chosen to write the president's letter of resignation. this is about an hour and a half.

>> hi, i'm tim atelli, and i'm director of the richard nixon presidential museum in yorba linda, california. i have the honor and privilege to be interviewing david gergen for the program. david gergen. thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. >> as i told you, i'll go in chronological order. i want to start by asking you about the relationship, if you can call it that, that developed between former president nixon and bill clinton. >> it was an odd relationship between bill clinton and president nixon, one that would have, i think, never -- you never could have predicted. you have to remember that hillary clinton, after all, was on the staff that helped to impeach him and put him on trial, and bill clinton was no great lover of richard nixon, but bill clinton came to have

great respect for richard nixon's insights. i remember he told me once that he had received a private letter from richard nixon about the soviet union. he said it was the most insightful and helpful paper he'd received up until that time on the subject. i had an unusual experience working for president clinton in that i'd worked for president nixon and i kept up with him off and on in the years intervening, and i had a call from president nixon who said i'm going to be in washington in a couple of weeks. would you come have breakfast with me? i said, sure, i'd be honored to come, and i asked him if i could bring somebody from the white house, and i told him i'd like to bring the chief of staff which was matt mccharty who was then chief of staff for bill

clinton and he happily agreed to go and we went to the washington circle hotel which is on dupont circle, and i remember arriving there in the morning and it was just the three of us, but a young woman who was there with him was his research assistant and she went on to write books about him who is now a television and radio personality was there and monica crowley, and i can't remember -- i can't remember who else, but anyway, while we were talking and having one of the fascinating meals and president nixon looked at me and said i'd like you to take a message to president clinton, and i realize suddenly that we were there because he appreciated or admired what i w. once a staff person, always a staff person.

shire, wh sure, what is it? he said i want you to talk to him about nafta which was something that was a treaty with mexico and canada, of course, on trade that president bush's administration had negotiated but was then sort of dormant in the early months of the nixon administration and i want you to take a message to president clinton about nafta. he said he's coming out very strongly for it, and i know he doesn't have the vote, but tell him that there are things worse than losing, and it's really important that he stand up for this, and then he added, if he wants to understand why it is so important to embrace nafta, tell him to read up on the repeal of the laws and i thought to myself, only nixon, of all of the presidents i've known would reach back into history that way

and find this illuminating example and it was telling because i went back and double checked myself and i knew what i was talking myself. in the court laws in the mid-19th century against the protests of many farmers know it was a move away from protectionism toward free trade and it's often regarded as one of those turning points that unleashed the british economy and even though there were people who got hurt in the interim because they were no longer protected, and they did a great deal for the country over time and it was one of those things that free trade was one of the things that made great britain a great nation. again, i was reminded that richard nixon had a great love of history and love of biography, and i think that informed much of what he did, and it made him a wiser leader in many ways. if you've ever been out to independence missouri to go to

the truman library, and harry truman was the only president in the 20th century that never went to college, but you'll find a talk out there when you get to high school students that was so applicable to nixon and truman said not every greeter is a leader, but every leader is a reader, and richard nixon is a reader. it made a great deal of difference to his presidency. he was clearly a flawed leader and deeply flawed, but he did have a bright side and he had a very dark side and we earn welled the consequences of the dark side and sometimes we need to remember the bright side. i would go back to that conversation and he'll talk about clinton. he thought, i think it is too tough for the public. i think if he gets too much responsibility it may not sit

well with the public. i found richard nixon toward the end of his life to be a person who was always perceptive, you know, and once you came to accept who he was as a human being, and his human flaws and came to then appreciate that there were other sides to him and there was much about him that was also admirable, and i felt his assessments were really quite apt. i have one other story becau because -- i was one of those who stayed until the end in august of '74 and felt very betrayed at the time and quite angry, and then over time, and sort of the wounds healed and i tried to see nixon hole as he

is, the more complete nixon and come to grips with that, and as years passed i went on to see him in 1970 -- late '75 and early '76 and the former treasury secretary and bill simon was one of my bosses and one of my mentors. we had a very, very good dinner with president nixon. he made his famous drinks. he made drinks for us. >> martinis. >> martinis, nixon martini. he slurred a few words after the martini, but it always helped him get off to a good start. in any event, yoeci don't want pretend to be close to richard nixon and there were times when we talked to each other periodically, and i saw him in new jersey again, and -- but he

would call me sometimes during election season, and he said let's talk about states. let's go over the electoral college and he said how do you think ohio is? here's when i got this, and i realized i was one of the long list of people he'd call and it was a story that i'd really want to relate because i think it's important to understand that generation. he was part of the world war ii generation and the generation that was covering the country and governed the country from jack kennedy to george bush, senior and they were all people who were young when the war came and were very much seared, tempered by war and they came of age during world war ii, and i think they returned to the united states. we have seven presidents in a row from kennedy through bush senior who served in the military uniform. all seven served in a military

uniform, and six of them in the war itself and jimmy carter in the naval academy was too young and he was still in the naval academy when the war ended and he didn't serve as a submarine upon, but the point of all of this is i think as they were a generation that shared certain values from early in the 20th century, they'd been in the triumphant war so that they had a very positive view about what america's role in the world was and could be. they were very proud of their country, but most of all they had engaged in common sacrifice when they were young, and i think it gave them a bond in governing that when i came to washington, and i like to say that there were strong republicans and there were strong democrats, but the people i met from the world war ii generation first and story most thought of themselves as strong americans and they didn't see themselves as either republican or democrat. and so the last conversation i had with richard nixon which was

by phone a few weeks before he died, he was talking to me reflecting on his past. and he told me one of my proudest moments in politics came in the beginning of my political career, and not at the end. i'd come back from the war. i held up my uniform in 1946, and i ran for congress, and you'll recall harry truman was then president and the democrats lost badly that year and the republicans swept the house and swept the senate and richard nixon came in with the republican votes of california and the freshman member of the congress and in january 1947. it was in 1947 that harry truman was watching europe go down. and his secretary of state george marshall proposed the marshall plan and it was 1947, and then tried to muster public

support for the marshall plan and as nixon recalled, and it was in its original conception at 18% in the first gallup poll that came out, but truman as the democrat, with the republican congress, then started calling in republicans to help put together the plan itself. so arthur vandenberg, for example, of michigan, and the republican chairman of the relations committee was called in to help write the marshal plan and nexton got enlisted in this cause and it became a bipartisan effort and what nixon said to me one of the proudest moments of his life, political life came when the marshal plan was put to a vote in the house of representatives. a plan from a democratic president and that he stood on his side of the aisle in the house of representatives and there on the other side of the aisle stood up another freshman

member of the house of representatives, jack kennedy, and nixon said, when the chips are down in this country we try to stand up together and that's been the great tradition and it was proud of the vote. as i recall, i called richard nixon for all of the flaws of that generation and for all of nixon's enormous flaws as president. there were parts of that legacy that should be remembered in a positive way as well as the things that we all bowed and wondered how did we ever get there. how did the tragedy ever unfold? >> let me ask you, do you recall president clinton's response to the message about nafta? >> well, i think it was then that he may have told me about russia. i can't remember the exact

sequencing, but it's very important that president clinton took his advice and did exactly what he said. i thought that was one of the bravest moments of president nixon's. he took on his own -- and he got bashed for it, but as you'll remember that's when he called in the former presidents who could come and visit there to support him and stand with him, and i have a -- very positive memories of the way george h.w. bush and jimmy carter and jerry ford as i recall all came here to support that in day one and that was exactly what nixon would recall, and that is when the chips are down and people stand up together. that was a time where in 2009

and where we were then and protections ran very strong in the country in the mid-90s and clinton took a lot of heat for it. >> did you pass any messages from clinton to president nixon? >> i did not. not that i recall. it was during clinton presidency, of course, that richard nixon died and i -- and president clinton called me in to talk about the death, and there was a debate inside the white house about whether he should go to the funeral and i came down strong and said you've got to go. it's very important. it could be part of the healing process, and he did. i was -- i was impressed that he did that. >> he said something very important about richard nixon when he was there. where did that paragraph come from?

>> well, as you know, when presidents give the speeches all of the words come from the president's so it was bill clinton's speech, and it was -- he said if you'll recall in that speech that we should remember the whole of richard nixon and not just for his flaw, but we should remember the whole of the man. it was something he and i talked about on the plane on the way out, and i was very pleased that he took that view. i thought that was generous and compassionate healing and perspective, and i thought it was the right perspective. when with you're a president as i learned from nixon and others you're a president of all of the people and you're not a president of your party and you're the president of a large

contingency and dynamic and squabbling country, but it was important to be healing and to let nixon -- let him be in pe e peace. i will also tell you a footnote from that. i was back as -- as you can imagine, at this -- at this outdoor ceremony where bob dole spoke and others spoke, and all of the nixon alumni, the white house staff were all in front, and i was with the clinton staff and we were all in black. and this note arrived back to me from one row back to the next saying, and it was from jim cavanaugh, a strong nixon assistant. a wonderful man. and i think he said something to the effect, gergen, if you're still a republican you'd be sitting up front.

it was a -- they -- i have to tell you something that i have very fond memories of the nixon alumni because there were many flaws in that team. i had friends that went to jail, and i thought paid unspeakable price for what happened. i don't think i got up in something bigger than they were and it was a tragedy to see dwight go to jail. he was one of the most creative people of his generation, and i put dwight and mike beaver in the both very gifted, imaginative and loyal to years, it was like going through the marine corps together. we really got roughed up.

you're in the same fox hole with a lot of guys. a lot of stuff coming in on your all the time. when you do that, that kind of experience, you come out very strongly about the individuals you went through with and very positively, very bonded. and so to this day, for all the turmoil, all the prices we paid as a country and as -- most of us felt we were finished when nixon went down. we thought there's no place -- if you were on the nixon white house staff, you felt like you had just finished playing for the chicago black sox. your days were over. there's no come company. adds it turns out, merida is very forgiving, and a lot of people went on to strong careers in public service. the private success. to this day a lot of us have a

strong loyalty to each other as human beings for what we came through. i still have a lot of affection for the people i worked with. >> please tell us a bit about ray price. from reading your book, it seems he was a very important influence on you in this period. >> i've been blessed in life, not only working for presidents but having extremely good mentors. ray was among the top of the mentors i had in life. you should know ray price brought me into the white house and i never would have been there had it not been for him and another dear friend i went to school with, jonathan rose. i was -- kind of a long story short, i was -- i had come back -- i had gone to law school after college and after law school went into the navy. my last year of naval service was in washington and i did a little work with the white house. when i was mustering out of the

navy, thought i was going back to north carolina and was in conversations there, in fact, at the university of north carolina to stay there. but in the meantime i had john rose who worked in that white house had been like law school roommate called me and said there's an opening here at the white house with ray price. do you know ray price? i have no idea who he is. he said, well, ray has just become head of the speech writing team. it's a speech writing research team, about 50 people. he needs an administrative assistant. why don't you come in and interview for the job. i said, jonathan -- this is 1971, i'm just coming out of the navy. i'm very available. i'm very fascinated by it. as you know i voted for hubert humphrey in 1967. i can't imagine they're going to be interested. he said, come on over and have