imagine his surprise when the supreme court votes unanimously that you don't own the tapes. that's the moment nixon realizes his presidency has sunk. >> when did he stop taping. >> he started taping in august of 1973. there became a brief moment, people use the phrase, destroy them. what do we do? just like the 18 1/2 missing moments, even liberal icon nelson rockefeller, he was telling nixon, get rid of the tapes. nixon wouldn't do it. it was his golden egg. he was not a rich man. he thought this is what he would have as a record for his time in government. his ego was very large. the narcissism of nixon --4q[zq presidents are narcissistic.

you don't want to climb to the top of the mountain without a healthy ego but his goes in very many odd directions. there's something not psychologically right about him. >> are you going to ask him about china or are you going to spend the morning trashing nixon? >> well, i just mentioned china a minute ago. i just said much of the book is dealing with china and the china opening. the big deal about that is that it was a three way deal. soviet union, china. the united states. he was trying to wedge china away from the soviets. so much so he thought if you bomb a lot in vietnam, it would impress the chinese about your toughness. it had a deterrent quality to it that it would deter adventurism of them into hong kong or taiwan

or japan and yet at the same time he would back pakistan. nixon was a huge admirer of the country of pakistan. that was a proxy state of china. they were fighting india and nixon couldn't stand the country of india because they were close to the soviets. nixon hates russia, not china. he wants to outfox the soviets every step of the way. he says many ugly things about the russia in that unlike the chinese he slobber over celebrities and they are basically a mob. you can't do business with them. the chinese, he felt were honorable people that he could to business with. he was surprised that he never felt the chinese broke a promise that they were making with him. so today, he's very loved in

china. if you're a business person doing business in china, they will give you a nixon walking tour and show you the sites he saw in 1972 where here in the united states nixon is ranked at the very bottom rung of american presidents. >> jack, thanks for holding on. you're on with doug brinkley. >> caller: i'm one of the few conservative democrats where nixon should get credit concerning china. it was a brilliant strategic move because that was one of the starts of the beginning of defeating the soviet union because he did in fact create that wedge. secondly, one other point that the immediate yae is liberal nixon had more intellectual fire power than all of these presidents put together. the man was absolutely brilliant to the point where he did have some madness to him. he believed he was invisible. you look at him and you see the

way he speaks and his mind is so calculating, so bright, brilliant lawyer. corp corporate law in new york. he wasn't from money. jack kennedy was a joke and a fraud. the greatest president was reagan because reagan had strategic vision. the media hated reagan too. in the early 80s, they all thought he was going to start world war 3 and the soviet union even believed he would launch a nuclear weapon on him. >> jack, bring this to a conclusion. >> caller: the conclusion this. the media is super biassed and they just love obama whose incompetent. the man is incompetent. he's not qualified. >> i think we got your point. jack. thank you very much. doug brinkley. >> you're pointing out the

intelligence of nixon. one of the things that comes out is that he's exceedingly wise in world history. he reves to history in his thinking ought the time. he's always getting angry at the air force by the way. he thinks he should be taking it harder to the north vietnamese. he would say i know what happened in the battle of the bulge. you're telling me because of fog we can't bomb. he was always bringing historical references into things. character matters in a president. also, it's not smart to war with the press. all presidents get frustrated but the great ones are the runs who learn how to manipulate the press without them realizing. kennedy did that, rose ef veosr

reagan did that. as having agnu as vice president go after the big three, cbs, nbc, abc for their liberal bias, it was clumsily done. it wasn't his message that the news was too liberal but try and destroy the new york times. the pentagon papers, krrkts cbs back fired on him. anything that back fires means you're not so smart. you don't always win by going right at people's throats and trying to rip them out. nixon would go to rip people as lungs out. he created a lot of enemies that way. he made an enemies list at reporters.

the media went to get nixon and they got him. >> jake in tampa florida. before we take your call, i'm sure if you're watching us right now you probably saw the alert that the u.s. has dropped a couple of bombs on some isis positions in iraq. just want to make sure that everybody is aware of that. doug brinkley from a historian's point of view, do you have any comment on the fact that targeted air strikes in iraq were authorized last night and a couple of bombs were dropped today. >> president obama because he won the noble peace prize and the big policy for the president has been getting out of iraq and afghanistan has proven to be quite hard yet to troops. we're not putting troops in. we're doing limited bombing. i think he will find most of the president backing this action.

linds linds lindsey graham has been calling for this. i think they will find bipartisan support. people will say you should have done this sooner. at this point in time we've got to go forward and do humanitarian aide to help the iraqi right now. >> jake in tampa. go ahead. >> caller: yeah. mr. brinkley it's a pleasure to talk to you. i'd like to talk about how nixon ended the vietnam war and my question is why do all of the democratic presidents since world war i have no vision of foreign policy? what's go on today with obama, with the chinese wanting to take south china sea and nor coth ko shooting missiles across what's going on in ukraine and iraq all around the world.

it seems like ef democratic president doesn't have democratic policy when it comes to vision. fdr, wilson, harry truman the only man to use an atomic weapon -- >> jake i think we understand where you're going with that. >> the cold war if it was won it was won by democrats and republicans. even carter and ford contributed to it. carter by demanding that soviet jews by released and pushing for human rights and freedom of religion in the soviet unions. reagan gets a lot of that credit because of the tough policy and the way that he very astutelyas.

but to make a broad statement that democrats weren't good at it since world war ii. truman created the national dow security counsel. the cia, the whole pentagon apparatus, on and on. kennedy guiding us through the cuban missile crisis. most scholars feel he did an excellent job with that. creating the peace corp. out foxing the soviets over berlin. carter whose considered by many a failure during the camp david piece afford which still is on the books as the great event in middle east history for the last 100 years since the creation of israel meaning it's not a right/left issue.

if you're frustrated with obama's policy. i do think that people think republicans are more hawkish which isn't always true. john f. kennedy was much more of a cold war hawk than say nixon was in some ways. the cold war policy was both bipartisan this anti-soviet deal. let's win the cold war it's just that the wall came down when bush was president and it was a result of reagan's ratcheting rhetoric on policy. >> 1972, 12:55 p.m. porter, kissinger, nixon talking about vietnam and the foreign service and defense department. a bunch of spineless bastards.

>> kissinger:well i just gave thoel hell to admiral mccain he said he would have to check into it. i said i'd never seen the president so angry. he is if he wants to stay on the job, nixon said, want him to stay on, i like him but damn, not this way. he's going to start taking his orders from here or else. now hiei'm not going to have th crap anymore. >> it's a little bit what i was mentioning earlier and nixon is warring a lot with the military. you should hear conversations with the air force. he thinks the military is not going to win in vietnam that a malaise or fatigue has set in. he would give an order and find it didn't get carried out because of poor weather conditions. he would say that's a presidential order. he would say fire them at the

pentagon. they are not hearing me. he is -- kissinger get the message across. behind their backs he is feeling that the pentagon is spineless. >> caller: i have a nixon what if question. would he have been as paranoid and would he have been a much better president if he been victorious in 1960 and would he have taken us into vietnam. >> what an interesting question. the problem is that it's just speculation. i think he would have been a better speculation if elected in 60 because he would have had bigger chip on his soldier. the chip got very big in the

1960s because he thought he won the election that due to kennedy's graveyard vote in chicago and oillinois turned those votes to kennedy and a bitterness ensued. he got bad press when he ran for governor of california. he sieges. he gots angrier and angrier particularly toward the media by 1968 so he may not have been quite as bitter if he was elected in 60. however with vietnam i don't know. we don't even know now whether kennedy would have put the troops in. i always call lid en johnden jo war. the original crime in my view wasn't kennedy sending advisors to vietnam or nixon continuing

it, it was johnson getting us mired over there in the first place. >> doug brinkley what are you doing in town? why are you in washington? >> well, i came here with my wife and three kids. we're still on summer vacation. we're still going to see the sites of washington. yesterday we were in old al alexandr alexandria. we're been doing the monuments and memorials, the national portrait gallery. i'm excited to go to the zoo. i deal with the pann we might go to the zoo to see the pandas and elephants and enjoy our summer near d.c. for a week or so. >> gary is calling in from dannia florida. hi, gary. >> caller: how are you doing.

brinkley. i admire your work. i just wanted to reflect on the fact that the republican congress has now sued president obama and it's coming up on the anniversary of the time when the u.s. congress sued richard nixon. can you do a comparison. i will take my comments off the air, thanks. >> i find the lawsuit against obama to be a bit frivolous. it's a political stunt to try to show that this is a president who is failing and doing things wrong. continuation of the disdain of obamacare -- affordable care. the great legacy piece for obama's presidency. no republicans voted for it. so there's just frustration at obama. it's coming out with this lawsuit to the point that it gets people talking about it. the same thing with impeachment.

there were threats to impeach bill clinton and george w. bush. particularly second term fatigue comes in. it just takes a couple of people to start using the i word impeachment word. none of this is compared to what was going on with nixon. nixon is dealing with real true criminal abuse of power. you're dealing with a president who is driven out of the white house. congress impeached the nixon. it was going to go to the senate. there were only 16 republican senators who would have backed nixon. nixon knew he was doomed. he left 40 years ago because his own party turned on him. barry goldwater turn on nixon an said get out of here. that's not what conservatism is all about. we're not about breaking laws. the conservative movement wasn't

shedding tears for nixon. in fact there's a new book out about the fall of nixon and rise of reagan. nixon says the liberals who hate me don't understand. they lose me it's all right wing conservatism on the other side. i'm the liberal moderate of the republican party. instead of whafantin anwanting me. losing me, you will get the far right. reagan is the big figure. reagan and fdr are the biggest things of the 20th century. there are such things as fdr democrats, and kennedy democrats and reagan republicans and democrats. roosevelt and reagan are the big

figures. nixon is a side show. he's dr. brinkley because of georgetown university and currently teaches at rice. in east sandwich, massachusetts. brian. republican. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i have two questions for you. i understand that president's nixon was a quaker and his father was a failure in a lemon ranch. also, what about nixon's participation with witticer chambers and the pumpkin papers. do you think that had anything affect when he resigned. >> you're pointing out the early nixon. you're talking about his parents. it's worth going to the nixon library and you can see the home where nixon grew up there. now it's all sprawl from los angeles. when nixon was born, that was a very forelorn agricultural out

post where he grew up. i think he tried hard to fit in there. it was a lot of cowboys and tough talking westerners. he became the nerd at his high school. then he became the wing tipped businessman lawyer. he compensated from growing up in such a tough matcho environment by talking in tough language. that was the way for him to dominate a room. it was the way to show he was tough. that matters a lot to him a lot pau because he was seen as being tough when he was young and grew up. there's a good book that recently came out. a historian named swift on pat and richard nixon and their love story. i recommend you read that.

faith, yes. the one thing good if you're feeling sorry for nixon. if somebody feels sorry when they see him leaving and being driven out, he knew politics was a blood sport. his goodbye was from roosevelts speech it's better to be in the arena and be marred by the dust and blood and sweat than be one of those timid critics. creatures that don't engage and sit on the side lines. >> nixon took his rez esignatios that is the price you pay for being a hard ball politician. he came back by writing books on foreign affairs. doing the frox/nixon interviews.