virginia, one of the delegates, to introduce it in the open days. it 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 thus accorded the title, father of the koconstitution in his own lifetime. it was really in this room that madison brought these ideas together. it's in this room, the old library of montpelier, 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. in fact dolly wrote she was more comfortable at entertaining 100 at montpelier than 20 in the white house. you also meet here the lord and lady of the manor, dolly and james madison. this was created life size and we challenged to create not just the likeness of james and dolly, but the relationship between them. here you see madison reading. he was always had his head in the book. dolly approaches and the pl'd m reaction, share with her one of the items he just read. it shows a sense of affection and shows an intellectual relationship between them. if you want to learn about james madison was the father of the constitution. and his wife dolly, who inspired the title first lady, there's no

place to come but montpelier in orange, virginia. montpelier encompasses four square miles of land, 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 our life today. >> this is one of a series of american artifacts programs. featuring james madison's montpelier. 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. understanding richard nixon and his era. this program is the first panel discussion from the conference and addresses his life story from his parents' 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 introductions. up first, joe, my colleague at wittier college. joe is an associate professor and librarian with expertise in nixon materials at whittier college's library. his most recent article, under the table, michael wilson in the screen play that appeared in the spring 2 009 issue focused on the politics of the hollywood black list.

the second speaker earned his masters degree and ph.d. 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 colleges in chicago. he's now at the college of du page and he has written about the career of richard nixon, concentrating on his career in congress. his dissertation topic, nixon in the '50s. our next speaker is irv gelman. irv has written three monographs on the presidency of franklin d. roosevelt, roosevelt and batista published in 1973. secret affairs, franklin roosevelt, cordell hall, summer wells in '95. he's em parked on a mult time multivolume 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. 1952 to 1961 and he expects it to be published this year. our final speaker will be perspective from someone within the nixon administration, frank gannon. frank received his doctor of philosophy from oxnard university and won a white house fellowship and served in the nixon white house from 1971 through 1974. he accompanied nixon to san clemente aboard air force one and organized the research and writing. i'll turn it over first to joe. >> good morning, everybody. >> first of all, 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. which i think was a -- the work turned out very nicely. my task for the project was to assess the buy graph cal coverage of nixon's prepolitical years from 1913 to 1945. focused on the accuracy and reliability of the work and look to see if bias was apparent with the author. in the early works, the statements or quotes were unattributed regularly. my chapter was organized chronologically, i reviewed 23 works spanning from 1952 to 2009 for the companion. i am looking at trends in biographical coverage of richard nixon. the first full-length biography of nixon was "finding quaker" by

c. richard gardner which he wrote in 1952. gardner was a former nixon publicist and a whittier college graduate. the work was never published. the only ones were in the special collections. richard nixon cooperated with gardner and author with nixon's family they are significant topics covered for the first time. this included the personal biography and family background. the tragic death of two brothers, arthur died in 1925 at age 7 and harold, who died in 1933, at age 23. guarder in also discussed the religious background, the quaker heritage of the nixon family, and explored nixon's wartime experience for the navy. fighting quaker was a useful resource for a number of nixon 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

office and the files that helped the biographers. just pointed out one who wrote richard nixon, political and personal portrait, 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 first congressional race in 1946. i'd like to point out nixon's memoirs came out in 1978. this is important work. released four years after his resignation. that served as an instrumental step towards his rehabilitation. only 27 pages out of 1120 were dedicated to the early years. this is still an essential starting point for biographers. in the early 1980s we had academics came into the picture.

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 manuscript collects like libraries and archives including the main branch and the regional branches like the papers that were formerly in the library of congress and special collect, depositories at colleges and universities. i would like to focus on julie nixon eisenhower's 1986 work called "pat nixon, sty" bi mother. she had unique access to diaries and correspondents not available to her biographers and access to her parents which gave her a special place as a biographer. outstanding coverage of her parents' courtship and in 1945, she detailed the story of how whitner banker herman perry contacted the nixons while in baltimore and that september 1945 that asked if richard was interesting in

running against the incumbent representative. julie verified her parents' savings which was 10,000 all went into the congressional race. they planned to use the money for a house. it was in war bonds. i would like to talk about one biography by roger morris, which presents a problem for a lot of scholars and students. morris was an ivy league educated journalist and historian. he resigned in protest from the national security council april 1970 after the cambodian incursion. 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 marie she. and also the company that nixon, his first and last, business venture, he was the president of the company. it went down. it was frozen orange juice, they ran into technical problems. in 19193, johnathan aitken wrote "nixon alive" and that was the greatest politicians since the mid 60s. it's not an authorizes biography he had 60 hours of your interviews. there things you found useful for instance, in 1926, freshman year of high school for nixon at thornton, he was on the football team and they took an x-ray and he had a spot on the x-ray. so tb ran in that family. and 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. although welsh was nixon's

girlfriend, he knew her at high school but dated during college years. johnathan aitken had access to her, interviews with her and nixon. he got both sides of the story which i think was very useful. last, i am looking at the family biography, ed nixons and karen olson's family portrait. he described the story before he was born. frank nixon is building the birthplace home that we have on the grounds. no sewer and electricity and gas line. they had to pump water from a well and cook with a stove using white gas. they had what called a california cooler that was a screen in the shaded area in the produce. and in the early days the workers harvested ice from lake arrowhead or big bear lake. i quound that quite fascinating. it told the story of how he

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 to michigan to pick up a new car. this was something that frank nixon was in the habit of doing. richard bought a brand new olds mobile and drove it 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 american politician. conversely, he repelled allegiant of detractors. nixon's biographers split into opposing camps as well offering highly objective perspectives. objectivity is not a prevailing characteristic involving the biographical coverage, for the most part. this is certainly manifested in national tur of the materials i reviewed in the prepolitical

years. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, i have news for you. richard nixon was no new dealer. having studied the congressional and vice presidential periods of nixon's political career, a question crossed my mind or a 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 1833 and 1941 that encompasses the great depression, the new deal, and the beginning of the second world war.

this period formed a kruse bal upon which the all american persona, we see that as a young man, certainly, full of belief and sturdy self-reliance and pep, was tested and challenged by, well, a few things. the mass deprivation and general suffering one saw during great depression, that was no picnic, certainly. the relatively radical effort business the new deal agencies to intervene, some would argue, in the lives of the individual citizens. and finely, the polarization of much of the citizenry in response to the new deal in general. okay? second, the company you keep. richard nixon, the young richard nixon's association with various political mentors, advisers, handlers, fund-raisers, donors

and supporters, helped further this what i call, quote, conservative education of richard nixon. >> youian.k anyone ask me who are my influences, i'll say the carpenters and barry manilow. when i feel like telling the truth. his maternal grandmother, mira millhouse, known ace lifelong republican. nixon himself said in his memoirs, frank nixon disdained stand pat republicans like harding and coolidge. in fact, frank nixon may have voted for fdv in 1932 and 36. big news. hannah nixon herself according to melvin small voted for woodrow wilson in 1912. at least in 1916. maybe it's recreational reading. he read, in addition to "the l.a. times" as a young man, good

housekeeping and the saturday evening post, both of which may have praised 1920s 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. a rot of us fell he had been soft on communism. i think he was befuddled a lot of the time and fooled by stalin. john francis, he was a big fund-raiser in the san francisco bay area for nixon and many elections between 1952 and 1968. he told his own employer william randolph hearse, that governor fdr, who he met in '33 did not understand fundamentals of the national economy or the u.s. stock market.

"when the two of us got to economics, he seemed to think that all industry consisted of stock market operations." earl c. 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 i mean their goals never get met." these are some of the people that nixon surrounded himself with in the phase of his career. steve. ambrose calls, at least in terms of the committee of 100, rotarians, lawyers, realtors, insurance men, auto dealers, here in the old 12th district. south pasadena, el monty and whittier.

by 1938 nixon registered as a republican. up to that time, melvin small claims nixon was a nonideological centrist. in 1936 or in retrospect, one of his roommates from 1936 and on at the end of his law school career at duke, claimed nixon believed that the individual should push back against big government and big society and big business. an american can never be free if he or she abdicated his or her personal responsibilities to someone else. finally, nixon did pledge in a letter to herman pairry, his first political mentor, a letter dated 6 october, 1945 to practice "practical liberalism " as opposed to "

that new brand of liberalism pushed by jerry in the 1946 campaign." this is some of the members of his committee of 100 who helped push his 1946 and 1948 campaigns, it's something that needs to be worked upon. thank you very much. [ applause ] . >> 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 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 nulty, 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 cumming. 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 together. what you've done has been beyond

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 farming 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 goodwill missions abroad, to g h 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 the white house. 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 really depended what the 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.tori that have been voided or vacuumed or whatever during the period of the 1950s. so i hope that you enjoy the rest of the seminar. 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 ]

>> 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 man manilow 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 be a video 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. joe's remarks, and before 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.