, both for military history and the profession. bill: jennifer mittelstadt, thank you for being with us. to watching american history tv. 40 hours of american history every weekend on c-span three. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule and keep up with the latest history news. > american history tv comedy talk about nixon's post-presidency. they discussed their roles in the nixon/frost interviews, the writing of his memoir, and his return to public life. we also hear about nixon's relationship with ronald reagan during the 1980 presidential campaign and has lasting impact on american politics. this is just over an hour and

was hosted by the richard nixon presidential library and museum in california. >> many of you will have it your place setting an envelope. you will find a record or two we were able to find about you. when you served the president. the staff that we have, the great staff inside the foundation had more fun. imagine as they would uncover something and you would end up with the conversation around these documents. i can only share with you that it was a great discovery process. i think we are reproducing for you to have at your table and -- table. we thought that would be fun. [applause] it's a great honor for me to introduce our first panel of the afternoon. we have two very significant up

panels. when will start shortly and one begins near 2:00. i am delighted to you are here for the dedication today. especially the nixon alumni reunion, i trust you would think of this as your home away from home. we want you back. we are delighted to welcome the many c-span viewers all across america and around the world who are watching this dedication. some of you were here for our opening ceremony in october. the film that we introduced was representative of that. i think it's a credit to all of you. we asked many of you to contribute. the next generation of the nixon family was represented by two new board members that we have. it was a very special day for

all of us. i think especially for president nixon and in the first lady for their memory. the reviews from the new exhibits are in and they are excellent. media has focused on the new standard we have set for objectivity and presidential libraries. our increased numbers of visitors are giving us enthusiastic thumbs-up for being interesting, educational, entertaining, and relevant. i think we have arranged an interesting panel for you this afternoon. you know the disciplines. -- you know the participants. i would introduce them, i'm sure you can tell as many stories about them as they will be telling about president nixon. the subject is the final come back, nixon in the post-presidency. they will be discussing its earliest stage in the years that they spent with the president and misses nixon in san

to 1980.in 1970 this begins as a very sad story with the presidents brush with mortality that almost became a tragic story. before long, it becomes a true and truly inspiring nixon narrative of resolve, resilience, and return. our moderator is hugh hewitt. the student ray price was still an undergraduate at harvard began working as a researcher. he was the first director of this library. congratulations on the launch. from the earliest planning stages until 1990, he has forged a brilliant career as a teacher, an attorney, a syndicated talk holes -- talkshow host, a best-selling author and a pundit of national prominence. his latest book is the fourth way, a conservative playbook for

lasting gop majority. it was published three weeks ago. it is already number four on amazon's bestseller. please join me in welcoming our good friend, our old friend hugh hewitt. [applause] hugh: thank you very much. this is such a wonderful celebration of the 60's and 70's. i came dressed as the hathaway man today. [laughter] hugh: i wanted to explain what that was about. can i welcome my panelists up. jack brennan was president nixon's friend. colonel jack. come on up, jack. frank gannon, leader of the wonderful memoir. and can make has seen it all with president nixon. come join me all gentlemen.

please come have a seat. titledas a book in 1964 -- i am in your chair because of the hathaway patch. ken, come over here. a book in 1964 called when the cheering stopped about woodrow wilson's last years. a magnificent, wonderful look about a final chapter in an amazing americans like. that book is not yet been written about richard nixon and his retirement. that the region am into my left could easily write it and perhaps all of them will combine out it. it begins with a clip that will bring back some memories to each of them. if we could roll that please. >> the question is what role will i play in the future in the political field at home and abroad? politically, my political life is over.

as you know, under our constitution, no one can be elected to the office of president more than twice. i checked with him and he said i'm too old to get into oxford. [laughter] i can't run for president of the union. when i hear what a spicy election you have, even though i had some tough elections, even i don't want to try that one. politically in that sense, i plan to play no role in the party as a candidate, for a candidate, anything. while i have retired from politics, i have not retired from life. the kind of role i will play would be in the public arena. i intend to speak on occasion, when the form is a proper one. i will do some writing. i have another book i am working on. never agreed to write a book.

it takes so much time. it's a second book on the future, having covered the past. i worked on that for three and a half years. what going to happen by the end of the century? the challenge to the west and not just consulting our fears but how we can build a better world. in addition to speaking and writing, i will from time to time when individuals can find their way to san clemente on a private basis, i will talk to them and give them free advice. it will be worth what it costs. hugh: that is president nixon in november of 1978 projecting how he would spend the next many decades of his life. let's start with you about that trip. did he forecast correctly what he would do with the rest of his life? jack: very much so.

i want to comment that he did this, when he said i will make speeches, i will give talks, never did he accept a nickel for all the talks he made. that frugality extended to misses nixon, when she was the only former first lady to ever give up secret service. i argued with her. they take you shopping, what are you complaining about. its cost and the taxpayers money and we don't want to do that. i think he did what he said he would do. hugh: how deliberate were each of the steps he took along the way? as the twos -- these two men were helping him right memoirs, how deliberate was the plan he rolled out? jack: i had nothing to do with the memoirs. i have a hard time writing a letter to my kids. at the beginning, it was not a time of elation. all of us were a bit down on the very first day.

he showed the way by coming in with a coat and tie at 7:30 in the morning. my job i thought was to make sure they were never exposed to catcalls or people harassing him. that was in my mind, anyway, we don't put him in bad circumstances. that was my job. frank and can contribute significantly to that. hugh: let's ask about the beginning of the memoir and the oxford speech. frank: jack and ken went to oxford with him. as you can see, it was a very unfriendly audience. there were major demonstrations outside the room. he won them over with his candor.

speaking without notes, speaking in the union. addressing all of the questions. he showed a sense of humor, which i think surprised people. i was sort of in the memoir loop, which was separate. ken was in the frost nixon loop. i was not involved in a lot of that planning. the first year, he was understandably a man at the end of his emotional, physical, psychological tether. having to deal with that and then he got very sick. as bill said, he had to brushes with mortality. the first year was really devoted to getting healthy,

getting back into form, which then turned out to be fighting form. the interesting thing we were talking about downstairs, when we got off the plane, he owed in ongoing legal bills half $1 million. suddenly, his sources of income had ceased. he knew that in order to pay the bills and keep his lawyers going because his legal problems that only just begun, he was going to have to raise money. the obvious ways to do that work to write a book and do some television. it became the memoirs. i still have trouble calling it frost/nixon. i think that billing is wrong. at any rate, the nixon/frost interviews. i'm exaggerating and being grossly unfair to lawyers, but somebody has to do it.

the simplistic version is once the bill had been paid in the lawyers were not given advice, the best advice was don't write a book and don't do anything on television. then it became the nationalization of his papers, whatever it's called. the presidential recordings and materials preservation act, which kept all of the presidential papers in washington. a provision of that law is a president can contest in the courts, if he chose to contest it while he was contesting it, he could avail himself of access to the papers.

his lawyers said rightly you undercut your case if you avail yourself of a provision of the law you are trying to get overturned. it was an exquisite existential dilemma. how do you write a memoir about your presidency without any of the papers? it was a risky decision on his part to decide to access the papers. hugh: you went to oxford. it is four years into his retirement and he projects out the next 15 years. that is a remarkable clip. he is dream casting. it's almost incredible that he would say that. what was the room like, and were you surprised by what he would say? ken: the event itself was extraordinary. we had prepared for the trip. we had some sense of what the

room would be like and what the audience would be like. we had no idea that 10 feet away behind the oxford union was another building where there was a mob of about 100 protesters that were yelling and screaming throughout the entire speech. there is no microphone to broadcast in the oxford union. everything is done just your normal voice. for two hours, all during his talk, they were yelling and screaming epitaphs and he was talking without notes through the whole thing without any pause or anything else in answering questions, tough questions. it was the most extraordinary thing to see him standing there

at age 65 giving forth data and exposition on salt and detente and foreign policy. it was a classic case of the president in the preparation and i don't think he anticipated necessarily all the questions. we try to anticipate the foreign policy and domestic questions and some the local questions. i don't think he thought about asking him what his future would be like. i think he had been thinking about that all the time in writing the memoir. that was very much part of it. if i could go back a little bit and add on to what frank said earlier, i came out for about 10 days after he resigned. in addition to legal bills, it was pure survival. he was broke.

they were trying to get back taxes from him, which they claimed he did not paid. they tried to get money from him for improvements on the houses in key biscayne. he not only had no money, he had all of these bills. one of my assignments was to find economic survival for he and misses nixon. it was a very difficult time. from that time to the time of oxford was an extraordinary pathway of four years. hugh: i want to play a clip now to four years prior to oxford. this is the president in the east room. in which we are sitting. president nixon on august 9, 1974.

former president nixon: thank you. you're here to say good night to us. we don't have a good word for it in english. the best is we will see you again. we think that when someone dear to us dies, we think that when we lose an election, we think

that when we suffer a defeat that all has ended. not true. it's only a beginning, always. the young must know it. the old must know it. the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, the greatness comes when you are tested. when you take some knocks, some disappointments. when sadness comes. only if you've been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. and so, we leave with high

hopes, in good spirit, with deep humility. and with gratefulness in our hearts. i can only say to each and every one of you, not only will we always remember you, not only will we always be grateful to you, you will always be in our hearts and you will be in our prayers. thank you very much. hugh: you with the military aid to the president. you served as chief of staff for four years. you were in the room that day. how deep was the valley he was referring to? jack: rather.

save my desert. i will be back. the plane was very somber, the helicopter at for us. misses nixon let and we lifted off the white house lawn and she would down and everyone was in tears. she said it's so sad. that's about all that was said on the helicopter. we got on the plane and a lot of people were sad. a lot of people were thinking, what did we do now, how do we make it work? there was activity going on. then he came out and talked to all of us on the plane. when we got to el toro, there was a marine base of course. there was a large number of people cheering.

all good. they provided helicopters rest come down to san clemente and we started life all over again. ken, you were in the room, what were you thinking? ken: how could this be happening to us? this is the saddest day. after we had one that 49 state landslide victory and worked so hard to have an all come crashing down, i was part of the watergate defense team and was fighting until the end. i had the nickname based on that japanese soldier who had hidden in the jungles of the philippines, waiting 30 years thinking the war was still going to go his way. it all ended abruptly, wondering what was going to happen to all of us and wondering what he was going to do. it was beyond sadness.

coming out to san clemente 10 days later, when he was president, you would come down that long driveway you would see that marine helicopter all shiny. the day i drove down after his resignation, it was a tennis court and some coast guard people playing tennis. it was the saddest thing i never seen. hugh: frank, where were you that day in thinking? frank: those of us who were on the plane could not be in the east room. only the swells made it onto army one. i watched that speech in the president's cabin on air force one sitting next to diane sawyer, who was part of the

group that went out. they told us, the captain came on and said to look out the window as we were coming in toward el toro. we saw the lineup, a five mile line up on the freeway trying to get to el toro. that was the point at which you realize it happened. i think everyone was numb on that plane. that was the first time, it was a concrete thing. it was very moving. several thousand people had assembled. i don't think it was -- effective. -- i don't the get was plan. it was spontaneous, you have stories about that.

the president wasn't expecting it. he wasn't prepared to have to make a public speech. i remember spontaneously people started standing around. there were bleachers. there were some stands that people were standing and sitting in. they began singing "god bless america." that was very moving. we were not prepared for the crowd that would spend all night up and down the boulevard to come into the library. more than 50,000 people. hugh: were you? you should have been ready. i want to go back to how deep this was for people. financial crisis, legal crisis, physical crisis. how close was the president to

dying? jack: i was in the room. i heard richard and slapping him to bring him back to consciousness. hugh: misses nixon had health crisis. jack: she had a stroke and the president called me at home, very early in the morning. he said jack, come down here. i know she has had a stroke. and i called my old office in the white house. pendleton andp tell them to send a cardiologist right away. i went down to the house and misses nixon is german irish and a bit stubborn.

she said there is nothing wrong with me. he was trying to talk to her into going to the hospital. i have a doctor from camp pendleton. if we go anywhere we're going to long beach hospital. she had a stroke. her arm wasn't working. i whispered you are either going or i am carrying you. she got in the ambulance and president nixon got on the back of the ambulance. he rode with her to long beach hospital. their to thefrom various crises to sitting down with mao in 1976. in how does that trip come about? what does president ford think about it? how does evolve? the first china trip after the resignation?

frank: jack was the person in charge of that. the chinese invited him. and it was in february and it wasn't convenient for the ford administration. it was right before the new hampshire primary. there were some problems there. not only was it an invitation, the chinese sent a plane for him and wanted him to come. i think he was torn between not wanting to do something that would not be helpful to president ford, but not wanting to do nothing that would offend the chinese. he made the decision to go. it gave him the opportunity, a second opportunity, to see chairman mao shortly before he

died. on the next trip, he was able to see a briefly tenured chairman. then he met in dealt with deng xiaoping. the nixon providence with china was really maintained by him going for that second anniversary, that fourth anniversary in 76. hugh: how did you advance it without the white staff around to do it? jack: let me go back. i would occasionally go back to washington. i would visit the chinese embassy.

they said to me we would like to invite president and mrs. nixon back to china on the anniversary. this is way before we knew there would be a fight between reagan and president ford in new hampshire in february. they were going to send a boeing 707. that was impressive. you have to guarantee that i see mao. the decision-maker is only one who says what you are doing. i was not dealing with chairman mao. i couldn't guarantee anything. i think there was overreaction on president ford's staff saying we were trying to disrupt something.

we had no idea it would be a fight. ken: the political fallout was very bitter. after the trip, barry goldwater asked what he thought about. this is the goldwater for whom president nixon had campaigned so heavily in 1964 and defended against all of the attacks about being a crazy right-winger. the best thing nixon could do was stay in china. he made those awful comments. thoughtpresident nixon his way through the political fallout. this is the time when he was starting to look forward to things. he was going to persevere and have his life move on. we sense that in our discussions with him, even while we were writing the book. he talked to us about the book. q what say we have to get this book done.

he would take hours talking about politics, talking about the future, talking about what he should be doing. it was a mixture of life like this. he still wanted to be engaged all the time. he loved these all sessions we would have for hours and hours in his office. then he would leave and say, when i get back to work, we have to finish this book. hugh: he used to say that if we were writing the book in new hampshire, we would have finished a year earlier. it was too nice. the other thing, it they kept the file of the supporters. people who went above and beyond the basic level of support. she kept it up and brought it out.

mark is here. [applause] hugh: and they had kept up this list of supporters, which was about 150,000 people. the president said that for as many of these people who support me, there are an equal and opposite number that despise me. this book will sell 300,000 copies. his frustration was that spending four years on a book for 300,000 people as opposed to doing television where he could reach millions with less preparation, although with his great preparation, he could reach millions in an instant. he was frustrated by that. once he got better, he was champing at the bit to get back in the arena.

hugh: i worked with david and was hired on the staff. i knew everything because i had just graduated from college. i thought you were crazy to take him to kentucky. tell us about the first speech in a little town in kentucky. what were you thinking? jack: go someplace where people are not going to be harassing and jeering. we got a lot of invitations. they were going to name a school for him in this little town in kentucky. they are the heart of the earth. we decided to go. it was a little bit more emotional. hugh: let's show a little bit of a clip of the kentucky speech.

former president nixon: all of the very distinguished guests on the platform behind me, all of the distinguished estimate audience in front of me, and all of those outside who were unable to get in, may i first say how deeply grateful i am for your very warm reception. [applause] jack: every local authority and beauty queen and band played. he sat there for four hours in an on air conditioned gymnasium in kentucky in july. hugh: he was a democrat, a dirty trick sky.

the republican convention was in miami. he arranged for a number of pregnant black ladies to walk around in circles carrying a sign saying nixon is the one. he showed up. they had a parade in the sky runs up with a book saying sign it for me. he always signed with best wishes. he insisted didn't say from richard nixon. it said love, richard nixon. it's kind of like the fake news we are getting today. hugh: to get back to the meeting with chairman mao, jack has a

wonderful story about that. one that is a particular favorite of mine. jack: president wanted to make sure he saw chairman mao in 1976. i could not guarantee that, but when we got there i was rather anxious for this to happen. fortuitously, the first night the foreign minister came to my room, which was adjacent to the nixon's room. he said the chairman would like to see president and mix -- mrs. nixon. i started to put on my jacket. i went into the room and told the president. he was ready to go. he would also like to see brennan. why me? we respect loyalty very much.

when president nixon came in 1972, he had a staff of 80 and now he has a staff of one. chairman mao wants to meet you. [applause] right after the introductions, president nixon dismissed misses next in and i. -- mrs. nixon and i. she and i got in the car and went to where we were staying. she reached over and grabbed my hand and squeezed it. hugh: when you went to oxford there was a moment became afterwards when he went with jonathan aiken to the british parliament and you met the conservative party leader. tell the audience about that and if that made the trip a success and began to reintroduce the president to the future world leaders.

ken: maggie thatcher was soon to be prime minister obviously. i think she made a great impression on him and he made a great impression on her. there was one other twist about the speech at the oxford union. before we went there, he assigned me the names of all the well-known american officeholders who had been rhodes scholars. i provided the list. while he was there, i want to tell you that many of the same folks who have been in this room who have been rhodes scholars ended up in significant positions in the united states. one is a supreme court justice. one of the spigot of the house of representatives, one with a famous athlete. i will predict that before the end of the century, a rhodes scholar will become president of the united states. bill clinton became president of united states.

we never were sure about his predictions. he was always predicting. that is one that came true. hugh: let's go to the frost/nixon interviews. i loved the movie. i never asked you what you thought about the movie. what you think of the movie? frank: i thought it was not accurate. i thought it was inaccurate as history. i thought it was terrific drama. there were some accuracies and to his credit, ron howard the director paid a lot of attention to trying to get things right and the atmospherics he got right. a number of the main events, the phone call, the shoes didn't happen. they captured the spirit.

if those things had happened, they would've happen that way. i thought it was a good movie. it was not passable history. jack: i didn't like that i was played by a ham. kevin bacon, anybody? all i can say about the veracity is that it was based on an actual event. the events were not true at all. frank: i was very disappointed there were very negative scenes in the movie, especially one. when ron howard came to see me. they had sent me the screenplay

and they wanted to know what i thought about it. you know that never happened? peter morgan looked at me and said it is entertainment. hugh: let's talk about the real event. how important was it to get this right? how much did the president prepare? how important is it? ken: this was extremely important to him and to all of us. we started preparing seven weeks in advance. i was taken off the book. as i recall, it was at the end of january. the taping started march 23. that was 1978. he gave me the assignment to be

preparing briefing books as he had done for press conference. we knew he had 24 hours to prepare in terms of the contract. we had a lot to cover, domestic issues, foreign policy, watergate. we had to anticipate. i began working with one of their policy guys. we started covering some of the issues they wanted to talk about. i started working on that. diane sawyer came off the book to work on the watergate portion. ray price work on several elements of the briefing books. we did a lot of it in a q&a format.

a lot of it was also narrative, just a lot of facts. he wanted all of this prepared. he knew it would be a grueling process. it was a very strenuous day and night, six days a week. we went through a lot of effort to get him ready. the reputation that he had in law school, he did it in preparation for this. tv was one thing. it's not like the book, you can rewrite the book. he had no power to edit this television. hugh: he wanted for more hours at the end. jack: there are so many stories about this movie, how we had to get over the lack of trust to begin with. let's get to what actually happened. the contract was for 24 hours.

at the end of 24 hours david frost sent his producer down to see me. he said we've got nothing. this is a disaster. president nixon has taken over everything. we need more time. we need him to open up more. i said we made a deal with you. i sent him on his way. i first confided in ken. he said screw them. we made a deal. then, frank and diane came to me. diane did the talking. she knew i would pay more attention to her. if this thing airs the way it is, the world is going to say there goes richard nixon stonewalling again. it's a disaster.

this is bad. i went to president nixon and one of the few times he was gruff with me. but are you proposing? take as much time as you want and we will set the date. decide what you want to say and we will give them more time. that's how they got the extra four hours. without any compensation, nothing. we get in next to four hours. i will bring this to a conclusion. in any event, he really prepared. he knew what he wanted to convey to the american people, saying i'm sorry without saying i'm guilty. he planned it all out. i was doing all of the fighting about when it would happen. i said may, he said no. anyways, trashed.

we got to the point and agreed upon it. i would always ride with him up to the place where we were doing the screening. this morning, i looked at him and he was so uptight. i called ray price. i said you ride with him and tell him how good he is. he got in the car with him. we got up to the screening. david frost started off. president nixon was so ready. he is going to him, president nixon, just ready to go. i was so frustrated. all of us were so frustrated. i made a sign and it said "let him talk." later in his book, he said he thought it said "let us talk." he saw the sign and he took a

break. ken took the president to his room. he can tell you how uptight he was. i talked to frost like a marine. i let him know that all he has to do is send out a sentence, just welcome him. don't be confrontational. just be nice, be pleasant. ask him and he is ready. hugh: before i come to that conversation, he wanted to say he was sorry without saying he was guilty. would you expand on that? what does that mean for people? you are his lead guy. what does that mean? frank: i think we have to ask diane and i would listen to her more than i would listen to me.

we were not part of that. i'm not just being diplomatic. we weren't part of that loop. diane was. i was not. i stayed working on the memoirs. diane and ray came out and later point to help. i think our feeling was this was going to be the first time the president had spoken to the nation since the resignation. a lot of the basic questions, did he lie, did he tell the truth, how did he feel about what had happened, not just what had happened to him, but what had happened to the nation as a result. unless he addressed this, the nation would be waiting. it was the other shoe the nation

was waiting to drop. there was also the element that in the previous frost interviews, frost adopted this beginning that watergate was going to come up in the last taping session. frost began by saying why did you bring the tape's. immediately, there was an aggressive relationship. frost became a prosecutor. the next questions were about cambodia and he adopted the book about cambodia. frost was extremely aggressive. the president as was his legal training, responded in kind. that was their frustration. they felt nixon had run the clock out. he had dominated the conversation because he had been there. he had more information.

from frost's point of view, this was an good. it didn't make frost look good. they were concerned it wasn't going to make great television. they knew and we knew the people waiting next and to address what had happened. hugh: in that 10 minutes, what are you talking to him about? ken: the way we got to 24 hours is we had agreed to 12 two-hour sessions. we were recording on our end and timing all of the sessions. frost would go on and on. each session would go to hours and 18 minutes or two hours and 14 minutes. we got 24 hours by the 11th session.

when he was talking to frost, i was talking to the president. we were addressing two key points. frost wanted the president to say that he lied and that he was guilty of a crime. those with the two essential elements they were really looking for. jack made it so frost backed away enough to let the president tell the story, for lack of a better term, without him going to the edge without actually having to say that he lied or committed a crime. we had a midway point that satisfied both parties. that worked very well. hugh: i want to talk about the memoir before we talk about him in 1980. it is widely recognized by historians.

it -- it is at least among the top two or three along with grants. you are the lead on this. what is his objective with the memoir? how did you get it done. ken: it was to pay the bills. frank: it provided that function. he originally wanted to do two volumes in the publisher said no, it had to be one volume. watergate had to be mentioned in the first volume. that was the decision to write a one volume book, which worked against it in many ways. it's a 1038 page book. when dick cheney got an advance

copy of it, he was in the hospital and the doctors told him the book was too heavy for him to lift and read. i think that worked against a volume of that length. he wanted to get it down. watergate was not his favorite topic. those two reasons. it was to fill the time until he got better physically. it and the television interviews were boxes that had to be ticked. he decided to tell the story of his entire life, which i think was important. it was more remarkable that we only got those presidential documents in july of 76.

for the first year and more, we were writing very interesting stuff about the pre-presidential life. the answer is we were immensely and particularly talented and devoted and we ran a 24 hour operation. i hired a very distinguished naval historian and i asked him if he had a couple of graduate students. he produced two people and they had access to the library and they provided basic research packages. the president would assimilate these. and we had pre-presidential documents because they were already out there. we would give him the research packages, the documents and he would go to ground for two or three weeks and dictate 100,000 words or more on a particular

topic. his dictation would become the basis. we would fact check the dictation. it worked very smoothly. hugh: did it satisfy anything in the president's need to explain himself? do you think it was his full story? ken: i think to an extent it was. we cut two thirds of the book. it was edited out. it was 3300 pages if we had left everything. i think it told the story. he just wanted to get it behind him. he wanted to get it out there. the main thing was to get it finished. that was the ultimate goal, to get it done and behind him. i think the story was told. the narrative was out there.

the president is a good writer and an excellent editor. i do have one more reminiscence about the frost interviews. after the interviews, we came back and he wanted to wind down and do a postmortem. ray price was in the room and diane. i don't know if jack or frank were there. we were just talking visiting and he was winding down. he was talking to ray about doing speeches at the white house. he is talking about really -- billy graham. remember how he always used to get god in our speeches? we had a hell of a time getting god in our speeches. we all looked at each other. did he just say that?

[laughter] one other things i tell people is that after frank and diane left and you are helping president reagan launches campaign, president and some of the commonly man. he would always invite the pows to come. you are managing a back story that i don't think many people get in that gap. tell people about that. that he loves sports. one of the ways to get him out without harassment, somehow i was appointed to the advisory board of the california angels. i did -- the owner of the team was gene autry.

one night i approached him and said, would you invite president nixon to a game? i think i had had it few beers. it was like asking the prom queen for a date. he said absolutely, i would do anything for the great man. i finally convinced him to go to the game. we went to the private elevator. the elevator operator wanted to hug president nixon. he had cataracts and couldn't see. he had a television on the third tier. as a guest of the owner, president nixon had to sit next to him. i sat in the first row. the first time we went, nolan ryan was pitching. a foul ball came up and i did one of these. i caught it one-handed and the crowd cheered. jack caught a foul ball.

president nixon got up and walked down to the front row and signed the ball. you could hear them murmuring in the audience. he got feeling good. we would go to ball games quite often. almost any sports celebrity i could bring in, he would love it he was a frustrated athlete himself. we spent a lot of time doing they would come in and tell them how wonderful he was. york to the move to new meet you made a good move by sitting in the front row. david eisenhower and i went with david steinbrenner, and edwin -- and everyone comes to the box to pay their respects. you don't see a thing. what about the move to new york? how did it come about. >> he told me he was going back

to new york to be near the kids. one was in pennsylvania and the other in new york city, and the grandkids were starting to come. now he was going to have grandchildren. he said mrs. nixon wanted to go back to new york. he really wants to get bad it -- get back in the action, also. i want to make the typical arrangements. i met with the deputy director to find office space. he took me to the federal office building, which was very nice, and said we will rent space for you. he showed me this great office in the city, penthouse, beautiful. i said, that's what we want. were said, no, that's what not going to do. so we to be federal office building. later, the same character set, nixon wanted to be in the penthouse and we forced them and

the federal office building. i have a whole chapter in my notes saying media malpractice, so much of it going on. it was a miserable office. but the presidential campaign was underway. >> i'd like you to the comment on your relationship working with president reagan. what is the presidential relationship with not yet president reagan through that. what is the back channel like? traveling with then governor reagan in the third week of september in 1980. by that time, president nixon had already sent one memo to governor reagan about the debates. october, third week of

the chief of staff called me. he said that there was another memo that he had for governor reagan. we had a meeting. it was very sensitive. because of the sensitivity and the press about president and -- about president nixon's appearances or connections with any candidate, they didn't want anybody to know that he was sending him any messages. nick called me up and set up a secret meeting. he gave it a secret codename, i think it was chapman's friend. we had a private meeting in kansas city hidden away somewhere. 22slipped me this october come along strategy memorandum for governor reagan.

it,ink that the content of and i've read it several times, the strategy wasn't exquisite or terrific, but the main thing was that it gave been a reagan a lot of confidence -- gave governor reagan a lot of confidence. it may his deal good. it talked about how much better a candidate he was then jimmy carter, and that his appearance would be much more important. took a realan self-confidence and strength during rest of the campaign. there is one element of that memo that it bother me. i was writing speeches for governor reagan at this time. i thought i was doing a pretty good job. and that memo, he says to reagan, and this period, use your best lines, even if you are tired of them. the time has passed for reading

important but dull lines written by speechwriters. [applause] -- [laughter] >> this is only 1980. six years and do his retirement and he becomes the dominant counselor of the area. did he have a plan for all that? what is his contribution the decade and a half after reagan wins? >> i want to take one minute for an unsung hero of the comeback, and particularly that period, was ron zigler. he came out and stay with us and gave all his time and papers to us for the preparation of the memoirs. ron is gone, but certainly not forgotten. [applause] and cindy and his granddaughter haley, who are keeping up the usc tradition,

are here. [applause] >> i wasn't really involved in that after he moved back to york -- that -- back to new york. we had dinner the week before he left, but then i only saw him occasionally, other than doing the interviews in 1983. in the he said it speech, "it's only a beginning always pick up -- always." the nixonbol of resilience, spirit, and dedication, and patriotism that he felt he had a mission. mrs. nixon felt that, to, that they both had something to contribute.

it's meaningful that six weeks before he died, he was in russia. that very moving picture which is in the end of the exhibit of him standing on the charles bridge in prague looking into the distance. a month before he died, he was in the white house making this report to president clinton. the morning he died, the galleys of his most recent book, then published posthumously, had been put on his desk in his office, waiting for him to come in. this period was really part and parcel of his life, one of dedication and devotion and resilience, and i think patriotism. >> i would add loyalty. would you make of the last 15 years? i found my successor and i

didn't interfere, except on those rare occasions where i would be invited to something. staff andalked to his i was always very pleased he was always moving forward, i publishing something, helping, doing the next right thing. >> in the 1984 campaign, those of you might recall the first debate that president reagan had with walter mondale was sort of a disaster. he didn't do very well. he looked old and disoriented. stu spencer, the chief strategist in the campaign, told me to call president nixon up, and said get a message from him to president reagan. i called president nixon up, and he sent me a personal note that i transmitted to president reagan.

once again it was that personal note that gave him strength and spirit and self-confidence. he had great respect for president next in. inn we opened the library 1990, i took president nixon in to see president reagan, and it was an extremely cordial meeting. two people who had enormous respect for each other. nixon's chief of staff, my successor here at the library after i took over from john whitaker, the month before president and looked up john -- before president nixon looked up john taylor and , taylor and i hadn't really put together rare well. walker --all of ron

call up ron walker. he called all those guys that stood up earlier, and at the end of it, we called it a go rodeo. we presented ron walker with bull whip,-- with a and the library opened. , in the funeral happened just want to end by saying, ron walker is essential to everything happening today. why don't we all give ron walker and an walker a salute. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] announcer: you are watching "american history tv."

like us on facebook at c-span history. announcer: on august 4, 1781, american militia colonel isaac hayne was hanged by the british for treason in charleston, south carolina. discussesor cl bragg his new book, "martyr of the american revolution, the execution of isaac hayne, south carolinian." in this illustrated talk, he discusses the details and death,ences of hayne's which was debated in the continental congress and parliament. it is hosted by the society of cincinnati in washington, d.c.. mr. bragg: thank you, and good evening, everyone. the introduction is hard to live up to, but i will try. it is a pleasure and honor to be here this evening with you.