it in the opening day. he was dubbed the virginia plan and what madison proposed was the framework of our constitution. it incorporated his ideas and understanding of self governance as a means to achieve liberty and accorded the title, father of the constitution in his own lifetime. it was really in this room that madison brought these ideas together. it was the idea where madison thought more deeply with more effect about government than any individual in history. . >> we are going to exit the house by the rear door and see the back porch that james and dolly created. they created this large lawn and

it was initially an extension of the house. the visitors and the talk about barbecue parties that dolly organized where 100 would come. dolly said she was more comfortable entertaining 100 at montpelier than 20 at the white house. this was created life size and we challenged to create not just the likeness of james and dolly, but the relationship between them. he always had his head here and one of the things was the items just read. it shows a sense of affection and shows an intellectual. james madison was the father of the constitution.

there was noplace to come but montpelier in orange, virginia. it encompasses four square miles of land and many features and attractions and it's a place to learn about the ideas of the founding of america and the constitution that still governs the life today. >> this is one of a series of american artifacts programs. for schedule information and to view american history programs on line, visit our website. c-span.org/history. >> the richard nixon presidential library convened a symposium. this is the first panel discussion from the conference and addresses his life story from his parents's political views to the writing of his memoirs. this is an hour and 15 minutes.

. >> good morning, everyone. it's great to see everyone here at the first scholarly conference and see the library buzzing with conversation and activity. we are the first conversation and we will make introductions for all four of these gentlemen. they are going to speak for about five to seven minutes raising the questions and research areas that have yet to be explored. then we are going to open it for audience conversation. we want to invite you into this discussion. let me start with the destructions. up first will be my colleague at whittier college. joe is an associate professor and librarian with expertise in nixon materials at whittier college's library. under the table, michael wilson in the screen play that appeared in the issue focused on the

politics of the hollywood black list. the second speaker earned his masters at the university of illinois at chicago under the direction of richard freed. after completing his graduate work, the professor taught at various universities and now at the college of du page and he concentrated on his career in congress. his desertation in the 50s. our next speaker is irv gelman. she has written three monographs on roosevelt and published in 1973. good neighbor diplomacy published in 1979 and secret affairs franklin roosevelt and sumner wells published in 1995. since then he embarked on a biography on the life and times

of richard nixon. the first is the contender, richard nixon, and the apprenticeship, richard nixon, the vice presidential years. the final will be perspective from someone within the nixon administration, frank gannon. he received his doctor of philosophy from 1971 through 1974. he accompanied to san clemente aboard air force 1 and organized the research and writing. >> good morning, everybody. i would like to thank the nixon

library and the staff for their hospitality in welcoming the group today. also i want to acknowledge the editor of the companion to richard nixon project. the work turned out nicely. my task for the project was to assess the bigraph cal coverage from 1913 to 1945. focused on the accuracy and reliability of the work and look to see if bias was apparent. in the early works, the statements are unattributed regularly. my chapter was organized chronologically and works spanning from 1952 to 2009 for the companion. i am looking at trends in bigraph cal coverage of richard nixon. the first full-length biography

was fining quaker and he wrote 1952. he was a former publicist and whittier college graduate. the work was never published. the only ones were in the special collections. he cooperated with gardener and author with nixon's family they are significant covered for the first time. this included the personal biography and family background. the tragic death of two brothers, arthur died in 1925 and harold who died in 1933 at age 23. he discussed the religious background of the quaker heritage and explored the wartime experience for the navy. quaker was the useful resource for a number of biographers. during the vice presidential years, nixon received a surprisingly favorable coverage and friends with a number of

journalists and allowed interviews and access to his files that help the biographers. just pointed out one who wrote richard nixon and came out in 1959 and new information about nixon's active duty in the south pacific. it's where he claimed that poker winnings financed the race. this is important work. that served as an instrumental step. only 27 pages out of 1120 were dedicated to the early years. this is still an essential starting point for biographers. professional historians provided access to citations and notes and references and the research

was scattered over a wide variety of sites. they used primary sources like man script collects like libraries and archives including the main branch and the regional branches like the papers that were formerly inula gunna niguel and special dpofts. focus on eisenhower's 1986 work called pat nixon.she had unique accesis and correspondents and access to her parents which gave her a special place as a diing on rafr. outstanding coverage of her parent's courtship and in 1945, she detailed the story of how whitner banker herman perry contacted them in baltimore and

september 1945 that asked if they were interested. apparent savings which was $10,000 went into the race and they planned to use the money for a house. it was in a war box. i would like to talk about one biography that presents a problem for a lot of scholars and students. morris was an ivy league educ e educated journalist after he was encouraged. he showed a strong underlying bias against nixon and at the same time he was a very methodical researcher. you have to kind of proceed with caution with these types of coverage. just to focus on the law firm days when nixon was working as a lawyer in whittier. his first case was being

mishandled by nixon where he represented. they ran into technical problems. in 1993, jonathan wrote nixon alive and that was the greatest politicians since the mid 60s. he had 60 hours of your interviews. there things you found useful when 1926 freshman year and he had a spot on the x-ray. because of this, they took him out of any strenuous activity and contact sports for the rest of his high school days. that's the only place i had heard about that.

they had access to both her and interviews with her and richard nixon. he got both sides of the story that was useful. last i am looking at the family biography and ed nixon's family portrait. he described the story before he was born. frank nixon is building the birth place home. no sewer and electricity and gas line. they had to pump water from a well and a stove using white gas. they had what called a california cooler that was a screen in the shaded area in the produce. i found that fascinating. it told the story of how

dropped back from the examination. that was 1937 traveling with el mira. she was then 87. ed joined richard in 1939 for a train trip. this was something that frank was in the habit of doing. he bought a new only on the way home. this was a wonderful bonding opportunity for the two brothers. in conclusion, richard nixon attracted loyal partisans garnering more individual votes and candidates than any other politician. conversely. offering highly objective perspectives. objectivity is not a prevailing characteristic involving the coverage for the most part. this is certainly manifested in the nature i have in the chapter

with the preprit colitical year. thank you very much. >> ladies and gentlemen, i have news for you. richard nixon was no new zealand. having studied the congressional and periods of nixon's political career, the questionss mind or thought crossed my mind. it happens once in a while. what are the true roots of nixon's or at least young nixon's political ideology. i have a few ideas. one, it was a new deal era that roughly 1843 and 1941 that encompasses the great depression, the new deal, and the beginning of the second world war.

this period formed a crews bell upon which the all american persona as a young man. they would intervene in the lives of individual citizens. much of the citizenry in response to the new deal in general.

>> you look at influences like any good musician. the carpenters and barry manilow. his grandmother known as a lifelong republican. nixon himself said in his memoirs, they disdain and stand pat republicans. hannah nixon herself according to melvin small voted for woodrow wilson in 1912. at least in 1916. maybe it's recreational reading. in addition to the l.a. times,

good house keeping on the saturday evening post, both of which may have pis america. hoover's america to some degree. some of the members of his committee of 100 helped push his 1946 and 1948 campaigns. frank jorgenson, he said i entrust fdr and distrusted him. i think he was befuddled a lot of the time and fooled by stalin. he was in the san francisco bay yarea and he told his own employer that governor fdr who he met in national economy and

the stock market. "when the two of us got to economics, he seemed to think that all industry consisted of stock market operations." earlc. adams, a local guy, helped fund the 1950 run. "the new deal, the fair deal, the new frontier, all that is hog wash. it's a lot of rhetoric. builds up the pie in the sky for people and people get up hopes and ambitions and mean their goals never get met." these are some of the people that nixon surrounded himself with in the phase of his career. roitarians, lawyers, realtors and here in the 12th district. south pasadena, el monty and

whittier. he registered as a republican. up to that time, melvin small claims nixon was a nonideological cent rift. in 1936 or in retrospect, one of his roommates from 1936 and on in the middle of his law school career, individuals should push back against big government and big society and big business. an american can never be free if he or she advocated his or her personal penalty responsibilities to anyone else. nixon did pledge in a letter to perry a letter dated 6 october, 1945 to practice "practical

liberalism " as opposed to " that new by nixon's opponent in the 1946 campaign. well, this is a topics that i believe deserves further research and something i will work on. something i wanted to share with you folks today. what are the true roots of richard nixon's conservative political views. those who believe in small government, low taxation, and no state intervention in a free market economy. it's something that needs to be wo appuse ] >> ladies and gentlemen, normally i'm a little irreverent and i'm standing here so she can't get the hook on me but i'm sure she'll grab me. she'll find a way. i'd like to be serious to start with and say without mel small, this conference would have never

happened. he has his hand over his head. we all owe him a thank you. [ applause ] and what he's done, knowingly or unknowingly having some of you that i've talked to that are on the program, i mean, it's been a pleasure, just in a day where i learned from dean and civil rights, having a chat with keith olson and other of you folks has been an honor for me. and to be on the platform with these four people is really my honor. and hopefully the nixon library will keep this kind of tone to have serious symposiums on nixon and his life and times. and in my spare time i spent a lot of time here, and sitting right in front of me who helped me and did a mammoth job on the

richard nixon campaign is beverly lindley. she was just a sweetheart. the other young lady who i've asked to run away with me has been working for nixon since 1951? since 1951. and then finally, sitting in between the two musketeers is susan notty, the third musketeer, did more work for me, pulling papers, getting documents, helping me out, far smarter than i ever hope to be. and susan, i really appreciate it. you've been superb. finally, in back the guy with the large part with the beard is greg coming. he has pulled records and been helpful for me. lastly i'd like to thank tim, sandy quinn, and all of the rest of the people that have worked on this project g you've done hd

the call of duty, and i praise you highly. now, my work on the volume i'm finishing now and yale university press has allowed me to say that they are publishing my volume, is that the whole story of richard nixon's vice presidency and his relationship with dwight eisenhower, has been told with a basis that they didn't like one another, they detested one another, they hated one another, as steven ambrose said they had an ambivalent relationship. none of those are true. i've looked at about 3 million pages of documents, thanks to susan helping me and others helping me. and basically, what you find out is that richard nixon and dwight eisenhower had an a-minus relationship. they got along fine together.

they not only got along fine together, that dwight eisenhower used richard nixon in a superb way. eisenhower never got nailed. he never got criticized for the things that he told other people to do. whether it was massive retaliation or brinkmanship by john foster dulles, sending troops to vietnam allegedly by nixon, whether it was affairs, all of this stuff never stuck to dwight eisenhower. it always went to somebody else. and i spent you know, several -- to not enough minutes talking to dean about civil rights. now, just a taste for you all, i started out with three paragraphs on richard nixon and civil rights. i now have three chapters on richard nixon and civil rights. he was the lead person in public

affairs under dwight eisenhower pushing desegregation, pushing equal job opportunity. he was next to lyndon johnson in 1957, bringing republican senators on board for the civil rights act of 1957. the story about lbj and richard nixon not getting along, i have their letters. they got along fine. they worked well together. richard nixon, taking all of these good will missions abroad, to get him out of town so he wouldn't be around. every time -- with one exception. when richard nixon goes abroad, the first person that sees him before he leaves to brief him is dwight eisenhower in th the first person that richard nixon sees when he comes back is dwight eisenhower in the white house. so, the whole nature of how

richard nixon is viewed and how he operates under the presidency of dwight eisenhower in many ways he becomes a sponge where he absorb what is dwight eisenhower wants done, how it fits into his life and times, and how richard nixon moves forward in his political career. was he conservative? sometimes. was he a liberal? oh, such a terrible word. sometimes. was he a moderate? sometimes. it reall issue was. nixon, i know this is going to surprise you, was a terribly complex individual. dwight eisenhower was equally if not more so. the man was absolutely brilliant in how he bureaucratically managed his government. so the nature of this incredible relationship and how nixon rises to power as the foreign policy

president, how he becomes fascinated with civil rights, how he works towards that, how you know, black americans move into the democratic party irrespective of what the gop does. all of these are stories that have been voided or vacuumed or whatever during the period of the 1950s. so i hope that you enjoy thesem. i hope that you enjoy meeting my colleagues as i've enjoyed meeting them, and i really hope mel doesn't have his hand in front of his face that he does accept my appreciation for mel, really a job well done. thank you. [ applause ] and then there are the negatives >> >> i am a sheep in wolf's clothing although as you can see i didn't even get the dress code

memo. i in nixon style i had prepared and i had prepared it sufficiently so it would appear to be spontaneous, a talk about nixon's early life and i only was informed on arrival that i was to comment on the previous speakers. and this would be like barry rn i low commenting on beethoven. i have a smattering of in these things. i did work on the researching and writing of his memoirs from 74 to 78 and i worked with him again in 1983 on doing producing and conducting about 38 hours of interviews which were to abvideo biography based on his -- based on the memoirs. but that was a long time ago, and so i'm not really an expert

in, as you're about to see, in '83 in those interviews. the president told me two things that i think are relevant to today's panel. one is that he didn't have much -- wasn't much interested in psycho historians. because all psycho historians are psychos.ore i go on i should say thanks certainly to mel small for writing this or collecting and editing this important book, and to the library and the miller center and to the archives for making all of this possible. joe's comments. the 27 pages of