and when the tsunami happened, as you remember, ex-president bush, ex-president clinton went there with a tremendous amount of aid. and american soldiers were there with packages of food and health and sanitation and all of that. after that, the popularity of the united states went from, my memory, 17% up to almost 70%. and it's still the highest. you know, that's a lot cheaper than war. and i think the point of that section of the report, there's been a lot if we haven't read that much of it, is that we should have a foreign policy that, also, doesn't just depend on troops in the ground but depends on heart-to-hearted work and helping with education and women and all of that. we've got two more questions.

while this side of the room mulls, i know we had a question. please? i nancy aaronson. just two things. one, i was a part of the family conversations at the 9/11 memorial museum. and we -- and i wanted to comment briefly to the saudi lady that we struggled at the museum. about how to portray the terrorists. and, with trying to be extremely sensitive, to mention that those were a very, very small group of a very large and loving religion. my question to you today is as

families, what's our next step? how can we help move forward with the homeland security? perhaps some kind of pressure to deal better with homeland security? how can we help make ourselves safer. you know, i see this scary, like the fliegts 17 thing. and i'm hearing about, you know, the plastic bombs and stuff. what can we do -- what's our next step? thank you. >> my reaction to that is the most important thing you can do is to convey what we try to convey in this report. and that is just the urgency of dealing with the threat of terrorism. the thing that really worries us as reflected in the report, is that the american people have

turned their attention to other things, understandably. a lot of things happening in the world. and in this country. and if they turn their attention away from terrorism and the possibility of terrorists attacks, then the politicians will turn away from it, too. and you heard director clapper this morning say that he's worried about cuts in the appropriations bills. so all of these things go back to urgency. getting rid of the complacency. and i think the families could be quite helpful if they focused on public relations campaign here, in effect, to let people know that it is a dangerous world. now, we get into a lot of specific things that may attract you.

you can go through our recommendations. maybe you have some views of your own on recommendations. and you can plug those things. you heard a lot of plugs today for correcting the oversight of the congress. but overall, the hugesighted is to keep the eyes of the nation on the prospect of terrorist attack. and what might come from that. >> i don't know of any group that has taken a tragedy and tried to use that tragedy to teach other people and is persistent in trying to make this country a better place. you have never, ever stopped.

and i think it's extraordinary in the history of this country what you've done and what you continue to do. so i advise you continue to do it. you've got tremendous credibility and i think you're a great help. >> i'd like to ask you to join me in thanks for not just today, but for decades of proud sfsz to our country. [ applause ] >> and as we are thanking them, let me thank all of you. you are not an audience. the vast majority of you are expert who is have been deeply engaged in leading this work for a dozen years. and we thank you for that. and hope we have the opportunity to continue to work together. thanks.

>> president nixon resigned 40 years ago on august 9th, 1974 in the aftermath of the watergate scan dalt. coming up, we take you live to the museum in washington, d.c. for a look back at the only presidential resignation in american history. this is live coverage.

>> you heard the name john erlich. for his work in washington, he later served a year and a half in prison. and then moved to santa fe, new mexico, grew a beard and wrote three novels. when he was interviewed in 1982 about the tapes from the nixon presidency, he says he wished a team of historians would be able to listen to them in their entirety. and only then, not just from fractions, only then come out with an assessment. richard nixon had so many characters inside his singular, unusual and capacious mind. that's an astute observation. and, tonight, we will hear from nixon, the statesman, nixon the thug, nixon the historian, nixon the big olt, the sentimental father, the vengeful bombing commander and that's just for a start. i'm shelby kauffe, the vice president of the museum. we'd like to welcome you to this

that will fulfill the wish on the night before the 40th anniversary of the president's resignation. first, we will have the tireless dr. luke nichter from texas a&m. he has spent over a decade digitizing the 3700 hours of white house tapes. he is teamed with douglas brinkley, our second panelists, to produce the new book, "nixon tachs." it's from 1971-'73 in the critical vietnam war years and also aufrs astonishing glimpses of the man in the oval office, often at war with himself. douglas, now a professor at rice university, is well-known here at the museum for miz many books including the recent big ra fill of walter cronkite. our third panel is the world

famous bernstein. as you saw in the video, they worked on the water gate stories from the first days and helped win the pulitzer prize for the paper. i got to know carl when we were young reporters. his hair was dark as night, so was mine. it was an interesting picture to watch him go from a bright, young writer with a flamboyant writing style to a historic figure in american journalism and political lure. and, later, the author of well-reviewed books on pope john paul, ii and hillary clinton, who is now writing a book on his early years, his teen years, at the washington star for long

time washingtonians. he is now the professor at stonybrook university, in long island. carl was always the more colorful of the duo. bob woodward tells this story on carl back in the mid '70s. that reflected much of public opinion at the time. but the wheels of time are turned by the wheels of irony. nixon's old nemesis gave president ford a courage award for his action. history is often argument

without cease fire and it will be interesting to hear carl's thoughts 40 years later since he wrote the first rough draft of history as the publisher of the washington post once called journalism. we could have no better ring master. he and his brother were television stars. together, they wrote a big book about then-secretary of state henry kissen jer who naturally showed up at their washington book party. the good doctor walked in and said to the authors, naturally a reporter, "love the title kwtsd.

it's worth knowing tonight that dr. kissen jer did not know what he was being recorded in the tapes we will discuss. so his reactions will be intriguing in and of themselves. final note, i want to thank the friends of the first amendn't society for helping make tonight possible. for those who have not toured the museum, let me invite you wac to the news history gallery where the famous water gate door taped up on the night of the burglary and then taken into evidence, now resides in historical splendor. in the museum space next to the watergate door is a video screen that could be a talisman for tonight's panel. on the screen, anderson cooper of cnn is being interviewed by

stooempb colbert by comedy central. colbert asked cooper where do you get your opinions from. anderson says i report facts, i'm not an opinion guy. steven colbert shakes his head and waves finger and says i don't like facts. facts can change. and my opinions will never change. this evening, we guarantee you will hear new facts and some of your opinions may change. mr. cowan, the floor is yours. [ applause ]

>> oh, you're all here. how nice. we'll start with fact one. fact one, this place is jammed. filled. why? because you're all fascinated with richard nixon. not because he necessarily did great things for the country, but you're fasz nated by the personality. 40 years ago, he resigned. one step ahead of almost certain impeachment. this past weekend washington post, there were a number of reviews. there are a lot of books out now about nixon. bob woodward who knows a lot about nixon, interviewed john dean. i want read you some of the words that woodward writes about nixon.

he says that nixon and the watergate ranks as the most consequence shl, self-infliblgting wound of 20th century america. the criminality abuse of power, obsession with real and perceived enemies, rage, self focus, small mindedness, contempt for the law, i go on, a white house full of lies, chaos, distrust, speculation, self protection, maneuver and counter maneuver with a crookedness that makes netflix's "house of cards" look unsophisticated. you get the picture? >> yeah. >> okay. the thing about nixon, however, that for my money, is something that i can't laugh at. when he first took over as

president of the united states, the war in vietnam was still raging: at that time, when he took over, 15,979 americans had already been killed. by the time he left office, an additional 27,623 americans also died in the war. what did he think of that war? when he first won the election and before he came president as president elect, he turned to henry kissenger and richard whelan, one of his speech writers and said the following. i've been saying an honorable end to the war. but what the hell does that really mean? there is no way to win this war. but we cannot say that. of course, in fact, we have to seem to say just the opposite.

just to keep some kind of bargaining leverage. that, to me, is minimally contemptib contemptible, unethical. but, never the less, a president who knew the war could not be won and felt he had to pursue the worth of one's self. so i start with this question and with doug first. why the obsession about vietnam? what was it about the war that so totally engaged this president. >> well, first off, it's wonderful to be here. i grew up watching marve and cal and cole bernstein who was an undergraduate when i was at ohio state. the key thing for nixon in vietnam was he had an opportunity to get out. it was seen as kennedy and johns johnson's war. nixon had been vice president for dwight eisenhower in 1952.

ike ran for president saying i will go to korea. that was essentially ike's secret plan. i'm the supreme allied commander and i'll find a way out of this mess in korea. nixon, on the tapes, admits i could have done that and maybe done the right thing for history chlts but he decides he's not going to give up on vietnam and he's growing oing to increase t bombing. he wants to show the chinese that he could bomb the bajesus out of him. at one point, he tells kissenger let the chinese think i'm mad. we've got to worry about taiwan, japan, american interest in the pacific. also, it will show a toughness as a cold warrior against the soviet union. so you ne gauche yat with the soef yats from a position of strength.

this was a mistake to continue to war. you have all sorts of domestic unrest saying how can you ask a man to die for a mistake. the mistake being the continuation of the vietnam war. >> the same ke question to you. why the obsession for nixon? >> i have to admit. i don't want to let my age betray me. but i was on the august tth, 1974, i was minus three years old. around here it is today, i'm sitting next to carl bernstein on the panel. so it's a real treat. i teach 18 and 20-year-olds for richard nixon, who is almost as ancient of the civil war. the 18-year-old barely has living memory of 9/11, after

all. i have to always keep this in mind. i think the best way that i answer is to go to the tapes. doug kind of got that started there. but, you know, nixon thought it was important to stay in veet nap. because of nixon's image, do mesically, for his voters. and it was important, whether we agree or not, it was important for our allies. it was important for our allies with the troops in germany, south korea, japan. and i think it was nixon's image at home and it was the image of the u.s. abroad. whether he was right or wrong, that's what the image was. he didn't cut and run. >> but the cut and run is a political phase. and it's used by presidents and others in order to uplift or downgrade. if you know in your heart and in your mind that what you're doing cannot be won, that's my point.

carl, what was going on in his head? >> well, first of all, the last thing i want to do is get into richard nixon's head. i think where we are in his head is with the tapes. that's as close as we want to come. the country was obsessed with vietnam. lynn don johnson had abday kated as the president of the united states. we had had chicago, riots in the streets at the democratic convention. so the whole country was in upheaval of a kind that we had never seen. antiwar movement such that we had never seen in this country. so that's the context. >> yeah, but nixon was a smart politician. >> well, now i'm going to go to this. what you hear on the tapes and if you read doug's book, if you read this book that these two jentle men, and i have not read

the whole doorstoper, but i'm giving it a pretty good look. and what you see in the nonwater gate tapes, and doug and i were just talking about it, is the same darkness of nixon's mind. it's about nixon, the dog that doesn't bark is what would be right for the american people. you don't hear that. what you do hear is what you just referred to. nixon's fine intelligence. you don't hear that in the watergate. you hear only the darkness. but, here, you see the intelligence, what you just cited about the strategy, the chinese, the russians, you know, a student of history, which he was. a great political analyst, which he was. but then the darkness protrudes

and we lose another 27,000. largely because of nixon's vanity, to some extent. >> but you could have gone eerts way. let's go back to 1968, '69. you're absolutely right. the country expressed itself in an anti-war mood. here, in washington, there was a time when the secretary of defense said that he is going to do something with his troops to protect the country. and not to tell the white house about it. in other words, we were in a particularly difficult moment. nixon could have been a hero. you could have gone the other way. >> he could have said what doug was saying. that this is not my war. this is what the democrats did. let me move on from here. >> absolutely. >> and everybody would have cheered. >> but he couldn't do that. >> look what we also know now from another set of tachs.

it was the subject of another book. a private citizen is not to -- there is a big law, title 18, section whatever that a citizen is not to interfere with the conduct of the united states in foreign relations sabotages the negotiations. so it's all a continuum. and then nixon gets to the white house, establishes and, again, on the tapes, he says there are

things that i have done that are illegal. the same group of people who eventually break into the watergate. you have a criminal presidency. this is what bob was talking about in that review. we've had presidents who have abused power, but this is different. a criminal president of the united states from the beginning to the end. so the term watergate begins in those first days and goes to what we see up here. and there is one great triumph. and we need to say it. there is the opening to china. and there, again, we see nixon's bill yans and how it could have been different. >> but what i see as a war that

totally obsessed this politician. how you end the war, how you continue the war, the bombing. all of this in his mind was at a level of obsession. >> he didn't really learn the right lessons from johnson's failures. and he thought he was the smaller guy in the room. in our tapes, he's constantly saying nixon. guts and courage. he figures i can do it all. even if i don't win in vietnam, i'll be able to get china and become this great world leader. he's really a diabolical pragmatist. he's doing what's good for

richard nixon. he thinks you have a great knowledge of churchhill and a great knowledge of history. one of the reasons he doesn't burn these tapes is why would you burn the work of a great man. it was like evil on evil, in some ways. when kissenger works with jermd ford, he does much better. when you read the two of them together, they're constantly back stabbing everybody and themselves. and to the point where nixon doesn't believe his own state department. the state department is filled with liberals.

and nixon goes on anti-semitic rants. not once does kissen jer say mr. president, maybe you're not quite right about the position. >> i covered him, it seems forever. he comes through in these tapes in the most obama see kwee yous ways. you know, i go wac to the war. to me, that's the heart and soul, the beginning and the end of the presidency, although it began with watergate, i aappreciable dwrat that. he wanted so desperately to beat the north vietnamese. he unlieshed a ferocious air campaign.

we have one quote right now which i would like to play if you don't mind. if the tech person could play that now. >> it's an 18.5 minute gap. >> it's only a. everybody would approve of it and then he goes onto say well, i don't know about that. you get an odd sense that he was all there, of course. but not necessarily on all issues.

he was bombing north vietnam because of the vietnam war. >> and richard nixon. this is where this book is so terrific. it always comes back to nixon and how he will be viewed. >> well, this is the points i was getting at. how, in fact, was he aware that he was playing a game? was diplomacy a great game? a sport (there are just a few moments, really, it's the days before he goes to china in 1972 where he lets his guard down for a minute.

nixon read history. he said we're like the british in the 19th century. the british always played the weaker against the stronger. and that's what we're doing here. and that's why i'm going to china. >> but how, in fact, did that work? what was in his mind at the time? the chinese are not exactly stupid people. the russians maintain a rigorous kind of diplomacy. they, too, are not a stupid people. couldn't they see through nixon? >> nixon will backpack stan in the pakistan-indo war. so by backing pakistan and dissing india. and he says the ugliest things on the tape about the people of india.

but he's telling the chinese, we could be your friends, too. i could beat you up or be friends. in a way, he learned to respect the chinese partially because of how nice they were of him when he went in '72. h continues to dispiez the soviet union. you can't find him saying anything negative about ma orksz. >> could you say the chinese took him to the cleaner sns what was it that they did? when they greeted him at the very beginning, he said time and time again to all of his people, we've got to be -- he used these words -- we've got to be exquisitely careful when we deal with the chinese.

they're an exquisitely gifted people. nixon bought into this. he wasn't all that brilliant. at a certain point, the chinese could see through him and the russians could see through him, as well. >> and i mentioned india and pakistan. india is our great ally, the great democracy. and he threw india under the bus, so that showed a lack of diplomatic. nixon saw himself as a master strategist. brilliant is the word, actually.

it is a brilliant profile of degall that he wrote. but you've got to come back to basic, moral question of who died. you started the discussion there. you state it to everybody in the room. and you say but nonetheless, we're going to use our troops and a couple hundred thousand yellow people, which is also in the tapes. and we are going to sacrifice them for a grand strategy. that goes to the question of

what was in his mind. >> which you see over and over on the fames, nixon was surprised at how quickly the ice was thawing. they'll had the accelerator and the break. >> and, of course, nixon had china in mind as a kind of tool, a weapon, that he would use against the russians. and you're absolutely right. in his mind, china was an instrument. russia was the essential enemy.

and that was the dwie you had to deal with. for nixon to be the first american president to visit on a summer level, it's a big deal. >> nixon's impetus was partly that he was going to have the greatest mem wors of any president of the united states. and he would be able to draw, verbatim, from these meetings in which we would see this brilliance. it did ultimately end up in his resignation. and he began to think about

resignation way before he actually acted on resignation. he worry ied. >> the moscow summit which was in may of 1972. he had just been in china in february of 1972. he was a heck of a pr guy for himself. they were attacking ferociously in north veet that. and the question was are we going to have the summit? will the russians pull out of the summit? can we continue to bomb in vietnam and have our summit at the same time. if we can't, he was saying it may very well be that we're going to lose the election. that, i think, was never in the cards. never the less, that was in his mind.

i'd like us to play another tape now of the way nixon thought about veet. thaukt about the moscow summit. thought about the resignation, if it didn't all work well. so dear mr. technician, could you run that second tape.

>> can i ask luke and doug about this? i've looked at this quite a few times and am quite mystified as to this playing with ether that nixon is doing here. there's about as much chance that he is going to abdicate the presiden presidency. >> but this is the point about nixon that is so fascinating. i think it's one of the reasons that rooms fill up when people want to talk about nixon. why there is so many books coming out now about nixon. you would think 40 years ago, the guy left. he was a disdwras. a humiliation of the country. the heck with him, no. you're always drawn to a negative character. what i'm trying to get at here, this last sequence that we ran has a lot of pure nixon.

you're playing this against that. and i.'s all connected to the next policy. i'll take this democrat from texas and turn him into a republican. and you have the sense of a man operating on many different levels with himself manipulating the game of politics and diplomacy. >> i want to go out and ask what he's really saying here. what is this thing about abdicating. >> it seems kind of silly. was he really serious about resigning? it's kind of like president obama resigning over health care.

in hindsight, we say he couldn't have been serious. i think this is partly why we're still fascinating by nixon 40 years later. we have the top third and the bottom quarter and we put presidents in boxes sometimes. i think which box do you put richard nixon in. who else is in that bloxz? >> nobody. you have to remember he rides the national consciousness. >> but i'm wondering if he deserved all of that striding and emulation and admiration.

>> it's not just emulation. if you go back to looking at herb block's cartoons of nixon of the dark shadows. this is a man about whom the country was passionately divided. it was passionately divided when he made the checkered speech during the eisenhower years. it was passionately divided when he lost the presidency to kennedy. he came back and won the presidency. it was passionately divided over the war. and then over water gate. no one in history has caused this kind of visceral reaction. and that's part of the fascination. >> i was going to say, i get asked a lot of times, what makes a human being listen to richard nixon for ten years now.

we have it -- >> especially at your age. there are a lot of other things to do. >> we have a baby now and probably has heard nixon's voice and thinks he's a grandfather or something. but i think, though, there are a lot of questions -- i don't have the answers to, even after ten years. >> none of us. and i think is richard nixon really this interesting to us 40 years later? or is it just because he's the only one who left us all of these recordings. >> now, he did say that 1972 is the year that a great book ought to be written about 1972. and you guys have laid out the spade work. water gate was a wac waterer story but they just kept

building and building and building. nixon survived, won the lan slide and he thought that water gate was a back burner story and, of course, he didn't. he did a lot of other things. his ego was high. i called him a diabolical pragmatist. and then add paranoia to that. he did the southern alignment. he's paranoid about mcgovern in '72. he was breaking in to larry o'brian in '72. he's par noied. his sense of paranoia and politics is not good. he's par noied about the press.

>> let's look at the people you just talked about. you know, at first, we thought we wrote in october of '72, that the water gate break-in was part of a massive campaign of political espionage and sabotage to undermine the democrats. the candidates was sabotaged. tried to undercut ted kennedy as a figure of any kind of respect through smearing and investigations and one thing and another. and then all of these dirty tricks out on the campaign trail. and then you find out it's after the water gate hearings. not only was it a campaign to

undermine the very basis of doe mock ra sill, which are free elections. but, from the beginning, it was to undermine the anti-war movement through illegal means. to undermine reporting. to undermine the democrats and his political entities through the use of the ir which we also hear on the tapes. and then the break in at watergate and then to undermine the very system of justice through the cover up. the cover up is worse than the crime? not a chance. the crime is on going. and then, the last war, these five wars of water gate. and we wrote, bob and i wrote on the 40 thd anniversary of the break-in, a piece for the post. and afterwards, to a new addition of all of the president's men.

it's about how what we know now is so much worse. back to your diabolical notion here. it's astonishing what we know. >> can i just add one quick thing? i think, also, he thought it was blood sport. and you slaughtered your enemy. that's what life in the arena was like. you thought the kennedys manipulated himts in 1964. that election he should have won. but they out-foxed him. and jay edgar hoover was doing all sorts of nefarious things. and, yet, was this respected figure in washington. so nixon thought that was kind of part in parcel about the big boys playing and i'm going to be a big boy, too. and those guys didn't go and take on the press of the united states and try to destroy them. i write about presidents for a living. the good ones know how to work with the press, rose velt,

f.d.r., ronald reagan. nixon's war in the press with agnew was insane for somebody who wants to stay in there. but he was going to war with them. he was going to be crumbled bec the pace. >> this might sound surprising. one of the things you hear over and over is it goes back to his case. the liberals, jews, out to get me because of the case. nixon, indeed, was pill oried for his whole career for being a smear agent and terrible liar, and manufacturing evidence. because of the hist case. nixon knew he was right about this. and it's very interesting, you see how he's animated by that. and we didn't know that. of course, we now have what's called the winona transcript of

the soviets. in which it's pretty definitive. >> that's an interesting point, carl. >> i would like to go back to 1972 for a minute. nixon was very high in what he had accomplished in '72. because right toward the end of the year, he had, as doug was saying, this stunning political victory. but right after the stunning political victory, he had to go ahead and launch a murderous bombing campaign against north vietnam, in order to take a negotiation -- this is my point again about the total lack of ethics here -- he had to take -- you bomb north vietnam in order to get an agreement, which he did get, and was signed on january 23rd of the following year in '73. in 1971, in april, richard nixon

told henry kissinger who was negotiating with the north vietnamese in paris, he said, look, up to this point, the key part of the negotiation was that we would pull out when we had a cease-fire, and the north vietnamese pull out. >> but i have a feeling that's not working fairly well. so we have to try something different. and what they did was to lay out before the north vietnamese in paris the following idea. we'll have a cease-fire, and we, the americans, will pull out. and he never added the next sentence. that the north vietnamese had to pull out. so the north vietnamese, very smart, pocketed that. and they wanted in a way, they could absorb the bombing. but they wanted to destroy this guy, in the way they destroyed lyndon johnson. what's fascinating to me, time

and time again, is an underestimation on the part of the brilliant richard nixon and the brilliant henry kissinger, about something as fundamental as vietnamese nationalism, which propelled this country to take on the united states of america, and to beat it. the united states has lost in its entire glorious history one war, and that was the war in vietnam. and what i'm just advancing as a thought here, and really leaning on you guys for the expertise, but is it entirely possible that we're giving too much credit to nixon and to kissinger, for what it is that they did in foreign policy? who gets the credit? everybody is giving credit. >> i haven't heard a lot of credit up here. >> but i think you're totally

wrong. totally wrong. >> richard nixon is praised for his foreign policy. >> here, i think you might have succumbed to too much revisionism. >> too much what? >> too much revisionism. >> i don't even know how to spell the word. i think you got that entirely wrong. >> i think that there is a lot made about the opening to china. but the idea of richard nixon being a foreign policy, i think has been -- >> i don't know where you've been the last 40 years. i mean, that's been the book line, that's been the narrative. >> there have been many, many authors say it. how many people here thought richard nixon was a foreign policy genius? >> that's why they're here. >> look, henry kissinger wrote a lot of books and been professing notes that he wrote. and he's working very hard to

argue that i was the genius. he won a nobel peace prize for vietnam. and he's been working, after he left 40 years ago, moved back to the east, to new jersey, and spent time in new york, and not just the prost interviews, but trying to write books to get back in the game to the point that bill clinton started saying, well, i'm going to talk to nixon about russia. >> exactly. >> so there were people who were starting -- he was starting a rehabilitation when he died. and when he died, all the presidents came to the grave. and he was able to rehabilitate himself to a degree. >> yes, he did. >> in the last years of his life. >> i also want to point out, because we have a wonderful tape which i would like you to listen to about the great mind of foreign affairs and domestic policy. and i'll give you a book on this one day, carl. this is richard nixon talking to

haldeman about girls cursing. and i'd like to play that tape now. [ inaudible ]

. >> never tape yourself. >> yeah. and maybe we didn't make clear, but i think all of you know that nixon had a voice activated, that yes, fdr did a little taping, and kennedy controlled the exxon meetings and cuban missile crisis, and johnson did some taping. nixon started bugging everything.

there were microphones picking up all these materials. you get these really awkward, almost crazy moments that you have to scratch your head about. there's something oddly -- and i don't want to be ever quoted on saying, but at times, nixon -- >> you don't want to be quoted? >> saying it as a joke. i guess the word was, aware, talking about cursing and all this. pat and richard nixon could be as old-fashioned square kind of thinking, and you're getting that there. i don't think he was putting them on. really? girls do swear. and it shows just the disconnect in a way that he had. but it was old-fashioned. >> we're going to have some questions from you all, if you wish to ask questions. and i note there's a microphone here. and there's one over here. if you want to ask a question, please come to the microphone and identify yourself. and if you decide that this is

an opportunity for a speech, i'll probably cut you off. but identify yourself, and here are the two microphones. if you would like to speak, please. >> carl, vigil.com. i don't make a speech. i'll try to keep it on point. the kennedy assassination aspect of the watergate tapes, when richard nixon sent h.r. haldeman over to the cia to meet richard helms and try to pressure the cia into getting the fbi to shut down its investigation of watergate, he said, tell helms if they don't shut down their investigation, it will blow the whole bay of pigs thing. haldeman wrote that he learned whenever richard nixon said the bay of pigs thing, he meant the kennedy assassination. and there were named high-level people as involved. nixon on the watergate tape says, hunt, you pull that scab,

there's a lot of things. he knows too much. we know hunt was involved. so -- >> what are you trying to ask? >> i'm trying to ask, we've got trivia of the nixon tapes, but in the index of the book there's no reference to the bay of pigs. that was probably the most important thing nixon ever said in those tapes was telling the cia the whole bay of pigs thing will be blown if they don't shut down watergate. my question, is it time that we released all the cia records concerning the kennedy assassination? and mr. bernstein, you wrote in the last days what george h.w. bush's reaction was when he heard that of the transcripts would be released. i wonder if you could recount that quotation, please. >> i don't remember. i wrote a piece in the "los angeles times" about -- remind me. >> apparently pointed to his laundering money through mexico, to the burglars. >> sir, sir,