after that, president obama in nevada talking about his home ownership initiative. later, conversation with constitution party nominee virgil would >> this week on "q & a" nancy gibbs and michael duffy discuss their latest book entitled "the presidents club: inside the world's most exclusive fraternity." >> nancy gibbs, where did you get the idea for the president's club? >> it arose out of research for our last but where we came out of the back channel communications between presidents and president of different parties that we have not heard about. we were surprised by. we were taking mental notes about what is the deal between

these men who have all been in this job, learned the lessons, and why are they talking to each other off camera? we got curious about that. >> we know each one of these men as individuals. we watched them. we voted for and eventagainst t. what no one had done is look at them in paris or relationships. we think of them as their own institutes. when a pair them up or put them in groups and see how they relate to each other and how they sometimes that each other in the back, we thought this has the makings of a more interesting story, a club. >> when you started this, where was the first moment you said i did not know that? >> the first in the start of us

was the religious to between harry truman and herbert hoover which wears such politically different men and who ended of forming this neither of them would have done this. the letters between them later about how poor and they became was really extraordinary. >> when i came out and interviewed three or four years ago and i said nancy and e-mail. --said every club needs and nancy wrote back, a clubhouse? i just learned that richard nixon had greeted this building on mafia square. recreated this building on the mafia's where. well you can find some of this,

there be this overnight guest house. it to be the most exclusive club in the world. >> where is it? >> 716 jackson place about three doors up from blair house. quite how did you learn about it? >> i interviewed an official who worked for three presidents he said while he was working for richard nixon, he was in charge of finding the space in creating it. richard nixon wanted to make lyndon johnson happy. lyndon johnson was calling him all the time, asking for favors and airplanes. nixon just wanted to keep .ohnson mollified i >> how did you to work together? >> we have been doing this a long time. i do not know how many stories we have written. we had a working pattern of

handing things off back and forth were one of us would do the initial excavation and turn over what we found. at this point, we're finishing each other's sentences. >> you live in different cities. >> that is probably the reason why it works. michael is reporting resources of the last five administrations, he focused more on the recent president. he was able to talk tnot just to their top adviser, but president bush and president carter were helpful to us. it is interesting listing to them talk about what they all meant to one another. >> by the way, george walker bush? i did not see an interview with him. >> he is in nearby e-mail. -- in there by e-mail. >> how long did they spend with you? >> he does not do interviews

anymore. that one was by e-mail. he is a great and funny writer. if you have an experience, and knowing how to get him, he is wonderful and human and revealing purity is a good memory. bill clinton was great. we spent an hour in his awith hm in harlem. he was so i bought it about his predecessors. he said is a presidential library to all of the 41 you came before him. yet the picture of johnson. but he plans to the bookshelf and says there is my presidential library and from washington through bush. it is of his memoirs and diaries. they all study each other. they all talk about it.

it is as though the only people who can understand them are the ones who came before. they devour the letters and diaries. >> george walker bush read 70 biographies of lincoln while he was in office. it was in a "times" story. >> i entered bush for a different story. i asked him about how his views of his predecessors had or had not changed as a result of his own experience. he said i think differently about all of them. that was not what i expected to hear. >> tell the story about the time george herbert walker bush went to bill clinton's harlem office and bill clinton wasn't there. >> bush at about age 82 is in new york. he had some time to kill. he said let's go and visit the bill.

he turned his motorcade up to harlem. their aides start calling each other. by the time they arrive, bush one learns that clinton is not even there. they went up there and that the staff into pictures. he went into clinton's office which is a big space overlooking harlem. you can see downtown. he put his feet up on the desk. he said, let's call bill. he gives clinton on the phone and says great office, nice people, where are you? it was at that point that both are out of office. they were really working on stuff together. they really became friends and remained so. a lot of people think that is for show. it is not for show. >> who do you think are the two presidents that you covered back

to what that's what was the first 1? >> -- to what? the first 1? >> we really start with truman. >> which one of two presidents together have a really deep friendship and the opposite? >> i.t. would say the deepest personal friendship -- i would say the deepest christopher in jeopardy hoover and truman and bush and clinton. -- deepens friendship would be hoover and truman and bush and clinton. >> ford and carter. here are two men that i like the dickens and did have this bonding moment in 1981. reagan sent into a funeral. they hit it off on the plane and spending next 25 years doing

about 25 projects together. they become such a good friends that ford and carter promised to give the eulogy of the other guy. this goes from being people -- we have a situation where two men who fought bitterly in 1976 promised to give the eulogy of the other. we see carter and gerald ford's funeral. that is amazing. these men go through things and have scars that no one can understand except each other. that bonds them in ways that all of them are writing about politics and policy that few of us can experience. >> i want to ask nancy about the hoover/truman relationship. what did you find specific examples of where those two words together? >> initially it is a difficult

thing. german found himself president. year is facing a catastrophe. literally hundreds of millions of people are at risk of starting. it was a mammoth undertaking to figure out how we're going to get europe on its feet. no one knew more on how to do this than herbert hoover. it is a great palproblem solver. against the wishes, a truman reached out to hoover and asked him to come in and helped him how to figure out how to do european relief. they are suspicious of each other. they had not had a relationship before. as they got over their suspicions and were very much united in the urgency of what they were up against, a

tremendous sense hoover 50,000 miles around the world meeting with others to negotiate moving food from countries that had it to those who needed it. it was so successful and dedicated that he and truman then worked together on one project after another on which only a former president had the standing and stature to accomplish what needed to be done. truman found interesting ways to thank him. he hung a portrait of hoover's white in the white house. fdr had changed the name of the hoover dam to the great boulder diem. truman signed an order renaming it the "hoover dam." ofthe time they're out office and planning their libraries, there are letters where hoover that is an austere says you have no idea what

role you played in my life. it is so powerful. >> have these people left office against their will. when someone later on from a different party reaches out in rehabilitates them, which is something we see over and over, if they are grateful to the point of being unable to speak. one man need advice and another man need redemption. >> go back to the 707 airplane. isn't that the one in the reagan library? >> ps. ?> who was on that plane ta >> it is a time when ronald

reagan asked for, karcher, and nixon to go to the funeral october 1991. -- ford, karcher, and nixon to go to the funeral in 1991. they get on the plane. they are not sure who goes first. karcher goes first because he is the most recent. just to make it interesting, henry kissinger and a host of other luminaries sit around and there are some concerns that carter should have the main state room. it was more of a closet. on this plane, there are these three men, all who do not particularly like each other.

they have this astonishing encounter where they began to talk about what they shared and what separates them. that is the beginning of that friendship which would last for 25 years. give the belgian because he said he was in charge. he was a -- the bedroom because he said he was in charge. he was a senior official. >> did you have any feedback from anybody? >> i talked to three or four people who were on that flight. all the reporters are still alive. i talked to all three of them. they had astonishing storage. jim bell onon and the way back. they had asked the two

presidents to speak. they did not know nixon was with them coming back, three. on the way back, the three reporters interviewed carter and ford in their first joint interview. they spent a lot of time talking about what was wrong with u.s./ israel policy. this was an astonishingly taboo thing to do. much less for two presidents to do together. when it hit the city the next day, not only did the white house to stand back and say they do not speak for the government, i believe it was joe, the aging columnist who came from a different generation, said those are the kind of conversations that real reporters do not put on the record. once thathey had done that,

the club was formed. former presidents knew when they spoke together they had exceptional power. that continues today. >> it seems like you're your book there are suggestions that people did not like [inaudible] you have seen a lot of these different kinds of incidents in the book. how often did these personal affronts -- there never forgotten are they? >> the people around the president are not thrilled to see the president reaching outside of the white house circle to former presidents who are free agents. you cannot count them to stay on script or do what they are told. they have a power. the white house staff are not necessarily the biggest fans they cannot do anything about it. what i am sure they did what and

talking to hoover. ford did not want him talking to nixon. let some people were suspicious of him talking to carter. even in the obama white house it was stop and go. >> you do say there is an agreement between the two of them that has never been done before because of hillary clinton. >> when obama was elected and hillary was made secretary of state, bill had to sign an aide or nine. memorandum of agreement between himself -- 8 or 9 poiny memorandum of agreement between himself that made it harder for him to go to certain places. it made him difficult to raise money. he said he will do whatever it takes. this was a controversial thing. it was seriously negotiated by former clinton people, ron

emmanuel. -- rahm emanuel. you have this strange a moment where obama aides who used to beat clinton aides put a fence around it. >> easy george washington was the reason member of the club. how did you to divide of the president's? >> i took the first set and michael to the second. ipredicted the second. -- the second appeared nixon is such a gigantic character. he appears in 1949. we shared nixon. then michael focused on ford and the president after. >> nixon first reaches out to reagan who was one of mine in 1947. he says i want to have you come

to washington and testify in front of the house. eisenhower, who was one of nancy's, was involved in the 1968 republican convention. he was behind the scenes helping reagan get organized as a supporter of reagan and as a candidate. they positioned themselves for 1968. that suggested the club had relationships long before some of the members were in the white house. >> how did you write this together? how long did it take? >> we had been working on it for better than four years. we could easily spend another four years. the stories are so rich. in a way, it is hard to stop the research and trying to get these stories onto the page. we would both pushed each

other to set deadlines. i would draft a chapter and send it to michael. >> what about your personal situation? >> we have day jobs. i am an editor at "time" magazine. one thing we found at the risk of this sound like a rationalization, is everything we were reading we would hear these echoes in the stories that we were covering every day in a real-time. now we are in an election year. this has been shrewd. we kept on hearing these extraordinary echoes and challenges the past presidents faced and how they handle them. it was a useful foundation for the real time journalism that we rid doing. >> you each have their own chapters and pass them back and forth. those are very brutal processes. cut out this entire section.

you do not need this. i want more of this. you have something richer here. we treat each other like editors. we do that sometimes three or four times and so we get a draft that we can read. then we read it out loud. >> to each other? >> to each other or ourselves. >> i am sure we have read the entire thing on the phone to each other. >> twice. >> do you have families? >> i have three kids 21, 17, and 12. >> where are you from? >> columbus ohio. i went to oberlin. i have been with time magazine for 27 years. what i have no new those 27. new those 27. where is your home town of originally? what i grew up in new york city.

manhattan. i went to yale as an undergrad and then to oxford. marshall scholar. it means the purchase government bonds 30 american students to come to a degree at a british university. it was a fantastic experience. i politics and philosophy. i have two girls, 17 and 14 who are exceptionally patient with the many obsessions that this but gave rise to. >> at this point, are there any living former presidents to have

read it and gotten back to you? >> we know that two are reading it. i think they are still in process. >> do we know who they are? >> i do not want to say yet. >> there are so many specifics i want to ask you about. i want to run a piece of audio tape from the lyndon johnson oval office conversation. this is october 16-17 right before the election. george wallace, a hubert humphrey, richard nixon, and lyndon johnson are talking about what? >> vietnam. >> if wallace and humphrey and nixon, it is 68. what i suspect is the reason johnson would call them is peace

negotiations were at a sensitive stage. he thought it was important that the candidates both know what is going on and that everyone stay on the reservation. he did not want anyone to undermine the negotiations. >> here is what it sounded like on tape. [audio tape] >> i know you do not want to play politics of your country. i am trying to tell you how not to pay politics with it. i know all of you want peace at the earliest possible moment. i would express the hope that you be awfully sure of what you are talking about before you get into the intricacies of these negotiations. over. i will be glad to add any comment. >> no. comment, mr. president. thank you. >> this is consistent with my

position all along. i will make no statement that undercut negotiations. we hope this thing works out. >> yes, mr. president. that is my position all along, too. it is the position you stated, yes sir. i agree with you that we should not play into politics. [end audio clip] >> dimon george wallace gets 13 term of the boat? -- didn't george wallace get 13% of the boat deck >> very soon after that call, johnson is alerts it through a number of sources. some are very sensitive that people in nixon's camp were actually, actively trying to sabotage the peace talks. he did not want to see johnson

and humphrey have this triumphant moment right before an election. he was pretty confident that it would swing the whole thing. he was privately sending signals to the south vietnamese did not do anything in you get a better deal when i am in the white house. this is 3 the dragon lady. >> how did they ever prove? >> she later admitted. at the time she lived in the watergate. her phones were tapped. she was followed. they also have surveillance on the south vietnamese investors to the u.s.. -- ambassadors to the u.s. you have the white house wiretaping allies and private citizens, which is a little touch and go. they had other sources that were isling them nixon's team

actively trying to undermine what you're doing. imagine your lyndon johnson. you get this news. the election is five days away. do you go public? in a year when we have seen by the kennedy killed, martin luther king, blood in the streets, we have a society that is traumatized and terrified about the foundations on which the country rests, and that is a very tough call. it is one of a number of occasions we saw in which presidents are making decisions in which there is personal and party interest and larger national interest on the table. >> johnson says not to go public. nixon is undermining him on the peace talks. >> did the public know or not know about is called? >> not in real time. >> at that time? >> no. they didn't even know they had

talked. but johnson was trying to do was simply get himself a little running your without the criticism and public on the campaign. he called them up and said state. each has his own reason for not doing that. loss data on board. that is quickly overtaken by be evidence that nixon was the undermining him in private. as nixon faces his own investigation for watergate, nixon calls up his old colleague in the club and says now i know what you are hearing me, you were listening to me back in 60 a. you need to call your democratic friends and say stop this investigation. or nixon is going to say that i was tapping him in 1968.

johnson leaned into the phone and said if you say that, i will tell him what you said. you have the president in the former president by 1973 threatening to double blackmail each other. the club have its moments of difficulty, strife, and very high drama. johnson is dead for five days later. >> 73. >> two days after nixon's inauguration. our stories have divided themselves. as of january 22, 1973, there is no club. nixon is the only living presidents. johnson died in january. truman died. >> when were the most former presidents? >> of bill clinton is inaugurated in 1993. he had five former presidents alike. >> which is never happened other

than lincoln. his five for nixon, ford, carter, reagan, and bush. >> they had all been turned out of office. >> had to spend much time on them? >> when you could only write a book of so many pages that was the place to start. hoover goes up to truman on the diocese of ike swearing in says let's start a president's club. truman says great. bbv president. i will be the secretary. -- you be the president appeared i will be the secretary. >> they were joking, but that

language, reagan uses it with .archecarter their souvenirs. at one. kennedy center's eisenhower a bunch of golf balls with the presidential seal and says i cannot use these in new a the only one that legitimately can. >> when reagan leaves office, here are some rules are going to need to follow. you're going to have to say no most of the time. they what try to drag you into financial deals. you have to ignore this. people will try to take advantage of you. we will talk about this as it goes on. we will have to consult. there is a kind of real process. even now, the chiefs of staffs talk quite aent's

bit in e-mail quite a bit. >> i want to ask about the eisenhower's last day of k -- eisenhower/jfk beginning. i saw these letters between richard nixon and ronald reagan before 1968. they cannot summer into the west. >> no one ever looks at the start. no one lives of these letters in real time next to each other. it delayed the political context. they not been laid out in 66 when they are fighting for position. both nixon and reagan were prolific letter writers. reagan was an excellent letter

writer. what is knows are the letters between eisenhower -- his newest are the letters between eisenhower and reagan's friends. >> did you see in the letters between nixon and reagan where ronald reagan kept saying i want to be the favorite son out of california. did he think of running? >> he started his campaign for president in 1968, 12 days after he was elected governor. there were some things that happened in 67 that undermines reagan's ability to act on that idea. promising ex anyone not be in primaries and then going out and entering them. >> this is a 625 page book.

did you read this part of it? you get the sense that jfk did not think much of eisenhower. explain what you found. >> eisenhower was still enormously popular. he is not crazy about this guy who he refers to as "little boy blue." he views them as having a rich diet. he did not appreciate kennedy's entire -- the whole tone of his campaign in this new frontier. >> how old was the? >> that was when he was in his early 70's. he was the oldest president in

the century. they were not crazy about each other. he felt like eisenhower to not understand the power of the office of the presidency. he was too much of a soldier and a general. rather thanea is military structure of the white house, kennedy had the idea that it would be the spokes of the wheel. he would be at the center and everything would emanate. eisenhower and people tried to warn him after he won. that will not work. the decisions you make are to complex that you not get the right information are be able to manage the kind of things you have to deal with if you blow up the national security infrastructure that eisenhower had put in place. lo and behold, four months into office, it goes fantastically wrong. among the people that kennedy

had to swallow hard and reach out to was eisenhower. >> what went wrong at the bay of pigs? >> this planning got bigger and bigger for an invasion that got more and more elaborate. it was less and less plausibly deniable for the united states being involved. the c.i.a. assumed their planning was based on the fact that once the invasion initially failed, kennedy would have no choice but to send in troops and get the job done. they were counting on it failing so that kennedy would have to. when they realize that the denial did not once active, explosive and vomit comet they had not believed him. -- explosive involvement, if they had not believed him. there were a million things that went wrong in the assumptions

that were made in the meetings were the joint chiefs were challenged. kennedy and eisenhower meet at camp david. it was the first time he went to camp david. it was named after eisenhower's grandson. there is the famous picture of these two presidents of walking the paths and talking together. kennedy needed that picture. they needed this reassurance that would come up and being seen talking to eisenhower. eisenhower wrote a long memorandum. he said this job is a lot more complex. eisenhower was like, that is what i tried to to do. >> which president did do not really like or dislike? which was the most fun to write about, to read about, to learn about? nixon is the one he plays the

most gramley and grandiose faction. -- grandly and grandiose fashion. he launches a 15, 20 year campaign for rehabilitation. under the guise of trying to help them and you followed, he travels all over them in his quest to redeem himself. gerald ford is shocked to discover that nixon was to go back to china. it is the worst possible thing when you're running against ronald reagan. rating comes into office in 1980. region reagan comes into office 1980 -- rating comes into the

office in 1980. he tells them how to organize his first years. >> had we know this? >> the letters from nixon to reagan are available in the nixon in the reagan library. >> did you go to them? >> i did. they're wonderful places to visit, even if you're not researching. in the very short time, then it can late-night phone house. -- phone pals. reach out to me. >> if you don't, i will go public with my criticism of you.

this becomes as hard-headed advice about china and russia and have to organize his day. >> ledgers use a bill clinton still leads. >> in the last month of his life, there's a lot of turbulence in russia. he writes what is to be done in russia and how clinton should be dealt with. clinton said it is one of the two things he reads every year. he get it out and we read it because it was such hard-headed and buys. i think he does a because it is peer to peer. it is something he can say he and i are in the same group. >> the other one he pulls out is

another piece from protocol is the note that george herbert walker bush left for him. the 1992 campaign is horribly painful for president bush, to not be reelected. he bright's clinton a note that says by the time you read this, you will be our president. i will be rooting for you. that kind of message, which is son would also communicate to barack obama, that we want you to succeed, all of us understand that the office matters more than the occupant appeared do they always act on a perfectly? >> i've got better confidential. >> some are. bush's senior wrote about his in the book of letters. he can be sent to get there.

his can be pieced together. >> did he talk about the reagan letter to him? >> he did not. it was a very short note that said do not let the beat you down. that is the cleaned up version i think. they all have their little club here. yto seexting goes to sea b ike, ike says "i am yours to command." those are the words nixon says to reagan. nixon was not always as reliably commendable. >> here's some video. bill clinton speaking at the nixon funeral. [video clip]

although this man was in his ninth decade, he had an incredibly sharp and vigorous and rigorous mind. as a public man, he always seemed to believe the great decision was remaining passive in the face of challenges. he never stopped living by that creed. [end video clip] >> by now bill clinton is having his challenge about prosecutors about monica lewinsky pyrrhic one of the reasons it has never been released is maybe nixon provided it buys. i cannot find out any other reason. it is interesting how clinton closed with nixon.

when he dies, the announcement comes not from the nixon family the from the white house. clinton wanted loved appeared nixon would have loved it. as they start to write the eulogy, clinton is determined to recast nixon that he's beginning to face this conservative republican attack. as republican from a different time, he had attacked policy that was balanced. nixon uses that eulogy as a way to with nixon back to the sensible center. >> i know i am jumping all over

purity people can buy this book and get a chronological. -- i know i'm jumping all over. people come by this book and get chronological. >> it is not your friendship or pure enemies. one of the most amazing arts is between truman and eisenhower. the great global hero of the world, the men's parade in washington. it is an honor just to meet him. they proceed to work very closely. he makes eisenhower chief of staff. as truman is trying to put together a postwar security structure, he absolutely needs eisenhower to help sell congress

on the idea that stationing american troops in europe, he eisenhower offers eisen are to step aside if he wants to run. i will serve as your vice president. they have a cordial and cooperative relationship. when eisenhower does decide to run in 1952, german rescind the bestrman which is in the until the moment when eisenhower had the chance and wisconsin to denounce a joe mccarthy and defend his revered mentor. >> secretary of state marshall. >> right.

eisenhower had in his speech where mccarthy would be present a defense of marshall and dropped from the speech. eisenhower -- the new york times have a copy. they revealed the fact that eisenhower at the last moment had chosen not to issue his defense of george marshall. what do you know why? >> he had been warned by other republicans that wisconsin was closed and the balance of the senate could be in play. some said you could incite a riot. a lot of people were waving him off. do not do it in his home state. eisenhower for the rest of his life may have regretted the decision. he ends up not defending marshall. truman is appalled.

he gets very worked up about it. he calls eisenhower a moral coward. he says i thought i knew him. i trusted him. he has betrayed everything i thought he stood for. i do not think he is fit to be president. by the end of that campaign, as the friendship was over, a truman did not set foot in the white house. there's a little bit of a thaw. the reconciliation comes at the burial of john f. kennedy. all the former presidents are in washington. ike and german ride home. >> how old would they have been? >> ike is mid-70's. >> you get a big dose of

mortality. chairmen had survived an assassination attempt. as their riding home, chairman says do you want to come up to a drink? they go up. they get to talking. it goes on for quite a while. they talked about everything from their own funerals in what they're planning to something of the arc of their relationship together. at one point, it is how no one understands what a president does and why they make the decisions they do. ike says we know what we did. >> we ask him to talk about politics and the hard calls? he said we do not have to. we know what we did. we know how difficult these moments get.

the alone know that. even their spouses and families do not know what it is left to be left alone in the room with the pen. that is their fate. that is what they will carry forever. they carry the scars of the decisions, the ones that go badly in the month ago really badly. that is what they carry into this fraternity. >> -- the ones that go badly and the ones that go really badly. that is what they carry into this fraternity. >> they all say to the one next, you're only going to make hard decisions. the easy decisions will be made further down the line. any decision on your desk is hard. there is a big case for going the other way. even if he make what ends up being the right decision, it always will come with a cost. there always be a cost to it. >> i think that informs all

we saw in mid april. for the first time, george walker bush having exited the stage. owe presidentesideni obama appeared teammates and gentle criticisms on tax policy in the keystone 5 -- he said i of president obama an apology. he's had a gentle criticism on tax policy in the keystone policy. he does not think the country should criticize the president. he called a general sympathy that those who have been there before support those who are there now. with a few exceptions comment that has been the no. >> how often does of george walker bush and bill clinton go out together?

>> it is a bit of a mystery. they do it. there the first two members to be part-time business partners. they are often invited to go speak, sometimes overseas. oftentimes at home. they sit in talk about this. they're getting pretty good at this. bacon will done easily. -- can be done easily. they got some questions. one is that number, you do not have to do it too often. they did a couple times of year.

you are the managing editor. how does this happen? >> we have an inside track? did you agree this of the cover story? >> no. you never know until two hours for certain what will be on the cover. we always understood that. we thought the readers were very interested in the presidency. many of them have lived with these characters as major figures in the news. we hoped it would be a story that readers would really like. we are a news magazine. as often as not, anything can happen that changes at the last minute. >> it is available if you want it. we taught to read all the time. he knew that it was coming. he said we would produce it. we will have it ready for you. it'll be there.

his gracious enough to say let's get it going. we will order of some pictures. we have incredible help. we found pictures we have not found for the book. >> why the photo of barack obama and george w. bush tax >> this is my favorite picture of all. not only is a relatively current, it never been published before. there's something about that picture that allows you to listen in. it is a very evocative image of the three men who everyone knows have difficulties. the come from very different experiences. there they are together. where they come together in a kind of partnership. that is rare. >> how far did you go in your

research? how far did you travel? >> that is a good question. you have a number of trips to california and maine. we have been down to atlanta. there is a fair bit of travel involved. it is amazing. for aficionado's of history, and there are incredible resources now that you do not have to leave your house. they have put so many of these phone conversations on line. the kennedy library has but all other documents on line. it is magical for historians to be able to go as deep as they once. it is about that he was going to

announce the quarantine of cuba. i was getting to listen to these two presidents talk to each other without leaving my home. it was an incredible thing. >> we're also helped by the library who knows things and those documents. barbara klein used to work at the eisenhower library. when we came in and said now we are interested in lbj, you could see her circuits fire. this is been a book libraries. to produce for us a file in which she found that johnson when he comes into office and 63 and 64 is so keen to bond with i that he has an aide do a researcher project on how many times he'd talked to and traveled with the president so

he could show them how close he felt to them. johnson needed the legitimacy of the club. kenya that he would need their help. barber was able to help us get access to that. it is an amazing insight into how johnson regarded the club. >> any disappointment? >> we felt we could spend another three years doing research. there was so much more. i'm disappointed that we do we were proud because the. of bipartisanship that attends this moment -- i am disappointed -- we were proud because of the bipartisanship. there is a real loss to the country, particularly in the early years. >> in a disappointment? >> i think that really get at

it. there were times where you would feel a kind of was on this about look at the way people were able to work together to get things done. there are a bunch of presidential books coming out. robert caro is coming out about johnson and oral history. watch how all past presidents get things done. a lot of the ability to get things done had to do with getting people to come together and compromise. >> clinton said the president is doing deals with people who trying to kill you. our two guests are nancy gibbs and michael duffy. thank you very much. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

for a dvd copy of this program call1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts are to give us your comments about this program, visit us at www.q-and- a.org. "q & a" programs are also available at c-span podcasts. >> coming up, we will have part two of our conversation. >> often "q & a" part 2 of nancy gibbs and michael duffy as a talk about their latest book entitled "the presidents club: inside the world's most exclusive fraternity." exclusive fraternity."