[captioning made possible by nbc universal] >> this is "the chris matthews show" >> ask not what your country can do for you. >> take down this wall. >> our time for change has come. chris: a tiny very select and highly influential group of americans. sole requirements president of the united states. club rule, help each other. bill and barack, what is their story? why they are charmed by the bushes? is it about rivalry and are they dead set on being the two democrats? and finally, scorpions in a bottle.

richard nixon wanted to be president and how these two went after each other over vietnam. with us today, "time" magazine, michael duffy, and nbc apped degree a ha mitchell a kasie hunt and howard fineman. we are learning about men who have been american presidents. this was a sleepover at the white house, complete with ja mmp mies that bill clinton held for the club, ford, bush, carter and all camped out there and when they don't have sleep overs, they have this club house as their meeting grouped. mike, this is a great scoop. we known there have been friendships, but you got a real club that is functioning and affects history. >> it starts in 1953 when

herbert hoover goes up to harry truman at ike's swearing in and says we out to have a club. sounds good. it has its own rules and own rivalries. chris: why is it important to history and why did you write this amazing book about how it helps? i keep thinking when i read it. if anybody falls, they keep them from falling all the way. >> having made those decisions and emerged from the jobs each with their own scars, know how hard it is to do it and been through stuff no one else can understand and they share experiences that no one in their families can understand and that binds them together. chris: and turns out the former president who helped the others

the most, president eisenhower. listen to him talking to jack kennedy. >> what about the soviet union, khrushchev announces tomorrow that if we attack cuba it will be nuclear war and what's your judgment as to the chances they'll fire these things off if we invade cuba? >> i don't believe so. chris: what a conversation. you and i grew up with this. chance going to nuclear war and getting advice from the guy who accepted the nazi surrender in world war ii. >> only a week earlier, kennedy blasted eisenhower and his legacy in a campaign election speech and it infuriated eisenhower and he came back and blasted kennedy on foreign policy. yet when the crisis broke,

kennedy used the c.i.a. director. and they were suspicious and political ruse. chris: he taped the conversation. >> the advice was bad advice. chris: and khrushchev's memoirs as we now know, if he hit new york, was going to hit new york. >> when you are president of the united states and you don't fully trust your advisers, you trust someone who sat in that chair before you more than anybody else. chris: howard, i want to play this soundbite frr lyndon johnson, how ike helped him after jack kennedy was assassinated. >> eisenhower came down and spent some time with me exploring the problems that he expected to arise con fronting a

new president. chris: kennedy getting killed was an incredible moment and here was the republican coming in and helping l.b.j. >> two things about that. first of all, ike as a figure, was a tremendously reassuring president in american life. if there was a monarch, retired monarch, it was ike, who had led us into world war ii and president during a calm period in american life. there was the psychological's assurance from that. but more important and interesting is the advice that ike gave to lyndon johnson about what l.b.j. should say before a joint session of congress. ike was a republican president and a conservative one. but what he told l.b.j. was that l.b.j. should promise to carry forward the sweeping, liberal

agenda of jack contendy who had been assassinated, that the best thing he could do for the country and for l.b.j.'s own standing within his party and the presidency was to promise to carry out jack kennedy's ajeopardya. you have at a pivotal moment a republican president advocating a democratic agenda for the good of the country. amazing statemanship. chris: ronald reagan taught bill clinton how to salute. >> everybody needs lessons in something. [laughter] chris: he went like this. explain how that goes. >> reagan says, you need to know how to salute. you have to bring it up sharply and throw it down. and they sat in reagan's office practicing together. chris: up slow and down fast? >> like it is covered with honey and then down fast. chris: wow!

>> he was in the movies. >> here's bill clinton getting some bipartisan help from jerry ford when bill was in some of his most embarrassing spots since nixon. >> this morning there is a high-level bipartisan call for compromise. former presidents ford and carter said today that they favor a bipartisan resolution of cren sure. chris: and as mike wrote -- >> they come out of this club with the need to protect the office of the presidency. no one understands what that office means. you are facing what was one of the greatest embarrassments to occur for the office itself. they were looking to protect that and to keep his own party in some ways from taking it too far to the point that it would hurt the country. chris: they are smart now.

>> they have such a fierce fight over the presidency, ford and jimmy carter. they became such close friends. carter was broken up at ford's funeral service and i you worked for carter and i knew ford very well, he really got to l jimmy carter. chris: nixon's advice to clinton, there is almost a father-son -- kind of strange. >> when clinton becomes president, nixon wants to work with him to be sort of a secret adviser and they do become late-night phone pals and talk about russia and how to organize the president's day. he said how did you do it? and nixon loved the fact that here 30 years later another young president saying, how do you do this job. chris: he brought nixon back. went to the white house.

>> a republican couldn't do it, a democratic president could. and when he died, clinton actually says, i miss him the same way i missed my mother. chris: i wonder if nixon said, you are the kind of son i wanted. i wonder. >> at some point, bill clinton felt like an outsider himself because of the legal problems he had to deal with and there was a strange kinship between the two. chris: what about obama today, he getting any interesting uncles coming? [laughter] >> he met with all of them in the oval office in 2009 and you know, he has been very grateful with how gracious the bushes have been to him over the course of this. prarb has stayed largely on the sidelines and said i don't need to play the critic and he struck

up a good friendship with josh h.w. bush. the relationship with clinton is more prickly. chris: it is an interesting friendship. the close relationship between the ex-presidents. al gore was keeping him at a distance but the big guy couldn't resist spouting off. clinton gave his best bush impression. how bad can it be. i'm a governor my daddy was president and i own a basketball team. gore was right to -- >> if he decides he can't help himself and starts campaigning against me, the shadow returns. [laughter] chris: the shadow. and we learn that when bush visited the white house after the recount in 2000, he asked

clinton if that shadow comment offended him and clinton came close to the old man and entire bush family. the bushes now consider clinton, quote, a brother of another mother. and listen to this. >> it got so ridiculous, our odd couple partnership that barbara began to refer to me as her black sheep son, you know the one -- [laughter] >> there is one in every family. gets the politics wrong or makes some other mistake. chris: you got all this in the book? great stuff. how ike secretly held reagan against richard nixon and some of nixon's stories.

chris: welcome back. and mike duffy's book about the most secret club about the most powerful men, there was one who was hardly a teammate. after ford pardonned nixon, nixon then went on an upstaging trip to china right during the new hampshire primary of 1976. forward was then put in a position of having to defend the guy who had once again embarrassed him. >> he is going under the guidelines that i suggested. >> you see no complications to foreign policy with his trip? >> none whatever. chris: he went over to china, showing off and getting the press attention and ford who got him off the hook was trying to run for president. >> at the same time, jerry ford never apologized for the pardon. he knew exactly how damaging it was to him politically and the

thing he was proudest was caroline and ted kennedy gave him the profile in courage reward. chris: apparently general eisenhower, nixon thought he was helping him but giving advice secretly to ronald reagan. >> one of the things that impresses me about mike's book is what you see about ike. ike, who is a master behind the scenes playing the role of the former president with these other political figures. we all know that ike didn't like richard nixon, famously, but we didn't know the extent to which he liked reagan and advised him to deal with accusations that reagan was a right-winger. ike gave him advice on that and really ike, i think, is partly

responsible for launching ronald reagan's presidential career, according to the book. reagan goes to gettysburg right after ike wins the governorship. and in 1968, reagan did make his first effort to get the republican nomination. ike was there at the launching of reagan's presidential campaign. chris: ike is about to get a big comeback in history. let's talk about what is tricky and perhaps menacing. in 1968 during the height of the terrible vietnam war, johnson said i'm not running again. and just before the election of 1968 with humphrey running against nixon, he was negotiating with the north and south and at the last minute, south said we aren't going to do it. johnson found out nixon had a hand in the deal. >> that's right. the north and south were tapped

and knew nixon was working behind the scenes to undercut the negotiations. he challenges him and nixon backs off. chris: 1966? >> 1968. five years later in 1973, nixon is paranoid about the senate investigation into wear gate and goes to johnson who has a month to live and back your friends in the senate or i'm go to go release the fact that you were bugging me. and he said if you release that, i'll tell them what you said. it was black mail to the end. chris: great stuff. we haven't touched on jimmy carter. and he is not the kind of guy that goes into a club or doesn't want to be accepted by a club that would accept him. >> it's -- he has always been kind of a problem. he is the guy you have to call because he knows all of these foreign leaders from his years on the world stage, but as mike

points out, carter goes on these trips and hasn't had them over representing the united states and goes off on his own. chris: he thought himself better than the other presidents? >> he would tell you is the better ex-president. he has had, in september he becomes the longest living ex-president in history and had to make a second career and creates this job that no one else has and becomes a model for clinton. >> the fact when he went to north korea and wept on cable television before reporting back to the national security council, clinton is furious and they sent nmp unn and -- nunn. >> and when bill clinton was trying to figure out what to do with his post-presidency and modeled the clinton foundation and all the things that bill

clinton is doing on jimmy carter but jimmy carter with a better touch in terms of domestic policy. chris: much bigger in terms of the amply occasion. the clinton foundation is huge and done a lot to build his role in history. scoops and predictions from

chris: mike, a departure this week, the same prediction, will hoint -- hillary clinton run for president and what will be based on her decision? >> i think she will go because it's what the clintons do and will take a look at the competition and say i'm better than this. chris: will fortify the decision? >> i think she will run and will be based on whether she can win. chris: you think she is a go? >> i do. >> it depends on what joe biden is going to do. it's chatter that the clintons are paying attention because they want to know where he stands. chris: he is a bit older. >> he is. but it depends what happens in 2012. if romney wins -- chris: he has a youthful manner. >> getting younger all the time.

>> v.p. is an he terribly youth job. >> we have said throughout the whole show that this is a men's club. the men in this club, ok. don't forget that about hillary whose life has been about breaking glass ceilings. her mom who died recently at the age of 92, was very, very active and totally with it until the very end. hillary has got those genes and depending on how she feels, whether chelsea has delivered a grandchild on time or not -- chris: what you are saying, if she doesn't run, she will be thinking about it for the last second of her life which means she doesn't want to think about it. >> once people run, they run

again. chris: i saw the clintons in new york and guess who spoke first? who is going to win the rivalry for the most transformative person in history?

chris: this week's big question. we talked earlier in this program about the rivalry between bill clinton and barack obama to be the most transformative things of all times. >> if they move from the hard liberal position to the center, barack obama is going to change who is a democrat. it included the party and didn't increase the number of them general ily. one will get credit for the policy and one for the voters. >> hillary. you i think obama has to prove

himself. the jury is still out on health care. and you know, clinton still has this record. >> i don't think we say yet. it depends on whether president obama is re-elected and what he does with that. changing the direction of the party back to a more, more liberal construction than clinton put on the table. >> mike duffy, great with the new book "the presidents' club." andrea mitchell, kasie hunt and howard fineman.