c-span.org. now former white house staffers on richard nix anis amri on's live avenue was president. we'll hear about the nixon-frost interviews, president nixon's meetings in china and his memoir, this was hosted by the richard nixon presidential library and museum in yore bah lind a, california. >> many of you will have at your place setting an envelope, and if you open the envelope you'll find a record or two that we were able to find about you when you served the president. and the staff that we have, a great staff inside the foundation, they had more fun and you would just imagine as they would uncover something in a document that links something, they'd say, wow, and you'd end up with the conversation around these documents. so i can only share with you that it was a great discovery process for our people and i

think we are reproducing them for you to have at your tables as a little bit different. so we thought that would be fun. so -- [ applause ] >> it's a great honor for me to introduce our first panel of the afternoon, we have two very significant panels, one that will start shortly and one than begins as near to 2:00 as we can make that happen. i'm delighted that you're here for the dedication today and especially the nixon alumni reunion. as members of the administration family, i trust you will now think of 18001 your bah lind april boulevard as your home away from home. we want you back. we're also deliberate delighted to welcome the many c-span viewers all across america and all around the world that are viewer this dedication. some of you were here for our opening ceremonies in october. the film that we introduced was representative of that and again a great credit to our board and our campaign efforts and i think

a credit to all of you. ed nixon, trisha and ed cox joined us on that opening. the next generation of the nixon family was represented by two new board members that we have melanie eisenhower and christopher cox. it was a very special day for all of us and president nixon and the first lady and their memory and legacy. the reviews on the new exhibits are in. and they're excellent. media comment has focused on the new standard we've set for candor and objectivity in presidential libraries. and our increased numbers of visitors are giving us enthusiastic thumbs up for being interesting, educational, enter taken and relevant. >> i think we've arranged a very interesting panel four this afternoon. you know the participants, i've introduced them but hugh hewitt will introduce them.

i'm sure you can tell as many stories about them as they're going to be telling about president nixon. the subject is the final come back, nixon in the post-presidency. and they will be discussing its earliest stage during the years they spent with nixon from 1974 to 1980. of course this begins as a very sad story with the president's brush with mortality it almost became a tragic story. but before long, it becomes a true and truly inspiring nixon narrative of resolve, resilience, and truth. our moderator is hugh hewitt. a student at ray price while he was still an undergraduate at harvard he began work agency as researcher for rn. they chose hugh to be the first director of this library, congratulations on the launch. and from the earliest planning stages through the opening in 1990 if the from that beginning,

he as forged a brilliant career as an attorney, teacher, thinker, sinned indicated radio talk show host, match thor podcaster, best selling author and most recently pun dant of national prominence had the his latest book is "the fourth way" published three weeks ago, it's already number four on amazon's politics best seller. please join me in welcoming our good friend, our old friend, hugh hewitt. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. it's such -- it's a wonderful celebrations of the '60s and '70s i came dressed as the hathaway man today so i wanted to explain what that was all about. i can please welcome my panelists up before we show the film, jack brennan of course president nixon's most faithful and wonderful aide, servant and friend, colonel jack brennan.

come on up jack. frank gannon, white house fellow in the nixon administration, principal leader of the memoir, and then ken khachigian has seen it all. come join me, gentlemen. please come have a seat. [ applause ] >> there was a book in 1964 titled -- i'm in your chair because of the hathaway patch so we're switching it around. book in 1964 called "when the cheering stopped about woodrow wilson's last years". it's a magnificent, wonderful book, had a final chapter in an amazing american's life. that book has not yet been written about richard nixon and his retirement but the three gentlemen to my left could easily write it and combine on if the but it begins with a clip we want to show you of the post-presidency and what will bring back memories to all of them, please.

>> will you tell me that things you would do results -- fiscal field at home and abroad. >> the question is what role will i play in the future in the political field at home and abroad. well, politically, my political life is over and many a -- applaud -- as you know, under our constitution, no one can be elected to the office of president more than twice. [ applause ] >> i checked with mr. marlon he says i'm too old to get into oxford, so i can't run for president of the union. and i hear -- when i hear what a spicy kind of election you have, even though i've had some tough elections i don't want to try that one. but, so politically in that sense i plan to play no role. in the party a candidate, for a candidate, anything. however, while i retired from

politics, i haven't retired from life. that means public life. and so the kind of the role i will play will be in the public arena. i intend to speak on occasion when the forum say proper one. i will do some writing. i have another book i'm working on. never agree to write a book, it takes so much time, but i agreed to i do second one. any event it's a second book on the future having covered the past, i worked on that for three and a half years. what's going to happen by the end of this century, the challenge to the west. but not just consulting our fears, looking to how we can build a better world. and then in addition to speaking and to writing, i will, from time to time when individuals can find their way to san clemente tape on a private basis i will talk to them and give

them advice, preadvice, and it will be worth just what it costs. >> that is president nixon at oxford union in 1978, november of 1978 projecting how he would spend the next many decades of his life. jack brennan let's start with you about that trip. did he forecast correctly what would he do with the rest of his life? >> very much so. very much so he. i want to comment also that he did this when he said i will make speeches and give talks, never did he accept a nickel for all the talks he made. that frugality also extended to mrs. nixon when she was the only first lady -- former first lady ever to give up secret service. >> i argued with her and argued with her hell i'll take you shopping what are you talking about. no, no, it's costing the taxpayers money we don't want to do that. he did what he said would he do. >> your chief of staff for the first four years of the post-presidency. how deliberate were each of the steps he took along the way as these two men were helping him right the memoirs how deliberate was the plan that rolled out.

>> i had nothing to do with memoirs i have a hard time writing letters to my kids. at the beginning it was not a period of elation. all of us were a bit down on the very first day. he showed the way by coming in coat and type as 7:30 in the morning. we all followed suit and we did that from that point on. however, my job, i thought, was to make sure that he was never exposed to cat calls and people harassing him. and is it was pretty well -- in my mind anyway, planned. we don't put him in bad circumstances, that was my job. frank and ken contributed significantly to that and many other things. >> so, frank, let's ask about the beginning of the memoir and the oxford speech. do you think he fulfilled exactly a plan that he had in his mind that he responded to in that q&a at oxford?

>> actually jack and ken went to oxford with him and, as you could see at the beginning of that clip, it was very unfriendly audience. there were major demonstrations outside the room. and he won it over by his typical candor, speaking without notes, speaking in the we will -- well of the union and showing a sense of humor which i think surprised people. the -- i was sort of in the memoir loop which was a very separate. ken was in the jack ran everything and ken was in the frost-nixon loop. so i was not really involved in a lot of that planning. for the first year he was understandably i mean it was a man at the end of his physical, emotional, psychological tether,

and having to deal with that, and then he got very, very sick. and as bill said, he had a brush with more -- he had two brushes with mortality. so the first year was really devoted to, on his part, just to getting healthy, getting back into form, which then turned out to be fighting form. and the interesting thing we were talking downstairs, the -- when we got off the plane, he owed an ongoing due, legal bills, half a million dollars and suddenly his sources of income had ceased. so he knew that in order to pay the bills and keep his lawyers going because his legal problems had only just begun, he was going to have to raise some money. and the 2 obvious ways do that were to write a book and do some

television so it became the memoirs and i still have trouble calling it frost-nixon i think that billing is wrong but at any rate, the nixon-frost interviews. so once -- i'm exaggerating and being grossly unfair to lawyers but somebody has do it. so the simplistic version is, the simplistic version is that once the back bill had been paid and the lawyers were back giving advice, their first and best advice was for god sake don't write a book and don't do anything on television. so that was the -- and then it became -- in the meantime we also underwent effectively the nationalization of his papers. which froze and kept all the

presidential papers in washington. so a provision of that law which the president contested in the courts a provision of that law was that if he chose to contest it, while he was contesting it he could avail himself of access to the papers. and his lawyers said, again, i think absolutely rightly, you undercut, you risk undercutting your case if you avail yourself of a provision of the law that you're trying to get overturned. but it was -- it was an exquisite dilemma because how you can write a memoir about your presidency if you can't get any of the papers. so it took a very risky decision on his part to decide to access the papers. >> ken, let me ask you, you went to oxford, it's four years into his retirement and he projects out the next 15 years. that's really a remarkable clip because he's dream casting, it's almost incredible that he would

say that. what was the room like and your surprised by his statement that night? >> well, the event itself was extraordinary. we had prepared about -- spent about ten days preparing for the trip, and we had some sense of what the room would be like and what the audience would be like, but we had no idea that ten feet away behind the oxford union was another building where there was a mob of about 50 to 100 protesters that were yelling and screaming throughout the entire speech. and you have to know that there's no -- there's no microphones to broadcast in the oxford union, so everything is done just through normal voice. and so for two hours all during his talk they were yelling and

screaming and -- with epithets and he was talking without notes through the whole thing, without any pause or anything else in answering questions, tough questions, and it was just the most extraordinary thing to see him standing there at age 65 with giving forth, with data, and exposition on salt and foreign policy, and it was a classic case of the president, which he always did, of preparation and -- but i don't think he anticipated necessarily all the questions. we tried to anticipate the foreign policy, the domestic questions, and some of the local questions. but i don't think he thought about they were going to ask him about what his future would be like. but i think had he been thinking about that a lot all the time in writing the memoirs that was very much a part of it. if i could go back a little bit

and add on to what frank said earlier about the early days, i came out just for about ten days about ten days after he resigned, and that period in addition to the legal bills, it was pure survival. the president was broke, he not only had the legal bills, they were trying to get back taxes from him, which they claim he had not paid. they were trying to get money from him for, quote, improvements on the houses in key biscayne and here at la casa pacifica. so he had no money but had he all these bills. and one of my assignments the first few days was trying to find economic survival for him to put bread on the table for he and mrs. nixon. from that time to the time of oxford was an extraordinary pathway of four years. >> that's a perfect segue. i want to play a clip now.

this is the president in the east room in which we are sitting recreated president nixon on august 9th, 1974. >> the united states of the america, president nixon this is >> thank you. you are hear to say good-bye to us and we don't have a good word for it in english, the best is ora voyeur, we'll see you again. [ applause ]

>> 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, because the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes when you're really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes. because 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, and with deep hue humility and with very much 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 but always you will be in our hearts and you will be in our prayers. thank you very much [ applause ]

>> the benefit of the audience watching at home that may not know this you were the military aid for the president, you served as the chief of staff for four years. you were in the room that day as was ken and frank. what were your thoughts? how deep is the valley that he's referring to on that day? >> by the way, sand dip, save my dessert, will you? i'll be back. yeah, the plane was very somber, the helicopter first, you've all heard this since then. but the aid sat across from mrs. nixon and we lifted off the white house lawn and she just looked down and everyone's in tears, of course. and she just said, it's so sad, it's so sad. that's about all that was said on the helicopter. and we got on the plane and a lot of people were, you know, sad, but also a lot of people

were thinking this is a new era, what do we do now? all the staff on the plane. how do we make it work? how do we make it happen? there was activity going on. and then he came out and talked to all of us on the plane. we were very lucky when we got to eltor row, the marine base of course, it was a very large number of people cheering, all good. they provided helicopters for us to come down ton san clemente and we started life all over again. >> ken, you were in the room. what were you thinking when he gave those remarks? >> i was thinking how could this be happening to us? it was just the saddest day of my time in the white house. it was after, i mean, after we had won that 49-state landslide victory, he worked so hard and then have it all come crashing down. and i had been part of a watergate defense team and was fighting right till the end and i had the nickname onoda based on the story of that japanese story who had hidden in the

jungles of the philippines waiting 30 years thinking that the war is still going to go his way. and it all ended, come to an abrupt end and wondering what was going to happen to all of us and wondering what he was going to doing. and it was just beyond sadness and but then coming out to the san clemente as i said ten days later, one of the most unbelievable he sights. when he was president, when you come down that long driveway down to the white house compound you'd see that gleaming marine helicopter on the helipad all shiny. and that day that i drove down after his resignation on the helipad site was way tennis court and two coast guard folks playing tennis on that site. it was just the saddest thing i'd ever seen. >> frank where were to you day in thinking. >> those of you who were on the plane who were going to be on

air force one couldn't be in the east room and only the swells made it on to -- >> the swells. >> -- made it on to army one. so i watched that speech in the president's cabin on air force one sitting next to diane sawyer who was part of our -- part of the group that went out. i remember they told us to -- the captain came -- i guess ralph albert came on and said to look out the window as we were coming in towards el torro and we looked and saw the lineup, five-mile lineup on the santa ana freeway trying to get to el torro and that was the point at which you realized, you realized that it had happened, everybody was numb, i think, on that plane. but that was the first time that it was this sort of concrete thing out the window and then on the ground.

then it was moving because a group of several thousand people had assembled, and i don't think it was expected, it certainly wasn't advanced, it was -- it was spontaneous. and the president actually you have stories about that. the story wasn't expecting it, wasn't prepared at that point to have to make a public speech. and i remember, again, spontaneously people started in these just standing around and there were bleachers, but i think there were bleachers there anyway. or not even bleachers, there were some stands that people were standing and sitting in. and they began singing god bless america, that was very moving. nor were we prepared when he passed in 1994 for the crowds that would spend all night long up and down your bah lind' boulevard. >> more than 50,000 people. >> out of the blue. >> in the rain.

>> where were you, mr. chairman walker? you should have advanced that too. we should have been ready. >> i want to go back then to drive home just how deep this was for people who weren't around, financial crisis, legal crisis, physical crisis how close was the president to dying in the days after his return to san clemente. >> dr. lingrund was his doctor at long beach hospital. i was in the room outside of where the president was lying and i heard, richard, richard, and slapping, slapping him to bring him back to consciousness. >> and mrs. nixon also had health crises. >> mrs. nixon -- mrs. nixon had a stroke and the president called me at home, former president, very early in the morning and he said, jack, come down here. i was with eisenhower when he had a stroke and i know mrs. nixon's had a stroke. so i immediately i called back to the -- my old office in the white house, and said, the military office, excuse me, and

i said, call camp pendleton and tell them to send the cardiologist up here with an ambulance right away. and they just said, sure. so i went down to the house and mrs. nixon was -- mrs. nixon is german irish and a bit stubborn sometimes, which is nothing wrong, nothing wrong with me, nothing wrong with me. and he was trying to talk to her and to let's go, we've got to go to the hospital. and finally they told me, they said, okay, we've got an ambulance here. and the doctor from camp pendleton. i said i have a doctor from camp pendleton. and she said, no. president nixon said if we go anywhere we're going to long beach hospital. she said i don't need to. but she a strong, period. her arm wasn't working her face was -- so i went up there and whispered you're going or i'm carrying you. so she got in the ambulance, president nixon got in the back of the ambulance and rode in the ambulance with her to long beach hospital.

>> so get us there all three of you, sitting down in 1976. it's actually remarkable that you would go from that situation, how does that trip come about? what's president ford think about it? let's start with you, frank. how does this evolve, the first china trip after the resignation. >> he was -- actually jack was the -- in charge of that. the chinese invited him. the -- and i think was the anniversary, it was in february. it was not convenient for the ford administration because it was right before the new hampshire primary and so there was some -- i think there were some problems there. but it was -- it was -- not only was it an invitation the chinese sent a plane for him and wanted him to come. and so i think he was torn between not wanting to do something that would not be

helpful to president ford, but not -- certainly not want doing anything that would offend the chinese. and so he made the decision to go. and then -- that was the opportunity, gave him an opportunity, a second opportunity to see chairman mao shortly before he died or before he died. and then on the next trip he was able to see chairman wa, the short remembered chairman wa. and then he got to meet and deal with and even see him in the white house dung jo ping. so by the nixon providence with china, almost the nixon franchise with china was really maintained by going for that second anniversary or that anniversary in '76, the fourth anniversary. >> colonel, how did you advance is it without a ron walker and the white house staff of john

and all the other people around you. >> nothing is easy without ron walker. but let me go back a second. the chinese, i would occasionally go back to washington and see people that he asked me to see to take the temperature. and i would always visit the chinese embassy, it wasn't an embassy at the time but nevertheless. they said to me we would like -- chairman wa would like to invite president nixon back to china on the anniversary. this was way before we knew there would be a fight between reagan and president ford in new hampshire in february. we didn't announce it. and they said very proudly we're going to send not a plane, we're going to send a boeing 707. they were buying our products now. because the president you have to guarantee i see chairman now.

i was not dealing with chairman now, believe me. i couldn't -- i couldn't guarantee anything. but i think it was overreaction on president ford's staff's part saying that we were trying to disrupt something. we had no idea there would be a fight. >> ken. >> the political fallout was very bitter, though. barry goldwater after the trip was asked what he thought about it and this is the goldwater for whom president nixon had campaigned so heavily in 1964 and defended against all the attacks about being a crazy right winger, goldwater said the best thing nixon could do was stay in china. and had he made those awful comments. but i think president nixon, you know, fought his way through the political fallout. this was -- look, this is the time when president nixon was starting to look forward and think through he was going to

persevere and have his life move on. and we sense that in our discussions with him even while we were writing the book. he talked to us about the book, we've got to get this book done, why are we not getting the book bun, and then he'd take hours with us talking about politics, talking about the future, talking about what -- what he should be during. so it was a mixture of life like that. and frank knows, we'd have these conversations on the book about eight minutes on the chapter and two hours on what was going on in the world. so he still wanted to be engaged all the time. he loved, frankly, these bull sessions that we'd have for hours and hours in his office. then he'd leave and say, when i get back to work, we've got to finish this book. >> no offense to southern california, but he used to say that if we were writing the book in new hampshire we would have finished it a year earlier. it was just too nice. and the other thing he -- rose

had kept a file of the supporters, i guess people who went above and beyond the basic level of support. and she had kept it up and brought it out, she came out several times. and marg acker was there and is here. [ applause ] >> and they had kept up this list of supporters which was about 150,000 people. and the president said for as many of these people, 150,000, who support me, there are an equal and opposite number of people who despise me with the same intensity. and he said this book will sell 300,000 copies. it sold 310,000 copies. and his -- and his frustration was that spending four years, not that there was an alternative and he understood that, but he spend four years on a book that 300,000 people would read as opposed to doing

television where he could reach millions with much less preparation, although with all his things great preparation, but he could reach millions in an instant. i think he was frustrated by that. but once he got better, he was champing at the bit to get back in the arena. >> i've got to tell you, i arrived in san clemente in june of 198 to work with david and hired under the former president staff by jack in november, but i of course new everything because i just graduated college and i thought you were crazy to take him to kentucky to open -- tell us about, it's the first speech is in a little town in kentucky, jack brennan. what were you thinking? >> i was thinking go to a safe place where there are not going to be any people harassing. we got a lot of invitations, most of them crazy but they were going to name a school for him in this little town of hyden, kentucky. i said the people in hyden, kentucky, are the heart of the

earth, so we decided to go. and it was significant. it was a little bit warm, they forgot to tell me that. >> we have a clip. let's show a little bit of a clip of the kentucky speech hot how warm was it? >> chairman, judge muncie, all of the very distinguished guests on the platform behind me were all of the very distinguished guests in the 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 ] >> what had happened. >> this was four -- well, jack told me it was four hours which was unanticipated, every local authority and beauty queen and

band played and so he sat there for four hours in an unair-conditioned gymnasium in kentucky in july. >> but a lit bit of levity, those of you who worked on campaigns recognize the name dick tuck. dick tuck was a democrat dirty tricks guy. and at the republican convention was in miami. and in miami at the convention dick tuck arranged for a number of pregnant black ladies to walk around in circles carrying a sign saying, nixon's the one. >> a couple of months later, ken, you're on the oxford -- >> but dick tuck showed up. >> he did? >> yes. and they had a parade and president nixon opened the car for the parade and this guy runs up with a book saying sign it for me. so he always signed with best wishes and he'd scratch from richard nixon. well, dick tuck published it then insisting that it didn't

say from richard nixon it said love richard nixon. that's kind of like the fake news we're getting today. >> two months later you're at oxford -- go ahead. >> before we -- to get back to u.s. -- the meeting with chairman now, jack has a story about that. >> as i mentioned president nixon wanted to be sure that he saw chairman now in 1976. when we got there i was rather anxious for this to happen so that i would not be asked every three minutes are we going to see chairman now. and fortuitously the first night, the chinese foreign minister came to my room which is adjacent to the nixons room and said chairman now would like to see president and mrs. nixon. i said very well, i'll take just a minute and i'll go in and get them. and i started putting on my -- and my jacket and he said, i went into the room and told the

president, he jumped up, ready to go. and foreign minister said and chairman now would like also to see major brennan whatever i was, wants to see brennan. and i said, why me? and this tells you something about the chinese. said, we respect loyalty very, very mitch and when president nixon came in 1972 he had a staff of ate 80, now he has a staff of one and chairman now wants to meet you. so i went with them. [ applause ] >> and of course right after the introductions, president nixon dismissed mrs. nixon and i and we got in the car and we said we're not going to wait for him. so she and i got in the car to go back to where we were saying and she reached over and grabbed my hand and squeezed it, which meant an awful lot to me. >> wow. ken, when you went to oxford, there was a moment that came afterwards where you went with

jonathan aiken to the british parliament and you met the conservative party leader. tell the audience about that as well and whether or not that made that trip a success and really sort of began to introduce the president to the future world leaders as well. >> well, that would have been the meeting with maggie thatcher who was soon to be prime minister, obviously. and i think she made a great impression on him and he made a great impression on her. there was one other interesting thing about this speech at the oxford union. before we went there he 'signed me to provide him the names of all the well-known american office holders in the u.s. who had been world scholars. so i provided him this list and he went through while he was there and he says i want to tell you that many of the same folks that have been in this room who have been road scholars have ended up in very significant

positions in the united states, one is a supreme court justice, one is the speaker of the house of representatives, another's a famous athlete and he said, and i will predict that before the end of the century a road scholar will become president of the united states. and as it turned out bill clinton became president of the united states. that was one of richard nixon's great predictions. we never were sure of his predictions he was always predicting but that's one that came true. >> if you make enough of them they'll remember one you get right. let's go to the frost-nixon interviews. you three guys were played by people on a movie, and i loved the movie i thought frankly -- i've never asked you guys what you thought about the movie. first of all, what did you make of the movie, frank? >> i thought it was not accurate. i thought was inaccurate as history and i thought it was terrific drama. it captured -- although there were some accuracies and to his

credit, particularly ron howard the director paid a lot of attention to trying to get things right and certainly the atmospherics he got right. but a number of the main events, the phone call, the shoes, things didn't -- didn't happen. but they -- they captured the spirit. if those things had happened, they would have happened that way. so i thought it was a good movie and, you know, mediocre not even passable history. >> jack. >> i didn't like the fact that i was played by a ham, kevin bacon, kevin bacon. anyway, to me -- to me, all i can say about the veracity of that movie is it was based on an actual event. the rest of it, the theme was fine but the events were not true at all. >> let's talk about the actual event here. >> there's one thing, i was very

disappointed that there was a lot of gratuitous scenes in the movie that were very negative to the president and especially one that when ron howard came to see me in my office along with the screen writer whose name i can't recall now. >> peter morgan. >> yeah, peter morgan they came to see me in the office and wanted to know what i thought about the screen play, they had sent me the screen play and i pointed out this one very terrible scene and i said, you know that never happened? and peter morgan looked at me and said, after all, this is entertainment. >> let's talk about the real event, then, and how important was it, and i'll start with you, ken, to get this right? how much did the president prepare? it's different from the memoirs, it's going to be nationally broadcast, coming out for the world, how important is it? >> this was extremely important to him and to all of us. we started preparing seven weeks in advance and i was taken off

the book at the -- as i recall it was at the end -- at the end of january. and the taping started on march 23rd. >> of '78? >> of '78, yes. so he gave me the assignment to be preparing briefing books as he had done for all his press conferences, and so it was just -- we had all these issues and we knew had he 24 hours that we were going to prepare for in the -- in terms of the contract, and we had a lot to cover, domestic issues, vietnam, watergate, all the foreign policy issues, and we had to anticipate. so then i began working with one of their policy guys, bob zel nick who i eventually became very good friends with and we started covering some of the

issues they wanted to talk about. but i started working on that and then diane sawyer came off the book to work on the watergate portion of the preparation. and then ray price came out and he also worked on several elements of the briefing books, and we did it -- a lot of it in the q&a format that he liked do in preparing for the press conferences and a lot of it was just narrative just facts. but he wanted all this prepared because he knew it would be a grueling process. and so it was a very strenuous day and night, at least six days a week, and we went through a lot of effort to get him ready. and the reputation that he had in law school of being iron butt, he did it once again in preparation for this. it was just going to be -- you know, tv was one thing -- it's not like the book. you can rewrite the book, you can edit the book. had he no power to edit this television. >> and, jack, he went back for more at the end.

he wanted four more hours than had been allocated. >> let me tell you, there's so many stories about this movie, how we had to get over the lack of trust to begin with. any event, let's get to what actually happened. the contract was for 24 hours. at the end of 24 hours, david frost sent his producer john burke who later became head of bbc down to see me and he said, we've got nothing. we've got nothing. this is a disaster, president nixon is just -- just taken over everything, we're finished. i said and? he said we made more time we need him to open up more. i said hey, pal, i made a deal with you did i keep my end of the deal? but, but, but. and i sent him on his way. ken said screw him, we made a deal and we kept it, he said it nicer of course. but then frank and diane came to

me and diane did the talking because she knows i'd pay a lot more attention to her than did i to frank. and i said, jack, listen, if this thing airs the way it is, basically she said this, if this airs the way it is, the world is going to say there goes richard nixon stonewalling again. she said it's a disaster and you made a deal, true, but this is bad. so i went to president nixon and one of the very few times he was gruff with me, i i almost repeated diane's words you're going to look like you're stonewalling if it ends now. he said i know that. what are you proposing? i said you take as much time as you want, we'll set the date and give them -- you decide what you want to say and we'll give them the hour time. that's how they got the extra four hours without any compensation, nothing, we gave them extra four hours. president -- you want me to keep on this? keep going? >> yeah. >> on this line? i'll bring this to 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, you know, i won't think for him, but he planned it all out. i was doing all the fighting about whether it would happen, i said may when he finished the memoirs, they're saying no, any way all that trash. we got to the point and agreed upon president nixon was ready to go and i would always ride with him up to the place where they were doing the screening and this morning i looked at him and he was so uptight i called ray price who was very good at flattering the president. i said ray, you ride with him and tell him how good he is. and ray got -- rode with him in the car and we got up to the -- to the screening and, you know, and david frost started off and president nixon you could see, and those who knew him could see he's just ready, he is so ready. and david frost talked, lovely day, isn't it now? nothing, trivia. and president nixon's yes, yes, just ready to go. and i was so frustrated, all of us were frustrated.

i made a sign and the sign said, let him talk and i held it above the camera which was facing david frost. frost in a movie -- later in his book or whatever said he thought the sign said let us talk. and i change him to us, but it was said let him talk. and so he saw the sign and he took a break, said something's wrong here. we've got to take a break. so i asked ken, ken took the president into his room and he can tell you how uptight he was then and i went to frost and talked to him like a marine and i let him know that he had -- all he has to do is send out a sentence, just welcome him, don't be confrontational, don't -- because if you're confrontational he's going to going after you. you just be nice and, you know, just be pleasant and ask him and he is ready. and frost went back and did that. >> before i come to ken to that room conversation, frank, jack just said he wanted to say he

was sorry without saying he was guilty. would you expand on that and did you and diane sawyer, what does that mean for people? you're his memoir lead guy and you three were there. what does that mean? >> well, 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 begging off. and not just diplomatically. we really weren't part of that loop, of the -- diane was but i was not, i stayed working on the memoirs and diane and ken and then ray came out at a later point to help, worked on frost. i -- i think our feel was that this was going to be the first time that the president had spoken to the nation since the resignation. and so a lot of the basic kwe

questions, did he lie, did he tell the truth, and 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 of this. and that unless he addressed this, the nation would be waiting -- it was the other shoe that the nation was waiting to drop. there was also the element that in the previous frost interviews, frost had adopted this beginning with the deal that water gate was going to come in the last taping session and frost began by saying why did you burn the tapes? so immediately there was kind of an aggressive relationship. and then frost became a prosecutor, the next questions were about cambodia and he adopted what was then well still is the shaw cross, what was his side show, his book side show about the cambodian bombing. so the frost was extremely

aggressive and the president, as was his both his personality and his legal training, sponlresponn kind. that was their frustration, that they felt nixon had run the clock out and that had he dominated the conversation because had he more -- he'd been there and had he more information. so from frost's point of view, this was not -- this wasn't good -- it didn't make frost look good. but they also, think to be fair, they were concerned it baent wasn't going to make great television. and they knew and we knew that the people were waiting for nixon to address what had happened since the last time he'd seen them. >> so in that ten minutes when jack's talking like a marine to frost, whatry talking to rn about? >> i'm going to digress juft for a minute. the way we got to the 24 hours by the way was we had agreed to 12 two-our sessions. we were recording on our end and

timing all the sessions. and frost would go on and on and each session would go two hours and 18 minutes or two hours and 14 minutes, two hours 20 minutes and we'd add it up and we got to 24 hours by the 11th or tenth and a half session. that's what we used uch the 24 hours. any way were when he was talking to frost, i was talking to the president and basically we were addressing two key points. frost wanted the president to say that he lied and that he was guilty of a crime. those were the two essential elements that they were really looking for. jack made it so that frost backed away enough to let the president tell a story, in effect to tell, for lack of a better term, his mea culpa without going -- with him being able to good to the edge without

actually having to say that he lied or committed a crime. so we had a mid-way point that satisfied both parties and at the end of the day i think worked very well. >> now way want to talk about the memoir before we get to his reentry into the 1980 campaign because it's the greatest presidential memoir at least one of the two two or three along with grant's. frank, you're the lead on this, what was his objective with the memoir? was he thinking long term or get this book out door? and by the way if they kept pulling everyone off area staff how'd you get it done? they pulled diane off, ray off, how'd you get it done? >> the initial impetus was to pay the bills. so it provided that function. it was -- he originally want dodd two volumes and the publisher said, no tlar it had to be one volume.

and -- and that watergate had to be mentioned in that first volume. so was that the decision to write a one-volume book which worked against it in many ways. there's a story about when tic cheney got a copy of it, an advance copy, he was in the hospital, he'd had a heart attack and the doctors told him that the book was too heavy for him to lift up and read. so i think that -- that worked against a volume of that length worked against him. so he wanted to get it down, but he -- watergate was not his favorite topic. so those were the two reasons, it was do something, it was to fill the time until he got better physically. it and the television interviews were boxes that had to be ticked, and he decided to tell

the story of his entire life, which i think was important, and how he did it. and it was more remarkable, if i do say so i myself for our team that we only got those presidential documents in july of or in the summer of '76. so for the first year and more we were writing very interesting stuff about the prepresidential life. and the answer is, we were just ementionly were talented and did he vote and we ran a 24-hour operation. i hired a couple of i called arthur marter who was a very distinguished naval historian at irvine and i asked him if he had a couple of outstanding graduate students and he produced mark jacobson and bob puberty and they had the access to the library and they provided basic

research packages. then the president would assimilate these. well we had prepresidential documents because they were already out and then we got the presidential documents we would give him the research packages, the documents, and then woe go to ground for two or three weeks to stay at home and dictate 100,000 words or more on a particular topic and his dictation would then become the basis. we would fact check the dictation and then begin to hone that down, work with editors from the publisher and it worked very smoothly. >> ken, did it -- did it satisfy anything in the president's need to explain himself? do you think it was his full story? >> i think to an extent it was. you know, we cut two-thirds of the book. >> i did know that. >> it was edited out. >> good lord. >> the book would have been 3,300 pages if we left everything. he had -- he kept cutting out and cutting out as we went through. but i think it told the story, and he wanted -- he just wanted

to get it behind him. and to get if out there and the main thing was for him to get it finished so he could move on. i think that was the ultimate goal was to get it done, get it behind him he could go and get on the next step. i think the story was told, the narrative was out there were it was done and think done very well. president's a good writer and an excellent editor, that's the main thing. if i may droir have one more little reminisce answer about the frost interviews. after the interviews we came back and he wanted to wind down and do is it postmortem and ray price was in the room and diane was. >> i don't know if either jack or frank were there were but we were just talking and visiting and he was winding down and just chatting and chatting and so he was talking to ray about doing speeches in the white house and he says to ray price, he says,

he was talking about billy graham and he says, ray, you remember how pilly always wanltded to get god in our speeches? and ray shook his head yes. he says we had a hake of a time getting god in our speeches, remember that? and we all looked at each other and said, did he just say that? >> when -- one of the things i tell people about san clemente in '78, '79, and '80, after diane left president nixon was a connelly man and jack brennan was managing -- i'd look up out of my window and wood did i hayes would show up, bill walton would show up and the as tro nauts would come. you were managing a backstory that i don't think many people quite get in that gap when you wrote the real war before he went to new york. tell people about that period of time. >> well, even before that we all know that he loved sports.

and one the ways to get him out without harassments, somehow i was apoirchtd to the advisory board of the california angels baseball team. don't be impressed, i advised and they ignored. the owner of the team was gene autry. and one night i approached him and said would you invite president nixon to a game. i think i'd had a couple of beers. and kind of like asking the prom queen for a date, you know, mr. autry would you invite. he said, absolutely, i'd do anything for that great man. so i got -- president nixon started listen together games on the radio and i finally convinced him go fot game. we went to mr. autry's private elevator, get on the elevator and the elevator operator just dropped everything and wanted to hug president nixon. we get up to the box. at that time mr. autry had cataracts, couldn't see so he had a television on the third tier. and of course as a guest of the owner president nixon had to sit next to him and autry's watching

the game on the tv. that didn't affect me i sought in the first all cheered. >> after the move to new york, you made a good move by sitting in the front row because david eisenhower and i went to yankee stadium at the invitation of

mr. steinbrenner, i believe. you were there as well. i stat behind them, and then everyone comes to the box to pay their respects. steinbrenner and they stand up the whole time, and they don't see a damn thing. what about the move to new york and the planning of it? i think that is the key move. how did it come about? >> you know, he told me that he is going back to new york to be near the kids. one was in pennsylvania. one was no new york city. the grandkids were starting to come. julie's firstborn was born in san clemente. now he is going to have grandchildren. he said mrs. nixon wanted to go back to new york. he really wanted to get back in the action also. he admitted to me. i went back to new york to make the arrangements, and typical government people. i met with a deputy director guy in charge of gsa to find office space. he took me to the federal office building. it's very nice. then he said we'll rent space for you, and he showed me this great office overlooking the city. penthouse, beautiful.

that's what we want. i went back and told president nixon. no, jack, that's not what we're going to do. can't you see the criticism we would get if we're in the penthouse. take the federal office building. >> i have a whole chapter in my notes saying media malpractice. there was so much of it going on. >> it was a miserable office. it was a miserable office. the presidential campaign was underway. i would like you two to comment on the relationship. what is the president's relationship with president -- notets president but soon to be president reagan through that -- the real ward drops in the middle of the campaign. what's the back channel like? >> well, i started traveling with then governor reagan in the

third week of september in 1980, and by that time the president nixon had already sent one memo to governor reagan about the debates, and then about the third week of october nick ruey, who was the chief of staff, called me or i was in touch with him and said that there was another memo he had for governor reagan, and he wanted to get a meeting. this time, by the way, there was -- it was very sensitive. because of the sensitivity and the press about president nixon appearances or connections with any krd, they didn't want anybody to know that they had -- he was sending them any messages. nick called me up, and he set up a secret meeting. he gave a secret code name.

i think it was chapman's friend, the old secret code name they used. we had a private meeting somewhere, and he slipped me this october 22nd long memorandum strategy memorandum for governor reagan. the main thick is it gave governor reagan a lot of confidence. it made him feel good. it talked about how -- how much better a candidate he was than jimmy carter and that his appearance would be much more important and that i think reagan took a lot of -- gave him a real self-confidence and strength during that -- the rest of the campaign.

>> in this period use your best cheer lines. the time is passed for reading important but dull lines prepared by speech writers. what? all right. we're running out of time. this is only 1980. i said there's a great book to be written about it. that's six years into his retireme retirement. he has 14 years ahead of him, and he becomes the dominant counsellor of the era. frank, i'll start with you and walk down. did he have a plan through all that, and what's his contribution in that decade and a half after reagan wins to the world? >> before getting to that, i want to take one minute. an unsung hero or a hero of the comeback and particularly that period in san clemente was ron zig ler that came out and stayed with us, and gave all his time

and all his papers to us. certainly not forgotten. cindy and his granddaughter haley who are keeping up the usc tradition are here. [ applause ] >> we have dinner in the house surrounded by packing krats with jimmy rose feld and mary rose feld. the week before he left. then i only saw him occasionally, other than doing the interviews in 1983. i think he said it in that -- in the east room speech. it's only a beginning always that this was -- that this whole

post-presidential period is an exemplar of the nixon experience of discipline and dedication and patriotism that he felt he had admission, and mrs. nixon felt that too. it's meaningful that six weeks before he died he was in russia. that very moving picture which is photographed, which is in the -- towards the end of the exhibit of him standing on the charles bridge in prague looking into a distance. a month before he died he was in the white house making this report to president clinton and the morning he died the gallies of his late -- of his most recent book which was then published pos thumously was waiting for him to come in in his office. his -- this period was -- it was really part and parcel of his life, which was one of dedication, devotion,

resilience, and i think patriotism. >> i was always talking to his staff and was always -- i was always very, very pleased. always moving forward and accomplishing something. always helping and always doing the next right thing. >> the first debate. he didn't do very well. he looked old and disoriented. stew spencer, the chief strategist on our kpab, told me

to call president nixon up and said get a message from him to president reagan. zblie called president nixon up, and president nixon sent me a personal note that i transmitted to president reagan, and once again, it was that personal message from president nixon to president reagan that gave him once uplift and strength and spirit and self-confidence and once again, i think he had -- president reagan has great respect for president nixon, and when we open the library in 1990 the day before i took president nixon in to see president reagan and it was the most congenial meeting i had ever seen. two people who had extraordinary respect for one another. >> very loyal and long-serving taylor who was my successor here at the library after i took over from john whitaker, who was really the first director.

the month before president nixon looked up at john taylor and i had realized that they were going to have four presidents and four former first ladies -- four former presidents, the president, the first ladies, and tens of thousands of dignitaries and taylor and i hadn't really put it together very well. 9 library opened on to him with a magnificent day, and four years later when the funeral happened and it was the dark overcast, again, ron stepped up, so i just want to end by saying ron walker, so central to everything that's happening today and to the renewal of a wonderful institution. when do we all give ron walker and ann walker a salute.

>> saturday is earth day, and we'll cover the march for science rally, including speeches from scientists and civic organizers as well as musical performances. live from the national mall in washington d.c. at 10:00 a.m. eastern on our companion network c-span. and later at 9:00 p.m. eastern also on c-span academics and public policy analysts on american foreign policy today and how it's changed since world war ii. here's a preview from new america's ceo ann marie slaughter. >> you know, i actually would not approach this in terms of how we, the united states, or the west or whatever we want to use is going to end the best we

can do is increase our intelligence where there are very specific things where we can take action, we should. to me it's crazy to think this is an enemy we're go to defeat the way we defeated, you know, hitler in the second world war. i look at the british in this most recent attack, and indeed, the city after 9/11 is where the view is, okay, you know, we stop a lot of attacks. every now and again one gets through. you keep going and say, no, you didn't win, and ultimately you let the larnler forces within a religion, within various societies resolve this

particular issue. i don't think we're going to defeat it. >> watch more of the discussion on american porn policy and how it changed since world war ii. saturday night at 9:00 eastern on our companion network c-span. >> this weekend book tv is live from the 22nd annual los angeles times festival of books. our two-day coverage starts saturday at 1:30 p.m. eastern with a conversation about biographies with blanch, lee, lisa napoli, and susan quinn. at 3:00 p.m. a look at the republican party with hugh hewitt, cory fields, and peggy grand, and at 5:30 p.m. rebecca, author of the mother of all questions. further reports from the feminist revolutions. our live coverage continues sunday at 1:30 p.m. eastern. it's a discussion on the environment with miriam horn, lee vadervoo and steve hurley. at 4:00 p.m. gary young talks

about his book another day in the death of america. a chronicle of ten short lives. and at 7:00 p.m. david horowitz on his book big agenda, president trump's plan to save america. saturday and sunday starting at -- on c-span 2's book tv. >> re flekts on nixon's time in the white house. he discusses the 37th president energy policy as well as his initiatives in israel and southeast asia. he also speculates about what nixon might think of our current political landscape. the richard nixon presidential library and museum hosted this event. it's 50 minutes.