reams of campaign literature stolen that she has invested in, that was one of her wake-up calls. she realizes that some politicians are weasels and this is something she does not think at first but then she sees clearly what they are up against. peter: why do you call her the mysterious mrs. nixon? heath: i like to think of myself as an archaeologist or anthropologist and i have always perceived her as a little enigmatic. i am 54 and do not really remember his presidency but what i remember is not really knowing who pat nixon was, not really having a positive or negative, just almost a link. and then -- blank. and then i was reading more and there is plastic pat, the

moniker given to her by john fairchild, things like that and then the woodward and bernstein rumors about her having an alcohol problem and being reclusive. these added to the mysterious portrait and the whole book, however, is an excavation and deconstruction of that mysterious image, but she is not really mysterious at all. the media i always view with a level of suspicion because they are often not true and when i started reading, i found she was not really mysterious at all, she kept a distance from the press and even from people sometimes so you can get to a certain with her and then her thoughts are her own. peter: you mentioned that trisha

and ed cox and julie and david eisenhower assisted you. what was their role? peter: heath: -- yes, that was critical. the books i write, i really require the family, the people who knew them, i need that access to really understand them and then i ask all kinds of outside people not connected with the family. but having tricia's input, julie's input, david and ed's input, it makes all the difference. there are so many things the girls told me that made such a difference in the details. small things like what did the houses look like, how was the house in d.c. decorated, who were the visitors. they told me about the cat that

gave birth to kittens in a baby carriage, that was one thing julie told me and then david eisenhower i had some spectacular interviews with him that really clued me in on pat's western nature. that is something that i think has really been missed in previous portrayals. she is a western woman and david gave me a great quote about she is an annie oakley type and she does not like to be molded by the image makers and that is kind of the essence, the anti-hierarchy openness and the do it yourself attitude of this woman, which explains a lot about how she operates in the white house. peter: how did you get interested in the history and where can people read more? heath: i got really interested in history, i have been forever

with a history major, did a master's, my first book was about winnie davis, the daughter of jefferson davis who goes rogue and becomes engaged to the grandson of a famous abolitionist. my second book was the league of wives, about p.o.w. and mia wives during vietnam and that led me to mrs. nagin because -- nixon because they had so much crossover with president jackson and then preside non who was the one who gives them more of a platform to speak about their husbands and then i ran across stories -- pictures of mrs. nixon with the p.o.w. wives and i thought, i do not know anything about her. one book always tends to lead to the next and i am also a curator

so my most recent show i curated for senator bob dole and the dole institute and it was about the p.o.w. and mia wives and i traveled for four years across the country and a quarter of a one million people so i so that was exciting. peter: how do you approach the daughters of a u.s. president? is it a cold call? heath: i know some cold calls work very well. once you have written a couple of books, sometimes you have a bit of a platform, people know you and they can read your books and i often have people from my previous books reach out and just say, i have worked with her before, i think she is fair, i think she is objective, maybe we'll talk to her. that helps a lot and then i do so much research at the nixon library so they knew i was very

interested in mrs. nixon and might want to write more about her but i do not think cold calls are great. i have done them when i have to but i generally like someone to introduce me or provide some reassurance to the family that i am fair and objective, as all historians should be. peter: how does pat nixon get from nevada to southern california? heath: the place where she was born is pretty desolate and i thought, maybe i should go there and i thought, that is ok, i think i will look online and see what it looks like. she was born in a tiny mining shaft. her father was a minor and her mother was a recent german immigrant and they were not in ely, nevada very long. the mining life is so dangerous

and kate, her mother, hated and feared the mining culture and was definitely afraid of it and so within a couple years they moved to california, to artesia, where her father had a little farm and became known as the cabbage king and all the children work on the farm, pat has two brothers and they all have to work very hard to make the life work. they are actually quite poor. so she grows up from the beginning having to work very hard and she sees her parents working as a unit. they are equal partners in this. they have different roles but they all work together as a team and i think that informs a lot of how she operates. peter: with some family tragedy

along the way. heath: so much family tragedy. this is something people do not know about and she did not talk about it much, her father dies when she is 17 and her mother died when she was 13 so she was orphaned by 17, taking care of the house, doing the cooking and the cleaning, taking care of her brothers, helps put the brothers through college and then they help her get through college. highly unusual for a woman at that time to have a college degree and then she comes -- then she goes on to usc and earns the equivalent of a master's, which in the 1930's was almost unheard of, especially for someone from her background. and she was an actress. she had some glamorous

background stories. she was also a model for a department store and met many movie stars that way. if you lived in l.a. at that time, so many young women were starlets, actresses, it was a great way to earn extra money so she was in ben hur, becky sharp, i found it amazing and it is very hard to spot her. the only one who can really see her in was becky sharp and it was a scene that was cut, you can kind of see her in the background a little bit. but she did not like acting. she said it was boring, you were on set all day and she said girls were tempted to take presence from unscrupulous older men and she was very wary of

that and did not want to go down that path so she just works as an extra to earn some money and then has her teaching degree and goes on to have a teaching career. very self-supporting. i think she loves her independent life. peter: how did she meet nixon? heath: in the end of the 1930's, beginning of the 1940's they met in whittier, california. she was teaching economics at whittier high school and other classes around business and he was a dashing young lawyer about town who was tall with dark hair and they meet at a community play called the dark tower. they both auditioned for the play. he sees pat and is instantly

smitten and said after rehearsal the first night, i would like to take you on a date and gives him a ride home and she demurs and he is like, i am going to marry you one day and she is like, who is this crazy person? but there is something that intrigues her and he is very ambitious, he wants to get out of whittier and do great things, she also wants to get out, she wants to travel. so i think they see something in each other that they feel they will together be able to get out and do great things and get out of this provincial quakertown. they wanted a bigger life. peter: you talk about her driving a young couple cross-country. heath: i can barely get around

bc in an uber. i cannot imagine doing what she did. in that time there were dirt roads, the country is not plowed, they had to cross the desert and she is light, i will do it. again, she wants to get out and see things and she drives a couple cross-country and the husband is clicking his teeth the whole way and she is light, i am not scared of doing this but his teeth are driving me insane. i think that was her introduction in a way into the wider world. she ends up in new york, she does all these cool things, she works in a tuberculosis hospital. it is not afraid of disease or death. i think that early experience, she has seen death before and she does not let that stop her and throughout her life and political career, she does a lot

of things that are pretty dangerous later on. she doesn't and she just does not worry about it. she also sort of has a romance with a very good looking doctor who i think would have liked to propose to her but she does not want to get married, she is light, i am having too much fun and i do not want to be entangled and be back to washing clothes and cooking everyone's meals. very independent minded person. she eventually goes back to school. peter: what did world war ii bring to the nixon's? heath: it changes everything. all of the calculations for everyone. the two of them are dating at this point and they come out of the theater and pearl harbor has happened that december. so they decide, i think richard

nixon knew he wanted to get into politics and it was required at that time that you have a service record and his family is quaker so they are not keen on him fighting or being in combat. he eventually seeks that out in the navy and goes to the pacific. she stays home but does not fit in whittier -- but doesn't sit in whittier with her in-laws and wait, she works in san francisco and has a fantastic time. of course she misses her husband, but she is having a great time going out with her friends, having lunch, doing all these things and being a career woman and learning a lot about government and bureaucracy, which her husband will come to deplore later so i think they

both share the frustration with red tape and that is partially from her time at the opa. then he comes home and they are reunited and the bigger story begins. peter: what was her relationship with richard sachsen's mother -- richard nixon's mother, hannah? heath: i found hannah interesting and also his quaker grandmother palmyra milk house -- morehouse. in the quaker faith, women are equal to men. they teach a lot of the sunday school classes, they are leaders in the community so he grows up with these role models. i think hannah and pat, i do not think there was ever a clash. pat nixon was never the type to clash with people, she is very conciliatory but as she told her

daughter julie later, hannah was not really a modern person. i thought that was an interesting quote. pat is a modern person with a very modern viewpoint, a working woman's viewpoint and hannah is about the home and her children. she does work, two of richard nixon's brothers die, hannah works at the grocery store that the nixon's own so she is working but she is from a different time and i just think pat also i never saw is greatly religious and hannah is very religious so i think they tolerate each other and become fond of each other but i think at first there is a little bit of a culture clash. peter: 46, 48, richard nixon

elected to congress. what was pat's role in the campaigns? heath: from the beginning it is the pat and dick team. i think she is his best counselor, advisor. in the beginning she is not afraid to tell him when she thinks it is not the best speech , but she always goes to every speech, she goes on the campaign trail and patients -- patiently always sits and listens. she is really engaged. she puts the time in on the campaign trail. i think he respects her opinion and listens to it, he does not always take her advice but very much a partner for quite a long time in that relationship. peter: what was her life like as

a congressional wife in d.c.? heath: she comes to town and there were all these rules. i talk about the green book which i found fascinating on the case dwellers. this is where historians risk going down rabbit holes but i had no idea about this delete group of old -- elite group of old families that run the city but then all these upstart political people are in and out of town sometimes with the seasonal things on the election, so pat and dick are a bit confused about the byzantine rules, especially about what one should wear, they end up at a dinner party wearing exactly the wrong things, which i think is very upsetting to pat, just learning the ways of the culture so she has her welcome guide to

the green book which has diplomacy and rank and things like that so she quickly learns the ropes. but she is sort of pedaling through a swamp of protocol and then her husband is out doing things that make him divisive in some ways, and things start to get controversial and they have been invited to all the dinner parties and then after alger hit us i think some doors closed and she begins to see the divide that politics brings. peter: alice roosevelt longworth an ally of hers? heath: yes. she is so interesting. we need more books on alice. dick nixon is right up her alley she likes to be contrary. she takes the nixon's under her

ring and -- under her wing and they go to a lot of her dinner parties and she was always very supportive of them, comes to daughter trish's rose garden wedding years later and she advises them about the vice presidency, that he should be prepared if he is offered this by eisenhower and she says it is a lame-duck situation but you need to be prepared so she is kind of an informal advisor. peter: during the 1950 senate campaign, how do they get around california? heath: it is a huge state and they go around in a station wagon. i do not know how they did it and i am sure the heat, dust, nerves would get afraid.

-- frayed. and she always looked perfect. they do all of these campaign stops and it is a cross-country drive that is exhausting. one of the oral histories i found, oral histories of people who knew the nixon's, one woman who knew that nixon's said she told julie later i would look at your mother and she would be so tired but then before the campaign rally she would perk up and pull herself together and go on, never canceled, never admitted being tired but it was definitely wearing on everyone. peter: was pat nixon excited, disappointed, that dick nixon was the vice president show nominee test presidential

nominee in 1962? heath: i think she was still excited. it was historic. she knew it might be coming she would sit up with him talking about if he should take it or not, she was on the fence but she hears this when she is having lunch over the speaker as she was eating a ham sandwich and it is like, oh my gosh, and they announce this and they were exuberant. he kisses her in the excitement and they are up on stage and they looked really happy. i think she is swept up in the pageantry and the moment and thinks, this is incredible that i came from ely, nevada and now i am here. i think it was still exciting at that point. peter: in your book you write

when daughter julie interviewed pat many years later for her biography of her mother, pat still found this episode too painful to discuss. let's watch some video. >> pat does not have a mink coat, but she does have a respectable republican cloth coat and i always told her she would look good in anything. one other thing i should probably tell you, because if i don't they will probably be saying this about me, we did get something to gift after election. a man in texas heard pat mention the fact our children would like a dog and the day before we left we got a message from union station in baltimore saying they had a package for us. we went down to get it and it

was a little cocker spaniel in a crate sent all the way from tanks -- from texas. our little girl, tricia, named it checkers. the kids love the dog and i just want to say this right now that regardless of what they say about it, they are going to keep it. peter: the infamous checkers speech. how did that happen? heath: i think it is one of the most striking speeches in american history. it is so effective. nexus and his associates called it the funds your speech. most americans remember it. the way this comes about is nixon is accused of having a secret slush fund to fund the

campaign and also fund pat's fabulous decorating, which she really resented, none of it was true, it was a rumor and by the way, others like ally stevenson also had a fund that supported candidates so they could do the campaigning, it was pretty bare-bones, but eisenhower is concerned about this. corruption is one of the big themes that he is going to quash so he kind of lets nixon dangle, he does not come to the rescue. and nixon's campaign manager says we should go on television and lay it all out. pat is horrified. as i say in the book, it is like she is lady godiva being paraded naked throughout the state -- the streets but then later she

will have a republican cloth coat to cover her but it is so embarrassing for someone who went through the depression and is frugal and careful, it is beyond embarrassing to have delay your finances out and they do not have a lot. but this proves, it's a big risk but he goes on television and goes to the theater in los angeles and they do the broadcast, this famous speech happens, he does not have any notes and it is amazing, he thinks he failed, he thinks it is a disaster, and she is up on stage with him. you see her off to the side. because he says, i want her on stage. it is something no one has really seen before. the family being part of that. so she is up there for the support and i think it shows the support she has, she is the rock

and she sits there and listens to the whole speech, he comes off stage, thinks it is a disaster and she is like, it is not and people start calling hi inclung darrell xana, the famo film mobile saying that is the best performance i have ever seen so it has become a sensation. it changes the tide. eisenhower says, you are my boy and goes on to accept the vice president and then eisenhower goes on to win. peter: they met up with the eisenhower's in west virginia after that speech. heath: they did. maney offers to share her coat and pat is a little frosty. their relationship is quite

interesting. maybe eisenhower cannot understand and pat says, we have just been through this crisis, obviously the eisenhower's had let them dangle for a while so pat i think forgiveness but does no forget that whole situation. peter: from your book, the second-class treatment during the campaign and obliouess to the trauma it caused seemed unbelievablet after what she had endured on live television for all the world to see. theyaid themselves wide open for the campaign and now were still being treated with little respect. he found it easier to move on but his wife kept silent score. heath: absolutely. peter: where did they live as vice president and second lady in washington? heath: they did not have a

residence at that point for the vp. they had various places where they lived and i talked about the last house, their favorite hous tt they lived in. peter: 4308 spring le. the house prior to that was on tilden. do either house have historical markers that the nixon's lived there? heath: that's a good question. i do not think so. i did not see them but they should. at that time you were just living in private homes. peter: did they have security? heath: not to my knowledge. i never saw one thing about them having security. these are days long past we are adjusted not seem to be needed. not to my knowledge. peter: president eisenhower sent to the nixon's on around the world tour almost immediately

into the presidency. heath: he did. he wanted nixon to go out and see about diplomatic relations all over the world and be his eyes and ears but what is interesting is i look at eisenhower as a talent spotte because he sees pat and quickly sees how gd she is with people one on one, with listening, with her own easy sense of diplomacy and she also is just all people from all of the world she gets along and she is interested in. it was radical at the time. previous first lady ladies were not doing that other than eleanor roosevelt. most were not doing anything like this but eisenhower see something and pat and they come to have a very good relationship as well and he tells dick nixon, take pat with you. peter: they went on several

worldwide trips. heath: yes. they would be gone for months and pat was always conflicted because she adored julie and trisha and hated being away from them but she loved to travel and that was her job. her job was to go in that position as the second lady and she was a working second lady. most second ladies before that really weren't, it was more ceremonial and they were certainly not traveling the world on diplomatic missions with their husbands. peter: 1958. heath: caracas and all of that. this is something i think a lot of people have forgotten. they were on a goodwill tour, there was a communist bob that threw rocks at the motorcade where nixon was in one car and pat was in another car and there was is entoura and a communist mob attked them,

there were shots fired, they were almost assassinated. they were trying to overturn their cars. pat is remarkable. she keeps commentaries on, which -- she keeps calm and carries on . she is like wonder woman with danger, she just does not worry about it. she is very fatalistic in a way, like if this is going to happen, it is going to happen but i am going to try to make other people feel safe. thank goodness the escape and get to the embassy and then they are welcomed home as heroes later so it was very good for his career but certainly not think they wanted to happen. peter: 1950 six reelection campaign, a little drama, pat says no one is going to push us

off the ticket. heath: eisenhower again is sort of testing the wind to see if he should bring nixon back. he -- it is like he is in the army and he is a subordinate and he cannot really let them know that he is doing a good job. he's looking at it as a military commander in some ways not a politician so he is letting him dangle again, and pat is light, now we are going through this again, she forgives but does not forget. but this is over, and they win again and all is well but i think she keeps tally in the back of her mind as they go on, even when her relationship with

mainly eisenhower have gotten better, and president eisenhower really respects pat. but it is always what is best for eisenhower, not necessarily what is best for the nixon's. this is a point at which things start to diverge a bit. she always wants to do what her husband wants to do but i think at this point she had seen enough and been through enough that she would have been happy to retire and have the life of a country lawyer's wife, as i say in the book. she is maybe not 100% done but she is not sure she wants to do this. she does this cheerfully unwell in 1960 but it is such a

crushing defeat, she is just crashed, it is a very close race. talking about stolen elections, big possibility this election might have been stolen. there has been a lot written about it much later by historians with data that is convincing and perhaps joe kennedy bought some votes for his son, there is a lot of speculation about that. pat always thought the kennedys had stolen that election. if you look at the newsroom that night where nixon concedes, she is crushed. she hated seeing that. she looks so crushed. i think that is when things take a different turn peter: for her

peter:. after 1962 did she think he was done? heath: she was like, i am done with this, we are going to have a normal life, hooray, they are in california for a while and she loves that, and then the wilderness years as the nixon people call it, they are in new york and i think this is probably the happiest time for her in her married life aside from world war ii when they are young newlyweds, she is free and with her girls, thinking that they can go out and see exhibits and her husband is a lawyer who

has joined a big firm, they have money, she decorates their apartment in grand style and things are great. just what she wants. but of course richard nixon is a moth to the flame with politics, he just cannot stay away. she would be happy to stay away and be the lawyer's wife. but he cannot stay away. so she works on the side of his office and comes in as ms. ryan, she is anonymous and answers the phone and she is always backing him up. she wants him to be happy, she wants him to do what he feels he is born to do when she in him always and his policies and that he is important for the country and can do good for the country but this will be over soon when he decides to make another run

for president. peter: did he tell her directly he was going to run again in 1968? heath: he tends to do things through intermediaries. that's the fascinating dynamic in their relationship. so he kind of tells her through secretaries, i am going to do this again. they go back and forth -- she goes back and forth and then she concedes. this is what always happens. she resists somewhat and intermediaries come in and help convince and then she will do it again and i think the girls were also hesitant about it. they have seen enough at this point to know what is coming. peter: during the first term the phrase plastic pat became her image. let's watch.

>> referred to you as plastic pat. >> i do not read everything and also i think they have had some really nice articles sent to me by the author but anyway, they don't bother me. heath: plastic pat. i try to correct misperceptions and in this case plastic pat has always been attributed to candy shroud but it was actually john fairchild, the publisher of women's wear daily who came up with plastic pat because he adored jackie kennedy and thought pat was not nearly as fashionable so he told candy and other reporters to use plastic pat, to attack her that way.

i think it is so reductive and this happens to all first ladies, they are always tagged with a nickname that is unflattering. i have been interested to see joe biden -- jill biden in the last six months has been called lady macbeth. plastic pat, this is one of the things that was so the opposite of who she really was. a real caricature, very deliberate and i think it was done to distinguish between jackie and pat but it is also a dig at richard nixon. these things are done to all first ladies in order to get up there husbands and upset them. so she was the furthest thing from plastic in real life that you could get. she was more interested in people, not plastic. peter: here's the reaction she

got at the 1972 reelection convention. >> [applause] >> alright, he or she is. >> -- here she is. >> thank you. [applause] >> i listened to jimmy stewart's introduction of me and i was so appreciative and grateful to him for being here today and he is certainly right, this is unusual for me but i want to thank all

of you for your friendship and loyal support and for having this wonderful evening for me. i shall remember it always and thank you. peter: quite a reaction. heath: that is amazing. the applause goes on for nine minutes and she gets a little frustrated because she is like, ok, i would like to do my little talk right now so i think she speaks for two minutes and the applause goes on for nine but it shows you that is the gop 1972 convention, she is at the apex of her popularity. gallup polls constantly 14 times have her as the most admired woman in the world and she is very popular and i think people see her individually for who she is, very contrary to the plastic pat image. peter: her role in peru and

china. heath: peru is very interesting because there is this horrible earthquake, the great peruvian earthquake of 1970 and she sees it on television. this is one of the also first global disasters everyone is watching on television and i watched a lot of the footage, it is horrifying. i think 70,000 people are killed, 100,000 people without shelter. she sees that son goes to her husband and says, i want to do something about this. something concrete. so she goes as his global solo ambassador to peru, takes money and medical supplies and tours all over rubble in an aqua suit and heels, she and the

first lady of peru are picking around in the rubble looking amazing so the do this and it gets her so much admiration and they meet people on the street, in hospitals and orphanages and she does this her whole career. that is where she wants to go, not fancy dinners, one-on-one is so important to her and it is really groundbreaking. peter: and in china, she brought the pandas back. heath: yes, the panda diplomacy. panda diplomacy and i will point out that san diego zoo in june just got their pandas back from china and i believe in washington you are getting more pandas but to go back and give that story, when richard nixon, henry kissinger have this amazing groundbreaking reopening of china to the west in 1972 they are trying to open

relations back up, they take pat nixon along, she is one of the few women on the trip because she is so good behind the scenes with diplomacy, she is like the secret sauce that helps president nixon make the deals. so she and the chinese premier at dinner one night and he had pandas on his cigarette 10 and she says, i love pandas, they are so cute and he says, i will give you some. she thinks he mean cigarettes but he meant a pair of pandas. so now there has been this exchange of pandas between our countries and it is a barometer of how relations with china are going and this is all thanks to pat nixon. peter: 1974, when did pat know the end was near? heath: i think until the bitter end pat was not ready to give up

on her husband. but let's go back a little bit. 1972, june there is a break-in at the doc and that is upsetting to her, she is aware of it but they are jumping into campaign season. it gets a bit lost in the weeds with that paired she is very focused on that. we just saw her on camera with the standing ovation. so busy, she thinks at that point that is just not going to be a big deal and it snowballs. it gets worse and worse. i believe things get very serious when halderman and ehrlichman, some of nixon's closest advisors, when they are finally fired, pat had no love for either of them, and when they are fired finally then what

i call the old nixon team comes back together to fight what they call the last campaign, watergate, and trying to redeem things. so i think she knows things are dire but fights up till the end and she is one of the very last to agree with her husband that he should resign. peter: a lot of the reporting was about her seclusion, drinking during this time. heath: right and i would say that reporting is flawed and baseless. there is a lot in the final days by woodward and bernstein first about the remaining just the rumors of drinking that she was walking around the white house at night with a tumbler of bourbon and there is no evidence for that. i have interviewed people inside and outside the white house, friends, family, others, not one

person could provide one instance of that so it is baseless, there is no evidence for that. then the seclusion idea of also not true if you look at the official records of the white house, she was doing events up until the last three weeks before he resigned, outward facing events, and then the last three weeks she worked every day on the white house acquisition and renovation project which is another one of her great achievements until the last day. so it is just completely false on seclusion and the alcohol rumors are baseless. peter: you spend quite a bit of time with the women who worked for pat. heath: i spent a lot of time with pat's social secretary. she was with her morning through night and she said, i would have known if there was an alcohol

problem. i would see mrs. nixon before she put her makeup on, she was always up, ready to face the day , her secret service, her secret service detail was with her on all of the trips and she never missed a beat so there just is no evidence to support that claim. peter: august 8 and 9, 1974. what can you tell us about pat nixon and those two days? heath: very dark days for the nixon's. he decides to resign and goes on tv the eighth to address the adesses the staff in the east wing and it is just a very stressful time for everyone. also everyone has told me the weather was very dark, like out of central casting. so during this time, of course the daughters are both fair with their husbands, on the ninth

when he addresses the staff they are all up on stage with him, clearly everyone has been crying and is very upset and pat looks so tired and teary. when he gives the speech at the end, he has been criticized a lot for not talking about pat. he talks about his mother and how she was a saint, and he is ever after criticized for not talking about his wife, who has stood by him the whole time. the optics do not look good. but what has been -- but what high has been told is he would have broken down and so would have she if he had spoken about pat on stage. i think he always kind of put her on a pedestal as well and this was just horrifying for both of them come and pat also hates the spotlight, so this is

way worse than the checkers speech, it was very upsetting. peter: and this was a case where rosemary told pat on the daughters about the resignation. heath: yes. rosemary is the intermarry. -- intermediary. she said to betty, there was a red carpet laid out to get to the helicopter and she said betty, you will get so you hate these red carpet which we will have to ask betty ford but i think that was such her experience at that point that the glamour had long gone for pat nixon at that point. peter: september 8, 1974.

you quote pat as saying a pardon for what? heath: yes. pat nixon thought there was no need for a pardon, that richard nixon should not accept the pardon because it implied guilt and she always believed in him and thought watergate was ridiculous, she thought the tape should have been burned, which she often said, so she was indignant about the pardon and she also was not told directly about the pardon so the pattern is still there, she finds out about this and is very angry about it. she thought it implied guilt and he should not ask for the pardon. peter: june 22, 1990 three, she dies. four days later at her funeral, or five days later in california the former president really breaks down. heath: i think anybody

questioning the depth of feeling between them should look at the world war ii letters between them, which are very passionate and warm, they are clearly smitten with each other and then look at the funeral, nixon completely breaks down and in the background, rosemary woods, always a faithful staffer and friend says, oh dear and he just completely loses it. he regained composure and make some lovely remarks but he is a broken man at that point and he dies less than a year later after pat's death. what is her legacy in your view? other monuments named dr. her were schools? -- are there monuments named after her or schools? heath: there is the pat nixon

highway which was dedicated a few years ago with an effort led by a democratic senator from california but there were not a lot of monuments and president nixon famously said she will never have the accolades she deserves, she is never going to have that because of his situation but pat nixon in terms of her legacy, she does so many remarkable things in the book but there are two things i would like people to focus on. one is her work behind the scenes, very progressive for women, a strong supporter of the e.r.a., even when nixon waivers on it she makes sure it is part of the republican platform. she also was the aid of barbara hackman franklin from the 1970's that people should know about,

she pushes to get women in higher levels of government and to get them high level positions, a huge jump from the johnson years. mrs. nixon is pushing for this behind the scenes. she also is pushing to get a woman on the supreme court, really wants that to happen, publicly talks about that, when it does not happen she is very disappointed, president nixon is very afraid of her reaction. there are some funny stories about that, him telling julie, mommy is very mad at me. pat was incensed this did not happen but that set the scene for sandra day o'connor later to come in and be a female supreme.

on female reproductive rights, mrs. nixon was the first to say abortion publicly and to support a woman's right to choose. her other legacy is her international diplomacy. we have talked a lot about that from the beginning of her career on, particularly in the vice presidential years and as first lady did a lot of solo trips to cement relationships, and also with her husband in china, dependence, sealing that deal, and also russia where her husband signs a treaty, an antiballistic missile treaty. she is going behind-the-scenes with russian wives smoothing things over working for peace. that is what they all want to for their children and grandchildren. very crucial to getting the

deals done. host: the book is called mysterious mrs. nixon. thank you. guest: thank you for having me. announcer: all qanon day programs are available on our website or as a podcast on our c-span now app.

>> coming up on c-span's "washington journalm" we'll take your calls and comments live. then, paragon health institute's dr. joel zinberg and injured to cause -- andrea ducas from the center for american progress discusses health care policy proposals from both vice president harris and former president trump. then, pew research center's mark hugo lopez discusses the impact and political influence of latino voters in this year's elections. "washington journal" starts now. ♪ host: good morning. it is monday, october 14, 2024. we are just 22 days from election day. this morning, we are focusing on one segment