over the beautiful green rolling hills there on the putting green was a little five star flag. it had five stars in gold. the stationary. instead of the presidential seal which he could have done. >> what that gesture did and as early as 1961, in fact, his request to be restored to rank puzzled president kennedy. but if you think about it and as we thought about it when we put the took together, it's consistent with everything happening. you have a generational shift. there's no doubt about it in 1961. richard nixon was the old man, who was younger than obama was in 2008. this was a generational shift, and the wartime generation is making way for a new group in america. and so what eisenhower is saying

by restoration of rank is that to understand his presidency and why he was there and what he accomplished between 1953 and '61, it's a period of reconstruction. like the reconstruction that followed the civil war. in a 20th century frame, he's very underestimated. grant carried forward the reconstruction after the american civil war. this is what the eisenhower presidency is in many ways. and then in january of '61 he was going to be succeeded either by a republican or a democrat, both under 50. both restless and looking for a way to branch out. and this becomes a theme. what happens in "going home to glory" is the wisdom of the war generation. what they took for granted is

constantly challenged and what eisenhower has to understand and richard nixon and john kennedy, is that he can offer support, advice, but in the final analysis, the generation in power is charting the course for the nation and perhaps responding to things he doesn't understand complete lu. and we make it clear to late '67 and early '68. the correlated confuses dwight eisenhower a little bit. then he understands that this will work out. america is a land of ingenuity. we require people to work hard to get there. so we are led by very exceptional people. we rely on presidents to find solutions to great dilemmas that america has faced. >> you wrote about a

conversation that you had with your grandma. about your grandfather. you asked if she ever really knew him. she reprice, "i'm not sure anyone ever did requests. what is at the root of that comment? >> my father noted this about franklin roosevelt. it was an admiring comment he made. here we are at the lyndon johnson library. this is, by the way, julie is here, a former student. i send students to the johnson library every semester. i know the institution. i know what a great one it is. and the great story told here. presidents are sort of mysterious in a lot of ways, and this is more obvious in certain libraries than it might be in others. what my father said with admiration is franklin roosevelt was completely unscrutable. he was a mystery in his own papers.

i would say that that is true of a number of presidents. there are people who -- >> they're very complex. >> go ahead. >> i agree with you. i think they're very complex and they're driven and they're extraordinary. >> would your mother have said the same thing about your father? >> no, i think he was more normal. >> your father? >> no? i thought he was such a great family man. the way i knew him. i don't know. politically maybe. i don't know. never spanked. i wouldn't do that. >> i think these people have -- people with that kind of drive develop a sense of what they're going to be rather early in life. and the thing that makes me smile a little bit listening to julie is julie wrote this wonderful book.

it's called "pat nixon the untold story." and one of the collections that she brings in the book is an amazing cache of letters that richard nixon wrote pat nixon from the south pacific. in '43, '44 and '45. if he isn't telling her in these letters he's going to be president, i don't know what he's telling her. it's there to see. as the story goes, bill clinton's classmates were saving his letters and little things he wrote at the age of 15 and 16. he wasn't captain of the football team. but he exuded an extraordinary sense of himself. i'm sure linda and lucy have stories about lyndon johnson. my grandfather -- my father told the story in 1938 or '9 they

were living in manila working for mcarthur. douglas mcarthur. and my dad confronted my grandfather with the idea or suggestion that my grandfather was wasting his time. why are you wasting your time working for douglas mcarthur as an assistant liaising with the government when you have one offer after another from large shipping concerns and businesses that are based in manila and so forth, go into business and his reply was, i believe war is going to break out in 24 or 36 months and when it does i will lead it there. he's a colonel. these are -- i don't want to b mystical. i'm just saying they're unusual people.

i think there is there an element of them. >> history is full of tensions between dwight eisenhower and richard nixon. you were there and saw the relationship up close. how would you characterize the relationship between the two of them? >> the answer is it's amazing they got along as well as they did. because you're taking two presidential personalities bumping along together. in other words, we have dwight eisenhower who is president and then richard nixon who is going to be president and for these two people who both have ideas and agendas and for them to get along as well as they did i think it developed into a warm friendship. i think that just the energy and the fact that my father represented something different from eisenhower as well. he represented a newer generation. he represented a pacific outlook. >> eisenhower had his own clash with mcarthur.

same thing. and you can draw an analogy. when you see pictures of douglas macarthur and dwight eisenhower bent over a desk going over some document relating to the first division in 1938, you are looking at the man who commanded u.s. forces in the pacific and the man who commanded u.s. forces right there. this is a major and a general who is, in effect, retired. you have no idea that these people are the figures that they are. and about then mcarthur began to get an idea working with eisenhower that he wasn't going to get along with him. my grandfather was sent on a trip in 1938 to try to equip the

phillipine division. in returning to manila, believing he had served his boss well. when talking eisenhower/nixon. was nixon devoted to eisenhower, and did eisenhower value nixon's service as subordinant? finally the general's come up with an assignment. it's been a year or so forth. he's writing in his diary and so forth. and when he returns to manila. literally his key would not fit in the lock. his successor has been appointed. eisenhower confides in his diary saying, i will not give the general the satisfaction knowing i'm being fired. what general macarthur is telling the war department is that this is the finest oftser i've encountered in the united states army and the moment war breaks out in europe he should be detailed to high command immediately. mcarthur is firing him and recommending him for high

command. i think what that means is macarthur understood he did not have a staff officer on his hands. eisenhower, as much as he wanted to, he will never be a staff officer. so this thing generates into a series of misunderstandings. macarthur is driven to call eisenhower the best clerk i ever had. eisenhower is driven to call him the greatest instructor of dramatics i ever studied under. >> yes. >> but they went their separate ways. what we narrate in "going home to glory" is my grandfather was a dying man in '68 and '69 and i think he wanted to make it clear he always had a fondness for his vice president. there were always going to be stories on how they related. it was rooted in temperament and

the kinds of people that they were. he wanted us to all know there was genuine affection there. and i think there was. >> julie, your father ran for the presidency in 1960 and was defeated. he ran for governor of california in 1962 and was defeated. went through some wilderness years. and then ran for the presidency of 1968. jumped right back into the arena and against all odds got the nomination and ultimately presidency. what drove him to seek office again after those two earlier defeats, which many thought was his ultimate demise? >> well, really it was his vision in how to deal with the rest of the world. in '67 he wrote in foreign affairs an article called "asia after vietnam" where he talked about china can't be left in

angry isolation and we have to take steps to bring china into the family of nations. and i think that his passion for foreign affairs and the fact that this wilderness you refer to is when i was in high school. and my father was constantly traveling. sometimes we would go with him. meeting with as many world leaders as would see him. and calling on all of the relationships he developed when eisenhower sent him to 53 countries as vice president on the goodwill trips. that was his passion. he felt he could serve the country. but it's interesting to watch the primary. it was very uncertain that he could win the nomination. he did. but in '68 the first primary was in new hampshire. he won 70%. these are huge numbers when you think of what romney and gingrich and others are pulling in. then he went onto nebraska and

we were there. the whole step of the way. nebraska, california. oregon. anyway. so it was an uphill battle. but the way he did it we just to go out and campaign. and win the primaries. then he got the nomination. if he hadn't won the primaries he wouldn't have won the nomination because he wasn't the choice of the republican party. >> this is the year before both republicans and democrats adopted the binding primaries and were awarding delegates. it was to influence delegates in the states. that is the way we chose presidents. then we choose presidents differently today. we have a record of those presidents. we have a record of the presidents we've had recently. i'm not sure it makes a whole

lot of difference. i think that was a good method of choosing presidents. >> it's interesting to note that when he ran, the favorite was george romney. >> at the very beginning. then rockefeller and then reagan. there was a lot of formidable people in the party who wanted that nomination. >> what was the relationship between -- >> one of my favorite parts of "going home to glory" is one of my father's aides was a congressman named bob ellsworth. he was sent out by my dad to -- not schmooze governor reagan, but give him reports of the campaign. so he could call on reagan. it's just great because he kept trying to influence what was going on with eisenhower and reagan. and what was your grandfather -- >> he was sending people to see

eisenhower to convince the general that reagan was not a right winger. >> that was the word. a right-winger. it was a funny relationship. >> in fact many of dwight eisenhower's friends in palm springs, palm deserts became members of the so-called governor's cabinet in 1970 -- reagan won in 1966. and served two terms as governor. these are behind the ratings campaigns of '76 and '80. >> julia, you mentioned your father's views on china. and opening china to the west in 1972 with his visit to beijing was a triumph of his administration. would he be surprised at china's rise in the world? would he be pleased with where they are? >> i don't think he would be surprised because his last book

that was actually published after he died. he died a month before it came out. it was called "beyond peace." the title of the book is from his last conversation in 1976 with mao tse tung, when mao said is peace the only goal that america wants? is that it? is that the goal? my father said no. we have to go beyond peace. we have to build a more just world. et cetera. that was the title of the book. and he predicted in that book that china would be a power house and, of course, it is today. but i think the important thing is that one bond i feel with the johnson family is that vietnam was such a tortorous time for

our country. i admired lyndon johnson and his courage and leadership. he was trying to find a way to end that war. and a way that he was in negotiations, et cetera. i remember that i wrote in my diary the day before the election, i said, you know, if daddy is elected president i just fear that the nightmare of trying to resolve the war in vietnam is going to be almost -- and that's what these two presidents have in common. >> there was a very interesting letter. i spoke to ralph many times when i came here to research. he was lyndon johnson's advisor. there's a very interesting letter from johnson to one of

the very famous journalists. may have been drew pearson. either litman or pearson. talking about his differences with full bright and the senate foreign relations committee. and what johnson explains in the letter is that he believed unlike many of the critics in the senate that the american interest ran equally strong towards asia as it did towards europe. in other words, the reason he was waging the vietnam war was to demonstrate america's commitment and interest to asia. it was that interest and commitment demonstrated by two presidents that opened china. there's no way in the world that china facing 45 rocket divisions deployed in manchuria by the

soviets who are about muscle back in on a socialist commonwealth is going to take a chance on relations with a nation that does not value asia. so persisting. as difficult as though types war, he did bequeath a chance for the united states to achieve larger aims. and one of them was persuading the asian governments that the united states truly cared about that region and it's a building block to our relationship with china. and what julie's dad made very clear, and as a teenager and somebody just turning 20, the only thing i knew where were waiving these red books and so forth. mao swimming the yantze, this

zaniness in china. and he came back from several trips. this was very early in the courtship. and he would regale us at night with his stories in hong kong as an attorney and his consultations with people in the far east about what an extraordinary area of the world this is and what he expected these nations to become. he made that very clear in the period. i thought it was interesting. i had never heard it before. i think that's his gift or contribution. presidents do contribute many things. many encounter difficulties but they do contribute. and nixon's great vision of asia mattering to america in the way europe mattered to us between 1941 and '45, and seeing that arena as the center of development and so forth in decades to come was a tremendous

contribution, which is remembered and acknowledged throughout china today. >> julie, mentioned vietnam and lucy and linda often talk about the pain of watching their father go through vietnam and the white house. you've written about the pain you've experienced watching your father go through watergate. your father who julian david lived on the front lines of watergate and they suffered the brutal assaults every bit as much as i did. what was that experience like for you during the latter years of your father's time in the white house? it was difficult because it was terrible for the nation. it just wasn't something terrible for the family.

but the whole watergate saga it wasn't good for the presidency. so that was difficult. so i wouldn't want to put words in linda and lucy's mouths but it must have been difficult with a half million young men fighting in vietnam and really this almost seemingly endless war. and when your husband, like lucy's husband, chuck served, the sacrifices people are making, you never want to let people down. i think that's what makes it difficult when you go through something. >> going through that period, and not in some way to let the american people down. i won't say america was ungovernable in that period. we did come through. the interesting thing about vietnam is just think about this for a second. we had the fall of saigon in 1975. we did not have an intervening event anywhere involving the united states for the next ten

years. what happens? soviet union collapses. not one intervening event. we did things right. in that period. vietnam, what does vietnam mean? does it mean that america lost a war, or does it mean that the united states is such a dynamic country that they sustained an effort on behalf of a minority in southeast asia. 8,000 miles away. mounting a logistical effort that no other country in the world could conceive of. what lesson did countries around the world derive observing the united states in this period. i think what they saw was an extraordinary effort. and i think that is strangely -- william westmoreland was interviewed about this. he was asked about this 12 years ago. commander of vietnam.

we saw him at a funeral not long ago. i guess bob hope, 2003. and he was asked about what do you make of the fact that you commanded american forces in vietnam, and we had this terrible setback in southeast asia. and the soviet union has collapsed, communism has retreated. what do you make of that? he says, well, i guess it's the luck of the yankees. i just don't know. but i think the answer is that this was a very difficult period. it was a transition period in america. that's palpable in the speeches of presidents in that period. that we are really passing through a transition. america is assuming great responsibilities without clear cut enemies and challenges.

the ambiguous responsibilities that we're assuming. and i think we have difficulties. i think it's impossible anywhere from '61 all the way to '80 for a presidency not in some sense to disappoint america. >> anyone who lived through the nixon administration has very deep impressions of your father. what is the most popular misconception about your father? >> i haven't really thought about that. i tend to think of the positive. i've kind of retired from that whole thing. what i mean is, his -- i'm so proud of his record. that's what has to be focused on. not just the foreign policy. but the environmental protection agency. the desegregation of southern schools. that was really -- tom of "the new york times" columnist said that was his greatest achievement. when he took office, 68% of black children in the south were in all black schools. when he left office, 8%.

and the way he did it, and it showed his leadership is that he quietly engaged southern officials. instead of saying this is a shame and a scandal and the south is bad and we have to change this, he got the southern officials to be on advisory committees. they were doing all kinds of things to make sure this happened. and there was a partnership. and i really think this made the south the great region of the country it is today. how could they be a great region if they had parts of their population that were not treated equally? you have to get rid of that to move forward. the south is now the most dynamic section of our country. so i think there are many things we could talk about with the nixon presidency. better not get me started.

[ laughter ] >> david, there's a memorial that's being planned now in washington to your grandfather. it's adjacent to the mall. but there's a great deal of controversy around that. >> johnson education -- >> between that and the air and space museum. but there's a great deal of controversy around that. can you talk about the current plans for the memorial and why your family -- >> i just stepped down as a commissioner. and that was not because that i had what transpired between me and the commission but i did not -- i stepped down because i have a conflict of interest. i had become chairman of the eisenhower presidential foundation. and this memorial is going to raise funds nationally. and we're trying to raise funds. and so it's a general conflict. and also, we've entered a phase where the eisenhower memorial is actually being designed. and the fact that it is being designed has brought out all kinds of differences of opinion. and that doesn't surprise me.

if you think about how you would do a national memorial to eisenhower i could come up with a thousand ideas. and the way the commission did it they retained the most famous architect in the world. and they solicited designs from him. the concept is out there. the architectural community in washington is responding to that. and i'm not surprised at all there are other designs out there. i do not doubt that there will be modifications in the existing design and that it will work out ultimately. >> we talked about misconceptions about your father. you alluded to one, which is that he was a lot more moderate than most people think he was. >> actually he was called the

last liberal president. certainly -- i don't know. he was in the mode of the progressive presidents. >> i think both president eisenhower and president nixon were moderate, certainly by today's standards. the gop has evolved considerably since that time. i wonder, what do you think your grandfather, david, and your father, julie, would think of the current crops of gop candidates for presidents. [ laughter ] that's what you call a loaded question. >> but aren't they amazing in the sense that think of the pressure they're under with the debates. i think it shows their quality. they can still get out there and answer complicated questions week after week. we've never put candidates through this before. >> it's gruelling. >> right. >> even the people that dropped out of