

>> silent majority. >> silent majority. i knew that was wearing out and the kent thing speeded it up considerably, cambodia speeded it up considerably. our support was weakening. through the campaign of '72, it was still there. >> did you play a role in shaping the silent majority? >> no. that was done by the speech department. >> what suggestions did you give the president that he didn't

take that might have helped his public image when you were director of communications? >> well, i thought he should have more press conferences. he wanted fewer. i thought they could have handled him well and he had more press conferences he could have handle it maybe he would have realized the opposition, that was one of the major things. working relationship with the president of all the networks and the whole communications structure. colson would be undercutting me by going secretly to meet them. they'll call me and ask what the hell is going on. i thought he was giving too much support to colson. bob haldeman, he and i have had our meeting of the ways and renewed our friendship before he died, and i and bob finch had lunch one time to talk it all ou out: i think he just became too consumed with power. the probably was that he had a lot of young guys who -- they would tell the cabinet officer the president wants them.

probably the only time they had seen the president in weeks had been on television. and he had a few -- too much power was given -- the president delegated too much power to haldeman, ehrlichman and colson. the kind of language he used that came out i've never heard him use any time when i've been around him. he might swear a little bit like i've said damn orr hell sometimes, but that was about it. he'd never use that kind of language. >> did you actually talk to the president? >> no, i didn't go to the president with that kind of thing. i talked to haldeman about it. >> you knew sometimes haldeman wasn't carrying your [ inaudible ]. >> i wasn't sure what he did or what he didn't. i was in haldeman's office one time when kissinger threatened to resign because rogers was getting too much play. we had to calm kissinger down.

so i never knew one way or the other. but the first big fight i had with colson was when he was putting too much pressure on mcgruder, he was trying to get mcgruder to do things in my office -- i protected my office and very carefully so -- the credibility of that office was totally important to me. that's the kind of thing i would disagree with colson about. i was trying to point out to the president his credibility was the key to the whole thing. >> tell us about mcgruder, what kind of person was he? >> a very nice young guy, was very weak. he would let himself get pubbed around. i was surprised how tough colson could be because normally i could call someone in that was junior do me and say this is how

we've got to do it, and he would agree. colson wouldn't move one inch. >> tell us about the relationship between rogers and the president? the president brings bill rogers in at a very difficult time in '73 when he's about to fire ehrlichman and haldeman. it was a strange relationship. >> bill rogers and dick nixon were close personal friends through most all of his career. he was his best friend in the eisenhower cabinet. henley would have liked -- haldeman would have liked to get rid of rogers, but they would never say that to dick nixon because dick nixon was loyal. >> he did marginalize. >> he marginalized what he was doing. bill rogers wasn't able to cope

with the ability to wield power the way kissinger could do, they knew how to move things around in a tougher way. bill was just a very nice guy, a very smart guy and a very honest guy. >> fast forward a bit. did you see president nixon after he was resigned? how long after he resigned did you see him? >> well, i saw him frequently afterward, i don't know how often. the first call i had -- before he left the smoking gun tape had him talking to colson about me in which he said -- between he and colson said he's not our kind of guy, he's got egg on his face.

that was kind of the quotes. i was playing golf with some friends and i got a call from a reporter that said you better get back to your office and see what's been said. the way i treated it was, we're friends and i've certainly heard a lot of things said in the locker room which people don't really mean. so i dismissed it that way. it bothered me some. about the fourth day he got back, he called me on the phone and say, you know, i want to talk to you about this, and i'm sorry which i thought was one of the more noble things he did. >> after he resigned? >> yeah. >> did you visit him? >> i visited him, not right away, but i did quite often, yes. >> he was very sick [ inaudible ]. >> yeah. we had the same doctor. >> was he pleased with his performance in the interview?

>> -- >> i think did well. the best press conference he ever had was the first one when he took office and he really did a great job. he just did this -- the vietnam war which he adopted [ inaudible ]. it was hard to get him to like somebody. but he liked those two, and i think they both were really very good. >> he liked the frost interview [ inaudible ]? >> yeah. >> tell me about --

>> he loved the bohemian grove as do i, everybody who goes there. the primary speeches are what we call lakeside talks. there's lakeside being a pond with some grass in front of it with big redwoods in back of it. on a middle saturday you have them come in here. this this case reagan was there, people like that scene on the grass while nixon spoke. nixon belonged to a camp called cave man. i belonged to one called spot. there were names like that. reagan's camp was owl easiness's ol''s nest. he came out there and he made

this speech and two times i heard him do it in different circumstance. one was to the american saturday newspaper editors. two or three years after he left office which he got a standing ovation from him which i felt just real excited. i was introducing him. my colleagues giving him a standing ovation was really something. in both cases he took people on a tour of the world and told him what he thought was going on in each part of the world and very precise, understandable terms. at the bohemian grove the rule is you speak for 30 minutes. he stood there for 30 minutes with no notes, spoke on this tour around the world and just knocked everybody off their socks. it was probably one of the best speeches i ever heard him make.

he stayed there and wandered around. you look at the vice president, the former president. and right afterward there was a political problem. i don't remember what it was. so he called a group of us to his cave man camp and talked this problem out. that affected him personally. >> [ inaudible ]. >> that was probably [ inaudible ]. >> did he get philosophical about his career? >> no. his whole talk was explaining what was going on in the world. >> i mean afterwards. >> yeah. he felt he had done a good job, was proud of what he had done on foreign policy. i think he enjoyed the fact that part of our friendship was always talking about sports.

we'd talk about sports quite a bit when we would get together any time, even on a campaign plane. so he -- we'd talk about the baseball teams and he became a big fan of the mets. >> i tell you a kind of funny story, too. one time there were three of us who got to the super bowl for san diego. we had three soup boels. one of the guys was back to me

to be with the owners in new york. we had some time and i said, well, why don't we see if we n can -- so we went over and found him. it was a little italian place he had. so the first thing he did was take my friend to see his golf score card, a hole-in-one at the bel air, and he had this -- i knew he had a five iron and spalding ball. and then we sat down and said you guys were in the holiday bowl. how co the middle east. we had to talk about sports for about 20 minutes. that was the way he was. weekend "american history tv" is in beaumont, t tx expanding our reach from washington, d.c. for programming on american history. beaumont is home to the first major oil field in the united states and has a population of about 120,000 people. learn more about beaumont, texas, all weekend long on americ "american history tv." it is 50 years of beaumont history, 1900-1950 in micro cos. it shows how a wealthy southeast texas family lived in the first

half of the 20th century. the mcfaddins were a family that came to texas from tennessee in the 1820s and they settled in this part of texas, far southeast texas in 1833. they had cattle, and later on they began to acquire land to put this cattle on. when oil was discovered in this area in 1901, it brought the mcfaddins a lot more money than they had already had. they were already pretty comfortable in their own right. but when oil was discovered in this area, the land that the lucas gusher, the original well was on, plus a lot of the land that was subsequently drilled upon and successfully belonged to the mcfaddin family because they had spent so many years accumulating all that pasture land for their cattle and it was right in the middle of where the oil was found. just the whole area profited so

much from the oil. william mcfaddin was a tough man. some people even called him ruthless because his life was built around acquiring as many cattle and as much land as he possibly could. he didn't have a lot of education. it was said he really couldn't read or write. unlike his father james who could, who came from tennessee. the educational facilities in texas were slim and none. there just were not that many places to have school even though they periodically tried to have one the in this area. ida mcfamiliar din was the wife of william perry harry mcfaddin who was william mcfaddin's son. and he married ida. he himself was a widower with three children. ida actually first came to beaumont from west virginia, a very prom meant west virginia family. she had gone to school in virginia with a girl from beaumont. she came down to beaumont to

visit the friend. she had also been told by a doctor she had throat trouble. he said the dry air in texas will help you, not knowing that the air in southeast texas is anything but dry with our humidity here. she came down to visit her friend and in the process met w.p.h. who was kind of a dashing widower, about 16 years older than she was, still very handsome. they fell in love and got married. this house is perfect for entertaining because all the public rooms on the first floor open into the central hall and big houses like that were just perfect for someone like ida who was very social, loved to entertain. so they had many, many large parties here, receptions and teas where several hundred people circulated through. we're standing in the dining room right now. this was the formal dining area,

of course. it was decorated in a colonial revival style which allowed the mcfaddins to show off a lot of their fine pieces because there's a plate rail that runs all the way around the room and it holds some of the fine silver or crystal or whatever they wanted to display at that time plus the vitrines we have in here and the side boards also provide more space. i would definitely describe this furniture as ornate. the fabric and upholstery is a borrow kad. it is heavily carved as is much of the furniture in the mcfaddin home. everything in this house is original to the mcfaddin family. we did not go out and buy things that were just true to the period. these were things that the mcfaddins had. they saved them. mrs. mcfaddin purchased them maybe. mrs. ward purchased them. when mrs. ward died, the house was frozen in time, and it was

with these possessions that the house became a museum. we're coming into the master bedroom, a bedroom that ida and w.p.h. mcfaddin shared. we interpreted it after his death in 1935. we kind of call it command central because ida was so active in civic and charitable and social work plus after all her brothers died she became the president of her father's company in huntingdon, west virginia. remained very busy all the rest of her life. these are members of ida's family mostly, including her children. the large picture in the center

was made in 1894 when she and w.p.h. got married. the people on the back row, it's ida and w.p.h. on the left. and then ida's sister wita and her husband per nat pratt on the right. ida's maiden name was caldwell. these are members of the caldwell family. along the bottom are ida's children. that's perry, junior on the left. mamie in the middle, the woman who donated the museum, created the museum, and caldwell, the youngest son. we're standing in the third floor bill yard room. it was built as a bill yard room, and the table has actually been here since before the house was completed. we don't really know how it came to be here. it is a single piece. it does not break down. i don't think there would have been any cranes tall enough in beaumont at that time to have lifted it through the front. we heard it was lifted up was later closed up.

that's as good an explanation as any. this was a game room. when the two mcfaddin boys, perry and caldwell got to be teenagers, they moved to this third floor. it became a man space. one of the employees later recalled they had parties up here and would bring friends up here. so we have recreated in their entertainment area and also as a work space for m. mcfaddin was we left his desk here as we found it. when we're coming into the kitchen of the mcfaddin-ward house, this is sort of the area where the domestic employees eat them in the kitchen. but the kitchen was actually sort of reigned over by a cook named lewis lemon. he had been the mcfaddin's cook for 37 years. he didn't really like a lot of visitors in his kitchen. he tolerated the other employees

there when he came to eat. but if people came and infaded his kitchen too much, he had been known to put red peppers in the burners of the stove. he lived in the carriage house in his rooms until he died. it was said that mrs. mcfaddin knew she could host any party from the size of a huge banquet to fixing breakfast for mr. mcfaddin before he went out on the range and new that lewis could do it. communications in a house this big could have been problematic because of the sheer size, but they did have what was state-of-the-art communications then. if you'll look on the wall up high here, there's an' nuns eighter box. there's a corresponding button in all of the rooms. for instance, if ida wanted to summon one of the domestic employees for them to come up to her room, she would punch the button in her room. the corresponding arrow to that

room would drop as a bell sounded. the domestic employee would know he needed to go to ida's bedroom and see what she needed. the mcfaddins were demanding employers, but they did pay average -- above average wages and they had many ways of taking care of long-time employees such as paying medical bills, paying funeral expenses, helping them out in other ways. one of the long-time employees whose name was albertine parker said they were good to you, but you didn't go there to sit down. mamie was the oldest child, the only daughter. mamie grew up, of course, in the house. she was about 11 when they moved here. and she loved this house. and when she married harold ward, they came back here to live. the house was big enough presumably for everyone. carol lived the rest of their lives in this house. when mamie began to get older, she worried about this house.

she didn't want it to begin to look shabby or be broken up into apartments or turned into a funeral home as so many of the other grand houses in beaumont had done. and she even considered demolishing it. but several friends prevailed on her to try to figure out a way to keep it. she ultimately established a foundation that would administer it, and she even created a board of directors so the minute she died it became a museum. it encompasses so much of what has gone on in this town and in this country this the state for the past hundred years. it's a wonderful vehicle to show people this. the physical -- the visual impact is just how you get them here. then after that you can talk to them about the history. this is c-span3 with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week. and every week end "american

history tv," 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. get our schedules and see past programs at our website and join in the conversation on these social media sites. each week "american history tv's" "american artifacts" takes viewers behind the scenes at archives, museums and historic sites. the 2600 acre estate of month peel yar was once home to the nation's fourth president, james madison and his wife dolly. it lies about 90 miles south of the nation's capital in orange county, virginia. the national trust for historic preservation owns the property managed by the month peel yar foundation. "american history tv" visited the site for a tour with the president michael quinn. >> welcome to the home of james and dolly madison. we're entering madison's library. for madison this is one of the

most important rooms in this house. in fact, he added this on to the house when he became president and created a spr spacious place to hold his books and provide the area he wanted to work. as this room was being built, we have a letter from his builder, james dins moore. he says, if i put a window next to the fireplace, it will give you a view of the temple you plan to build as well. dinsmore went on to assure him there still will be plenty of space for the bookshelves for all of your books. we know madison okayed the idea because the window is there. madison really used this area in the years after his presidency because he set for himself an amazing project which is to create an archive of the united states constitutional convention. as you look around, you see some of the work, some of the thought he put into that. he had taken very careful notes

at the constitutional convention. he went back over those notes. he expanded them and wrote them out carefully. he added annotation. in one or two cases he also went to other delegates, wrote to other delegates or their families asking if they still had a copy of the speech that was given at the convention. by the end of his life, madison had put together a thorough record of the constitutional convention. it filled almost 1,000 pages. for him, this was an important part of the legacy of the founding of america. when he had been preparing for that convention he had carried out a great deal of research to find out how other attempts at self government, at confederations had been created and what was the intentions of those creators and he had come up blank. there were no records. so madison wrote a little

introduction to this and he described his goal as providing a record for those who in other places or at a later time might be striving for liberty, could learn from the example, the decisions and the debates of the american founders. he had a real sense of history and a sense of legacy. it also tells you that he still wasn't entirely certain about the outcome of the constitution. even at the end of his life, although it had been for 40-some years, he did not know it would survive. if you want to learn about james madison, the father of the constitution and his wife dolly who inspired the title first lady, there's no place to come by montpelier in orange, virginia. montpelier encompasses four square miles of land, many features and attractions, most of all it's a place to learn about the ideas of the founding of america