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tv   [untitled]    July 5, 2012 9:30pm-10:00pm EDT

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mary lou, can you stand up? >> she was in charge. do you want to tell a quick story, mary lou? >> no. well, anyway, the eisenhower is playing, and we had ten men and one woman. and the one woman was mary lou. which is quite interesting. and we did drop an engine there. but getting into liberia. of course, he invited president nixon, of course. president nixon couldn't go. so he sent his best. >> i want to stay on one more thing from the vice presidential years. we have great pictures to go with that.
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can you talk to us about where the nixon motorcade was attacked. >> that's the centerpiece of the whole vice presidential years. it was a trip that the vice president really didn't want to do. but the state department and president eisenhower asked him to do it. so he did. we got the airplane from the joint chiefs. and we started out the inauguration in arkansas general teen, which was the first free election since group. that was the purpose of the trip. but, of course, the president
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and pat were thinking of other thing thas could do in the other countries, which we did. the initial trips, argentina. uruguay and paraguay were very benign. bolivia wasn't bad but you couldn't breathe for 13,000 feet. then we went down to peru where we had been warned that we might be picking up some communist reaction. some heckling and things of that nature, but nothing real serious until we got to peru. and the issue is if he would go to the market university. i guess it was the oldest in the hems fear. so he went. and there was a confrontation with thousands of all ginned up troops, i mean the people, who were gres us.
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and it finally developed into rocks that were thrown. and people were injured in the party. after we got away from that, the next two visits in ek kcuador a colombia were fine. but we picked up scattered information about something in venezuela. mentioned an assassination plot on the vice president. but none of it had real substance. so we wornt worries about it. what about? you're going to have trouble. so anyway, she was prigt. we landed and the crowd was just screaming. we weren't sure what they were saying.
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the translator said, mr. vice president, they're not friendly. and they had the greeting party set up like you would never do it if you knew what was going to happen. we had to walk across from the airplane to the terminal building to the car. it was balconies on all sides and it was lined with people who were just delighted to spit all over us. to make it worse, as we were finaling along there to go through, the band started to play. the national anthem. so we stalked under the canopy, which got us all properly spit upon from above and people screaming at us. so we got it going to the other side to the car.
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they were screaming and hollering at nixon and so forth. we called off the greating peert. thank got they switched them to regular sedans. so president and i were in the back with the foreign minister's wife. and by this time she was starting to be a little bit upset. >> the foreign minister's wife was getting upset? >> hm? >> the foreign minister's wife was getting upset? >> yeah, she was a little bit upset by that time. we opened the door and got her in the koor and pat took her hand kesh chief and wiped the seat off. we had an army around us.
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as we progressed into found, they evaporated. they just left. and there we were in the middle of thousands of people who were screaming at us, throwing rocks and bricks and nisk they could throw. and we finally got to a roadblock, so we were stopped. it was sort of an ambush, if you will, because they all converged on us. and i don't mind saying it. it's the scariest thing i think i've ever been in because they -- they were throwing the rocks. the windows were being shattered. and we can see the president's car, the vice president's car getting the same treatment up ahead. and pretty soon they began to rock our car, which was really bad. and about that time, we had about 12 secret service agents in the whole thing by now. and those guys really earned their pay. they were real heros in my estimation. >> and how was mrs. nixon reacting in the car?
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>> i was just going to tell you. when this chaos was going on -- and i've never had anything like that. my experience with war is i didn't see the people i was shooting at or they were shooting at me. but here they were right there. and the hate on their faces was just unbelievable. they were out to kill us. and all of that going on, and mrs. nixon finally had the minister's wife, who was by now hysterical. so pat had her arm around her. and she and i were talking kind of quietly. and she asked me to check on the car ahead to make sure the vice president was all right, which i was doing. but finally the secret service service managed to break us out of the roadblock, and we just forgot about the stop that we were going to make.
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we went all the way back up on the hill where it was secure. but all through it, pat never, ever raised her voice. she never showed any anxiety. she was busy with this woman. i'll never forget that. and we got up to embassy and went in and took a deep breath and started to recover. >> i want to add one thing to that. as far as -- you said you were close to death. that -- there, that photo is very vivid. all the windows except one on the car were smashed on my father's car. what is so interesting is when i was writing the book about my mother, i said, well, were you afraid, you know.
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the baseball bats and rocks and i had talked to you, don, and she said, no, i was angry. she said, i was angry because these communist inspired hoodlums were destroying a good will trip. and that's just so typical pat nixon. i mean, she had her eyes on what they were trying to do. why they were there. they were on a mission. and this was going to be the whole story is just one small group who were bent on destruction would ruin the good will of being in south america. and she said once she got to the embassy, though, then she was afraid. because she realized what a close call it was when they got to the american embassy and they went in and rose woods came in and the three of them, you know, i think that's when she realized that it had really been a near death experience. >> and julie, how did you and your sister hear about this attack, or did you hear about
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it? >> we just heard about it. the sam marcos incident that don described so well, we were watching television at home, and we heard that my parents were being attacked by mobs at san marcos. but that was not a true story. it wasn't that bad. and we ran to the phone and called my father's office. but we really didn't hear about it at the time. later i think somebody from my dad's office came out and said everything was all right. it wasn't until i was researching the book that i realized how serious it was. my parents didn't come back from trips and talk about that kind of thing, or the negative, it was about what they were trying to do, and that was the focus. so we were really clueless it would have been so dangerous. >> your mother really had her hands full with that hysterical woman. i mean, that was something else. and then the next day -- then
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the hoods of the four military people who were running the country came up to visit the vice president. and just quickly, i'll finish this. and we were up in the vice president's quarters, and the steward announced that -- was there. the four people that led the country. so the vice president said, fine, i'll be down. so he went in his room with your mother. we were talking through an open door. he was taking his tie off and his shirt. i said, sir, what are you doing? he said, i'm going to bed. take a nap. and your mother smiled. so i said, okay. i got out. and he did. he got in bed. but young he slept. but he waited 45 minutes, and then he went downstairs and just took these apart, piece by piece. it was magnificent. and then the next day when we
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left, i was helping your mother in the car and i hoped the door, and there was a sub machine gun and three hand grenades. so pat very delicately reached over and picked up one of the grenades with her finger and thumb and said, i think this belongs to you. so then we went down, and as i said in your mother's eulogy, we went out in nixon style with all flags flying. and that pretty well wraps korakas up. >> julie, your mother visited 53 countries during the vice presidential years. which is just extraordinary. what do you think? what ground did she break as a result of her travels during the years, and really what precedence has she set that other senior government folk have followed in all the years
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since? >> well, she did really break ground in that she said to the embassies, i don't want any --. i want to go to the schools, the hospitals, and the institutions. and that's what she did. and by the end of the first trip, she was with 200 hospital trips and meeting with women. when she got back, the women who covered the white house and the first lady, they wanted an interview. and so i was reading transcripts of the interviews later when i was doing research on the book, and i was just fascinated what my mother said. she told the women in 1953, women of the press, she said everywhere i went on this trip, i helped women. this is 1953. this is not '63 or '73. the woman's movement isn't even much of a movement in '53. but she was very aware that she was able to help women who were not being represented, who were living very difficult lives. she said, i was able to help
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women. that's what she told these reporters about. >> great, great. i want to fast forward to the white house years. bill codus, who did so much planning for those trips. julie writes in her book, my mother thoroughly enjoyed bill and always felt at ease when he was involved in planning a trip. also made sure she had a birthday cake when it was her birthday on one of those trips. but you were in the state department as the assistant chief of protocol for visits. how did you get involved in starting to plan visits for mrs. nixon overseas? >> well, the visit section that we were in charge of, when the president nixon invited these dignitaries, the chiefs of state, heads of government, protocol got involved in planning the terrifics. in those days a visit from
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liberia or saudi arabia was a seven-day visit. for a state visit. and an official visit was four days. but then eventually i was involved in that and traveling with these teaching state heads of government around the united states. and got involved in some people who former -- i should say chiefs of state who brought their wife. there was friction every once in a while because they were rather demanding, but not mrs. nixon. but anyway, we then got to go to liber liber liberia, and this is quite interesting. in liberia we went on the advanced teams. jack sent ten men and one lady, and marion shields came with us. >> and the decision to go to this liberia was because they had invited president nixon, but his schedule didn't allow it so -- >> exactly. and they also -- from liberia they went to ghana, and from
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ghana to the coast. it was kwoois interesting. in fact, one of the secret servicemen who was there for years, patrick mcfarland, you remember him. he was on our detail. and when we arrived. it was tremendous ceremony out at the airport, and then she also got a 19-gun salute, which was very unusual, a 19-gun salute. you get a prime minister or a 21-salute for such. but anyway, whenever the time came, the president escorted mrs. nixon to the house where we stayed at, in the so-called mansion. and the protocol officer said to me at a certain time we want mrs. nixon to come and knock on the door and then see president tolbert and then we'll go into the inauguration. well, what happened was quite
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funny. the time came, and mr. mcfarland, who was on the detail at that time, and then we went to mrs. nixon's suite and escorted her to the president's suite and knocked on the door, waited a few minutes. nothing happened. knocked again, and the door opened, and president tolbert looked like this, not at us, but he looked at that. he closed the door on us. which was very unusual. then he realized that it was mrs. nixon there. rather embarrassing, but it was quite interesting. >> now, in getting ready to go on the trips, before you would go on that, such as that or other trips, how was plsz nixon in planning what the itinerary would be? >> well, of course, they invited president nixon, and he couldn't make it, so he sent his best representative. and the way they planned it,
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what's important. what parts of the world they have to go. and from there we then -- after liberia, we then went to ghana. >> i hate to interrupt you. but you've got pictures on that coming up. but if you could just talk a little bit about what her involvement would be in planning these trips, and making sure she was doing the sorts of things that she was -- that she felt were important in these various countries. would you meet with her beforehand? >> of course, she was very conscious of a large entourage. we only had ten people who came over to liberia and ghana, although some others came in after that. but she insisted that we don't need a large contingency. but we had to have secret service. and we had to have the doctor, et cetera, et cetera. but she was very conscious on that not to have a large staff. it doesn't look good, you know,
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for the public. >> sure. >> i want to turn to jack now for a minute. one of the first trips nixon made as first lady, the president and mrs. nixon went to the pacific area, and she went to vietnam to visit the troops there in the hospitals and build up their morale. >> and she did that. i did not go into vietnam with her. but what she did was not do the photo op thing. she went to see the troops in the hospital, the wounded in the hospital, not for a picture. but the most important thing she did -- like i say, i didn't go with her. i was slightly wounded in vietnam. the persons who feel it most are the family at home. my wife and kids just got a telegram. and they were frightened to death to open it and treread th telegram.
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and then they get no follow-up. maybe you get a military guide reading a script saying everything is okay. but they're frightened. mrs. nixon went into the hospitals and took the names of all of the young men who were wounded in the hospitals, and when she went back to the united states, called their loved ones to say, i saw him. it'sscript. i saw him, and he's doing well. it's going to take a while. whatever. and they felt so much better. also, remember how these kids felt. 10,000 miles from home. in a hospital. alone. don't even know the guy next to them. they're sad, to some agree angry. and to have the first ladies of the united states come into a combat zone. it never happened before. but to pay particular attention to these young men, just remarkable things that she did and courageous. >> did she fly right into the zone with a helicopter? >> yes, several helicopters, amazing. that's just who will she was.
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she's always, always felt for people. in liberia that bill was just talking about, this -- this new president of liberia really wanted to show off the blond lady. and in the inaugural parade. you know who sat next to him, not his wife. the blond lady. and we get into the church, they have that baptist church, to celebrate this -- excuse me, president tollbert's inauguration. the service went on for three hours. there's a seat for mrs. nixon. i don't know how it happened but there's a seat for me. i'm in uniform. after three hours, i perspired completely through my uniform, and she was smiling. i was getting angry. all the stuff going on, this guy was using mrs. nixon, i felt. she's like -- the marines are nature that diplomatic.
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>> you know, they're not. >> later, he was supposed to pick her up. bill had arranged it, we'll just meet the president at the inaugural ball. no, no, no, the president insisted escorting mrs. nixon. >> that's what it is to be a diplomat. go with the flow. three-hour speech. >> he has three aides. i'm a major, i'm saying where is he? 8:30, no president, finally at 9:00, we hear the sirens and the noise. i went to mrs. nixon. she said, he's here? i said, yes, he's here. i said we're not going. she said, what do you mean we're not going? i'm not going. let him wait. that's one of the few times we got the irish/german temper up. no, we're not, yes, ma'am. the compassion she showed was
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just remarkable everywhere we went. >> that's great. now, the next year, there was a devastating earthquake in peru. and i don't know if all the videos are affected. do we have the connie stewart video -- does it work or not? we'll try it. connie stewart who was mrs. nixon's staff director and press secretary talking about this trip to peru which i think hopefully, it will work. >> no. >> and it doesn't. >> you know, i think somebody saw that the artist won an academy award with best picture of that silent movie, and that's what's going on. >> you can donate to the archives by going on www. -- >> no, in peru, they suffered a devastating earthquake. tens of thousands of people killed. many more, tens of thousands, left homeless. the need was great. mrs. nixon went to peru. julie, can you tell us a bill about why she went there and why that happened?
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>> how she went there? >> yes. >> earthquake was high in the andies, so it took three weeks for the full magnitude of the disaster to be known. 80,000 people died. 400,000 homeless. and my parents were at camp david because it was their anniversary. and my mother was reading the reports of just how terrible. she said, oh, what can i do? i feel like i want to do something. and so my father said to her, well, would you like to go? and immediately, he picked up the phone, he probably was calling some of your colleagues in the state department and said, you know, would a visit by mrs. nixon be welcome because if the government of peru was a revolutionary government. and they were very anti-american. and within one week, americans had donated two plane loads of supplies and air force one, my mother flew on air force one with one plane load. another plane followed. and she went up into the andies
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mountains and landed in a cargo plane up there. and walked among the rubble. and it was just, you know, a great way for the american people to reach out to the peruvians who have suffered so much. and to show that it didn't matter what kind of government peru had. it was what americans do best, they -- when there's some kind of tragedy, americans always respond with goods and volunteer and everything. >> improving government recognized your mother with the decoration? >> yes, the grand order of the -- >> the sun. >> the highest civilian award that their government offers. >> and julie, she was very generous on the day she flew on the cargo plane. she through on, listen to this, a c-130, a cargo plane that can land on very short air strips. at the top of the mountain they were created a dirt air strip. a very short air strip. the air force pilots tied a kitchen chair between the pilot
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and co-pilot and strapped her in. and i'm saying, wait a minute. and they landed on this very short dirt air strip. and i was fighting. she's smiling. >> yeah. >> and then we boarded helicopters which, you know, we'd spent a lot of money to send helicopters out there. the pilot told me they could only take a few people because it was so high. so it was a matter of concern, those people who couldn't go on the helicopter were not happy. but the general was the interpreter, i went and the doctor went. in any event, then we went from this mountaintop air strip, dirt air strip, in the helicopters to incredible devastation. incredible. >> looked like the face of the moon is that the quote? >> and mrs. nixon would go right into hugging people, you know, and they were, wow, with tears. and connie would have said -- in the video, connie being mrs. nixon's chief of staff, connie stewart. she said it well, mrs. velasquez, the president of
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venezuela's wife was just watching mrs. nixon, what is this woman doing, going into the crowd mingling with real people. after a while, she started doing it. she followed mrs. nixon's role or lead. and people started warming up to all of them. it was an incredible scene. but it was normal for mrs. nixon but very unusual for the wives of heads of state who are very aloof from the people, so to speak. >> one of the peruvian leaders said afterwards that that visit by mrs. nixon did more for peruvian-american relations than any single act in the previous hundred years. it was quite a diplomatic -- quite a diplomatic success. bill, i want to get back to liberia and talk about -- >> i don't. >> talk a little bit about liberia. when mrs. nixon went to liberia, it was the first time that a first lady had officially represented the president of the united states at a state event
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overseas. and as you mentioned, she got the 19-gun salute. >> 19-gun aabsolute. >> and you talk about all the -- you and jack talk about the ceremony, so beautiful, sitting through all of them. but then there was a great dance that was -- native dance that was shown for her on the roof of the -- >> right there. >> tell us about that. >> okay. >> well, i was -- it was quite odd because she disappeared. when i say disappeared, we had her up there and then disappeared. and then came out in this beautiful caftan and such and it made "time" magazine. li liberia was quite a place, as you know, jack. the president of the united states was there for an official visit and protocol, president to
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to tollbet and his wife. i talked about escorting mrs. nixon to the president's door and knock on the door, he opens it up and there's president tolbert. >> but he didn't expect you, is that what you're saying? >> it was a knock on the door. he opens up the door but looks down. it's ludicrous. and then adjusts the door. then pat and i said ♪ open the door richard open the door ♪ >> from liberia, we went on to ghana. we doesn't do much there. >> there was an inauguration, right, what was happening in ghana? >> what happened in ghana, there was a coup right after we left.

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