the speech that he has to read, but all the big speeches that nixon gave were his own. when he gave the written text and obviously when he spoke from notes or no notes, rather, it was all him. so, it was relatively easy. >> we all complained that he spent too much time writing his speeches. >> exactly. >> but it was probably a good judgment in the end. >> he knew how to deliver. he was a lawyer, he'd been a champion debater from high school then on. >> he insisted on two things going right to the point. he would say the speech isn't out there until it's given. you can't talk about a copy of the speech. it's out there in the mind of the audience. he would insist that the writer go on any speech that they worked on, he wanted us to hear how it went. secondly, one stage he asked us to underline in every text the part that we thought would be the lead in the evening news or the next morning's newspaper because he knew that unless we

had a sound bite, the press wasn't going to pick it up, unless we had the capsule well honed that the message was less likely to get through. those are just two little indications i think of his sensitivity to what happened in the mind of -- >> and whether it was a big national speech on national television or a rose garden remarks or proclamation, every speechwriter's name was on the top of the speech, with the draft of the remarks. >> that was really nice of him. >> so he knew who did it. >> leon, i snuck up behind you. we have hit hour and a half and we could go on all afternoon. >> we sure could. >> i want to thank the panelists for putting together a fantastic forum. and i would -- i would leave you -- i would leave you with one thought. one of the nice things about these nixon administration was how many young people there were. here we are 40 years later and we're doing these panels with veterans of the nixon white house and nixon administration

who can tell you about what it was like to be there. and, you know, we have almost the full original staff of speech writers. we're going to be talking about a lot of on other substantive areas as we go forth, but it is because there was a very, very young staff and we have matured quite nicely. you saw the colored hair in the beginning of it and you look across and we don't have that anymore. thank you all for coming.

a generation before president john f. kennedy acting on behalf of a grateful nation designated him an honorary american citizen, winston

churchill paid his own heartfelt tribute to his transatlantic origins. appearing before a joint session of congress on the day after christmas, 1941, he puckishly observed, i cannot help reflecting that if my fathered had american and my mother british instead of the other way around i might have got here on my own. today outside the british embassy on massachusetts avenue churchill literally describes two nations with one bronze foot planted on british soil and the other on american. this pleased the old man himself no end. of the statue announced on his 89th birthday, the honorary american said, i feel it will rest happily and securely on both feet. controversy arose over the

depiction, it was another churchill icon with a cigar in his left hand that offended some members of the english-speaking union. the organization responsible for the sculpture. in the end authenticity and the cigar won out. unveiled a year after his death in 1965, the figure seems even larger than its nine-foot dimensions would indicate. almost half a century on, winston churchill still manages to dominate his surroundings. >> by the way, i cannot help but reflecting that if my father had been american and my mother british, instead of the other way around, i might have got here on my own. from the colonial era, prohibition, to today, drinking for better or worse has always been a part of the american

landscape. tonight, live on "american history tv" a history of alcohol in america. watch our simulcast of "backstory" with the american history guide. hosts regale with tales of beer and spirits in america. tonight at 8:00 eastern, part of ""american history tv"" this weekend on c-span3. each week at this time "american history tv" features an hourlong conversation from c-span's a sunday night interview series "q and a." here's this week's encore "q and a" on "american history tv." >> this week on "q and a," our guest is ray price, former chief

speechwriter for president richard nixon. mr. price prepared former president nixon for his interviews with david frost. "frost/nixon" a movie based on those interviews opened nationwide christmas day. >> ray price, as someone who was a chief speechwriter for richard nixon and someone who worked with him during the frost/nixon interview, what's your reaction to all these years later all the commotion around the play and the movie? >> well, mixed feelings. the richard nixon i see in the play and the movie and especially the movie is not the richard nixon i knew. i was talking to one friend about this, he came up and i think it was true, it's sort of the hollywood version of nixon and i think that's pretty true. a couple of things that struck me about him just were visually they portray him as always walking around stooped. he never did. and talking bombastically, he

never did. and, of course, david frost is a very skilled guy, but he had to make a theatrical piece and i think he made a knee attry cal piece, it was not a theatrical presidency, it was a very serious presidency. >> let's run the trailer that comes out, it describes what the movie is about, it's full of fast-paced stuff that wasn't in the movie. let's watch that and we'll talk about some of the people we see. >> good evening, i shall resign the presidency at noon tomorrow. >> this is an historic day, the only time a president has ever resigned. >> knew about the watergate cover-up. >> the man who had committed the greatest felony in american history will never stand trial. >> i had an idea for an interview, richard nixon. >> you're a talk show host. >> yesterday watching you interview the bee gees when they toured. >> why would i want to talk to david frost?

>> i got half a million dollars. >> really? >> three crack investigators. >> can i be crack one? >> can i be "b" crack? >> can i shake his hand. >> after he's done to the country. >> are you kidding me? >> pleasure to meet you. >> mr. president. >> it was devastating. i don't think he's ever going to get over that. >> frost is just not in your -- you're going to be able to rebuild your reputation. >> this entire project is a joke. >> i do hope that isn't coming out of your own pocket. >> i wish my pockets were that deep. >> there's a reason they call him tricky dick. >> stand by to roll tape. >> had a pleasant evening last night. >> yes. >> four, three, two -- >> did you do any forneycating? >> and cue david. >> the american people need a conviction. i'd hike to give richard nixon the trial he never had.

>> democracy depends on it. >> we're not going to let that happen. we're going to make them choke! power and glory. >> why didn't you burn the tapes? >> i didn't want to take any questions on watergate! >> shut it down. >> i will ruin you if it takes the rest of my life. >> what have i done? >> this interview nixon exonerates himself, that would be the worst crime of all. >> three, two, cue david. >> do you really think the president can do something illegal? >> i'm saying that when the president does it, that means it's not illegal. >> i'm sorry? >> so, when you look at that and -- did you see the movie? >> i did see the movie, yes. >> you saw the play?

>> i saw the play. >> what about those characters? who were all those people? >> well, they were -- frost was there with his three or four people. there were three of us with nixon, three of us who prepared nixon's briefing books, diane sawyer, frank gannon, and me. so i don't think you at others were present. i was present at all the tapings. i didn't sit in the taping room but i was at the house where they were done. and so i followed it all. i would be watching the taping on a monitor in one of the rooms in the house while they were doing it, so i was there for the whole thing and, of course, i got to meet and chat with all of his people. one of them, of course, young jim reston came in as a rabid nixon hater. he wanted blood. frost was a show man but he also wanted serious credentials and i

think he saw this as a good thing. in much of it he was a good interviewer. it wasn't a loud exchange the way it came through in a lot of the movie or some of it did there. i was not there for, again, the negotiations. i think they were all handled by nixon's -- had been nixon's agent for his memoirs and then he was also the agent for the frost interviews for nixon. >> what year were they done? >> they were done in, what, 1977, i believe. >> and at the time david frost, what was he doing? >> he -- what was he doing before this? i'm trying to remember now. >> he says he was in australia at the time. >> he might have been. he was british, of course, and he traveled a lot around the world, and i think i remember from frost's book that he was in australia. frost wrote a book. frost himself wrote a book about the shows. >> there actually have been three books that have been written. bob zelnick was another character in the movie who we

know from abc for 21 years and also npr at one point. >> he was one of those and jim reston and the names of the others -- i think there were two others that he had there. >> he had jack brennan. >> we had jack brennan. >> yeah. >> jack had been on our white house staff, he was a marine colonel who had been a military aid in the white house and when we abruptly left, he went out to california with the nixons. >> what did you think of the way he was portrayed in the movie? he was very active. >> yeah, i think he probably was. jack came across probably a little harsher than he was. he was a very good humored guy. he would know what he wanted, but i never saw him bluster or bravado or anything like that. >> were you in on the discussions of why richard nixon did the interviews in the first place? >> i don't think i was, no. i don't remember being part of

any discussion about whether he should. i had been -- when we left office, i sat down to try to -- actually -- when the -- the night he gave his oval office address saying he would resign the next day, he called me at home that night and said he was going to need about a week to settle down but then he'd like to have me come out to san clemente and talk to him about the future and i did. i was out there for about a month. and back to washington to clean up my own desk. i wanted for some time to get back out into private life but i was trapped by watergate because i was doing all his watergate speeches. and then so i was out there and then back to clean up things and back out again. and i was out there during his hospitalization when he almost died, was on the brink of death for some time. and then back to new york, back to washington again, and then came back out again i think in january for about three or four

months. and then i was out there for a longer periods of time. but i was out there, of course, for the entire frost/nixon tapings, too. >> are you surprised at all the reaction there's been and all the different reviews on this movie and the play? >> not really, no. i saw the play. the movie, i saw a couple days ago. it's a -- it's getting a lot of publicity. and there still is interest in the story. and frost is a showman. and also the writer of it is a pretty clever writer. he visited with me while he was writing the play. it's an enduring story and, of course, it was a story of conflict. and the conflict was intensified, of course, for the movie it's more dramatic that way. >> we know a lot of these names that are on this list because they're still in the public eye, one of them is diane sawyer. what was she doing at the time? >> well, she had been on our

white house press staff, and when she was one of those that went out to california with him when she went out and she was part of the san clemente staff out there helping with his memoir. >> what about ken? >> the same thing, he was on the white house staff and he's from california originally himself and then he also was helping on the memoirs and he also helped us with the briefing books. >> the name james reston, his father james scottie reston, well-known "new york times" western bureau chief for years. did you ever talk to him when he wrote his book? >> to -- >> to the son. >> no, i didn't. the only times i saw him were during the frost/nixon interviews. >> did you ever ask him why he was so hostile? >> no, just that he was. through the years living in georgetown, living in greenwich village here and around places hike that, i encounter more hostility than friendliness

toward my old friend. >> and your own role with richard nixon started when? >> it started -- i started work with him on march 1st, 1967. he was then a new york lawyer. a lot of people forget he was elected president not from california from which he'd been congressman and senator, but from new york. because after losing the governorship he moved to new york and joined a new york law firm which changed its name, and john mitchell joined and then when we went to washington they had to lom off the first and last names. but nixon approached me on washington's birthday 1967 by phone to see if i might be available to help him. i'd been the last editorial page editor of the "new york herald tribune" i was trying to get a novel written and i was doing that when he called me. he invited me to lunch. we talked for three hours about everything under the sun. i found myself even though i'd been writing about him for years vastly more impressed than i

expected to be. he asked me to give an answer in a week. i studied intensively for a week and decided he was my candidate and i should do it. i called him back on the seventh day and he moved me into an office and i started work that night. >> what kind of editorial positions had you taken at the "new york herald tribune"? >> the "herald" was started by james gordon bennett and they merged. i was always writing editorials. i came down from "life" magazine to the editorial page and i was writing editorials and i was the last editorial page editor for the last two years until it died. along the way i also was the acting sunday editor and i ran the review of the week section, too. >> what would you have called yourself politically? >> i've always been a republican. i attended my first republican national convention in 1948 at

the age of 18. back when conventions still nominated a candidate. i was a vandenburg supporter, i got myself down there and got myself attached to the michigan delegation. in 1950 i traveled all over connecticut as a yale senior, all over connecticut with the republican nominee for the u.s. senate who lost by one-tenth of 1% and was appointed to a vacancy and his son and his grandson became president, this was prescott bush. i'd always been involved in that sort of thing. and then "life" magazine and then the "herald tribune." i'd always been in the public policy arena at one way or another. >> as you look back at richard nixon from all these years, how would you describe him politically? was he a conservative, a middle

of the roader? >> i would describe him as a moderate conservative. but it depended on the circumstances and the situation. and a very far-seeing internationalist. he was much more conservative -- international relations than with domestic and he really had very large ambitions for reshaping the way the great powers dealt with one another and the way the world maintained or tried to maintain peace. >> what were the biggest speeches that you wrote for him? >> well, i guess i suppose the two inaugurals. i don't say wrote for. i would say wrote with. i know a lot of speech writers talk about writing for and even brag about sneaking in things without the president's knowledge. when i ran the writing staff, i saw it as one of my principal duties to make sure that did not happen, that what he said was what he wanted to say, the way he wanted to say it. and because i say i didn't write for as much as write with him.

my educated guess having run the writing staff was that in the white house those, about 19 out of 20 of his speeches were not written and he never used notes. any address from the oval office was written. anything to the joint session of congress was written. some others that he particularly wanted a text for for one reason or another would be written. and when it was written, it normally would be back and forth with me with seven or eight drafts until we had what he wanted to say. but he would use the process as a means of refining ideas. it was part of the thinking process. >> was there a time when you left him and didn't support him? >> no. there was a time when i was trying to get back to private life. i was worn out and i wanted to get back. and i was getting a little worried about the watergate thing and all, too, and i didn't know as much about it then as i did later on. i became a firm defender of him,

the more i learned about it. and i was collaborator for all his watergate speeches and all of which i think we tried to describe it as best we could. but, no, i never -- when i wanted to get back to private life it was because i was exhausted. >> where do you put yourself today looking back on the whole event? would you have done anything differently? >> probably not. again, everything -- you're more reacting than anything in that situation, and you become kind of a prisoner of circumstance. i wanted his presidency to be a success and i wanted to try to do whatever i could to help make it a success, whatever that required. >> how long were you in touch with him? >> right up until his death. including making his -- he died in 19 -- in 1994 at the age of 81. i even made his last trip to asia with him the year before he died. >> and how often did you talk to

him in those years? >> fairly often. we would talk on the phone. but i spent a lot of time in california with him post-presidency. and i was his -- i helped -- he wanted me to be his principal collaborator on his memoirs. i begged off of that. my mind was frazzled. i wanted to get that running and working again and i had a book of my own which i wanted to do and i did. but i stayed in touch and tried to help him with the memoirs. when my book on the nixon years was done, i immediately raced out to california to help him. also i was his principal collaborator on his next two books after the memoirs "the real war" and "leaders." i had a couple of bright young people i trained and i felt i could leave him in qualified hands and i could get back to my life. >> ex-presidents make a lot of

money for speeches. did you ever do that? >> he never accepted payment for speeches. >> did you ever talk to him about that? >> he explained to me that it was part of his job. >> how did he make money in his retirement? >> he made money on the books. >> a lot? >> he was paid pretty well for the memoirs, the others not as well, but enough to carry him through. >> do you remember how much he made on his memoirs? >> i was told it was $2 million, but i'm not sure, i'm not sure if that's correct or not. and also buying -- he bought and sold some real estate, too, and i think some of those sales were profitable. >> one of the big things that they talked about when he did the frost/nixon interviews is the fact that he took $600,000 for the interviews themselves. >> i don't know whether that's true or not. i really don't. >> anything wrong with it? >> nothing wrong with it, no. but whether he did, i do not know. when he took anything for it, i don't know. i was struck by that when i -- in reading frost -- i read

frost's book about it, and i don't remember -- >> you didn't get any of that money. >> no. >> the actor that played him on broadway and stacy keach played him at the kennedy center, but in the movie he was agained played by frank langella. i want to play a clip and get your reaction to the way he characterized richard nixon. >> what was he seeking to accomplish through these interviews with david frost? >> he wanted to resurrect himself. he wanted to be back to where he had been. he wanted -- it must have been an extraordinary thing. imagine to be elected by the greatest mandate in history and to be as pop har as he was at the time watergate began to unravel. and then have it all be gone in

the period of months. imagine what that was like. so, when david frost came along i'm sure he saw this as an opportunity to begin his climb back up, which he seemed to be very comfortable doing. he seemed to be a man who liked to fight the big boys, like to get in there and show them. >> do you remember richard nixon wanting to, you know, bring himself back? how did you like the way it was characterized? >> about wanting to be -- a resurrection? he certainly wanted to come back. he had spent his life in public -- in public affairs and he wanted to come back and he wanted to have a voice again and that's part of what his writing was for. but also his appearances and also his traveling around the world. we can get to that. his travel pattern was pretty interesting, too. but it was part of -- i think it

was part of his reemergence into polite society in a sense i think. and it was something he went through and realized it would be tough, but i think he probably felt that, no, i'm not speaking for him, my guess is he probably felt having gotten through this, he would have taken one more step toward being an accepted citizen of the u.s. again. >> did you play any role in advising the folks at either the movie or the play? >> well, yeah. peter morgan who wrote the play and the movie spent about two hours with me here at home when he was writing the play. just quizzing me and so forth for that. and then ron howard, the director that made the movie, did the same thing when he was starting the movie. >> what were they interested in? >> i don't remember what they wanted to talk about aspects of it, i don't remember particularly what it was, we just talked each time. and i tried to answer their

questions as well as i could. >> you mentioned earlier his travels around the world were interesting. and how long did you travel with him after the presidency? >> i made several trips. he traveled a lot. but, again, unhike like others o to see the sights, he didn't want to see the sights. he was trying to keep up with the leaders around the book and picked their brains. because he wrote eight books after the presidency, all about national and mostly world affairs, and he knew most of the leaders around the world, and they wanted to pick his brain and he wanted to pick their brains and that's what his traveling was done -- was for. i made several of the trichs with him, including the one the year before he died and it was an interesting way to travel. and he did europe, asia, never sub-saharan africa, but, again, he knew the leaders. and it was just part of his staying abreast of -- and feeding it all into his own

mind, with all the other inputs that he had so that he could make as coherent and useful evaluations as he could of where we were, where we ought to be going and advising and so forth, and he also was a sort of backstage adviser to other presidents, too. >> let's listen to some more of the interview and, again, get your reaction. >> you can't escape the fact that he is first and foremost a person, loaded with faults and flaws, and also loaded with extraordinary intelligence. and a great sense of statesmanship and what it took to be a great statesman and how much he wanted to be a great statesman. and the fact is he did it to himself. and if you can accept that, excuse me, if you can accept the fact that he brought himself down, you can feel a