what are the true roots of nixon's -- or at least the young richard nixon's political ideology? i've got a few ideas. one, it was the new deal era, that roughly eight-year period between 1933 and 1941 which encompasses the great depression, the new deal, and the beginning of the second world war. this period formed a crucible upon which richard nixon, jack armstrong, all-american persona, you see that as a young man certainly. as well as a belief in sturdy self-reliance, was tested and challenged by, well, a few things. the mass deprivation that one saw during the great depression. that was no picnic certainly. the relatively radical efforts by the new deal agencies to intervene, some would argue, in the lives of individual citizens. and finally, polarization of much of the citizenry in response to the new deal in general. okay? second, the company you keep. the young richard nixon's association with various political mentors, advisers, handlers, fund-raisers, donors and supporters helped further this what i call, quote, a conservative education of richard nixon. you look at his

the first is the contender, richard nixon, and the apprenticeship, richard nixon, the vice presidential years. 1952 to 1961 and he expects it to be published this year. our final speaker will be perspective from someone within the nixon administration, frank gannon. frank received his doctor of philosophy from oxnard university and won a white house fellowship and served in the nixon white house from 1971 through 1974. he accompanied nixon to san clemente aboard air force one and organized the research and writing. i'll turn it over first to joe. >> good morning, everybody. >> first of all, i would like to thank the nixon library and the staff for their hospitality in welcoming the group today. also i want to acknowledge the editor of the companion to richard nixon project. which i think was a -- the work turned out very nicely. my task for the project was to assess the buy graph cal coverage of nixon's prepolitical years from 1913 to 1945. focused on the accuracy and reliability of the work and look to see if bias was apparent with the author. in the early works, the statements or quot

those who knew -- he hated nixon's guts. the last thing i would do is try to gifz a biased interview collection on nixon. >> let me ask you to -- let me ask one of them to respond. >> the last speaker in particular who said there's a need and the third spoeaker. there's a need for an early life history. thank you very much. excuse the wordiness. >>. >> which one of you would like to respond? >> first of all, frank gannon has his interviews nine days long. very profitable in the university of georgia website and it's where i learned nixon met lbj. it's the only document that shows the early relationship between lbj and richard nixon. second, dr. marina, i hate you. i really do. you did 335 of these oral histories, and i'm almost two-thirds through them, and i've got to tell you it's long, and the other person i should comment on who is no longer with us is harry jeffrey who did a marvelous series of 212 interviews, but the one question that you had is when will it be done and the problem with the early life of richard nixon has n

the topic for my chapter in the companion to richard nixon was on the relationship between richard nixon and spiro agnew. the word that i used in the first sentence was complicated. i wrote very simply that richard nixon and spiro agnew had a complicated relationship. went on to write that nixon had a complicated relationship with virtually everyone in his life, so it was no surprise with agnew. now, i teach history, and my students had never heard of spiro agnew. when i talk to people today above 50, i always get two responses. a smile, and then i hear something about negativism. the story of zestee spiro agnew richard nixon is a rather strange tale. we heard in the last talk about nixon and eisenhower. and nixon having been vice president and having gone through the rigors of presidential campaigns. did not, strangely, in 1968 give much or really any thought to who his vice president might be. which was rather odd because nixon had spent the past six years, since losing in 1962, trying to figure out how he could get elected president. in 1968 he eventually settled on spiro agnew who wa

nixon could do no wrong. not to demean or dismiss the book. then sort of a positive books into which i would put jonathan atkins' book. neutral books into which i would put conrad black's biography. he knew nixon and is sympathetic. also extremely critical of his personality, his policies and his conduct. then there are the negatives in which roger morris' book, which it is finely researched i think it's hobbled by the fact that he sees, tends to see everything in a bad light. then there are the books that i think can only be described as rabid, that would be brodie's book and anthony summers' books. these are the authors for whom nixon could do no good deed or have no decent thought. he was evil was bred in his bone down to his dna. and the mark of the beast on his forehead. that's my -- that would be my assessment of some of those books. and it surprises me, it disappoints me that a lot of nixon scholarships accepts uncritically these books which are based on two or three or four secondary defective sources for a lot of these quintessential n

the topic for my chapter and the cam pan yon to richard nixon was on the relationship between richard nixon and spiro agnew. the word that i used in the first sentence was complicated. simply that richard nixon and spiro agnew had a complicated relationship. nixon had a complicated relationship with virtually everyone in his life and it was no surprise with agnew. i teach history and my students had never heard of spiro agnew. i hear about negativism. the story of spiro ag newt and richard nixon is strange. we heard the last talk about nixon and eisenhower and mix on having been vice president and having gone through the rigors of presidential campaigns. they did not strangely give much or really any thought to who his vice president might be. that was odd because nixon had spent the past six years since losing in 1962 trying to figure out how he could get elected president. in 1968, he settled on spiro agnew who was the governor of maryland. he had a reputation of being a fairly liberal republican. he was not a conservative. change with agnew or seemingly change although i argue ther

winning. >> the best way is for nixon to lose the 1960 election. so rockefeller has very little interest in winning new york state or win the election, either one. so i think having a weak republican party was really hurt by the 1958 elections and so that really made a difference and it makes it much harder for nixon to run and it had been the republican governors who had been elected earlier in the '50s had they still been in office. one thing you mentioned in your talk is the power of the uaw in the 1950s and the 1960s is the ticket-splitting state. they had a democratic governor in 60, 1962 and john swenson takes over. george romney gets himself elected in '64 and remained in republican hands for quite a long time. so it was a master stroke. how many votes romney carried, people voted that the hud secretary, and it was a smooth move. . >> the vice presidency for nixon and jonathan and the importance of 1960, johnson on the ticket. >> the question of why nixon chose ingagnew. the republican party in 1968 was unified tod

well, that's good because i'm at the end. as nixon hinted in a letter just before -- well, anyway so the 1960 election was a big disappointment, of course, to nixon and, indeed, republican party officials were really angry with him because they believed that the underlying fundamentals of the economy and the peace and prosperity eisenhower eight years and so forth should have given nixon the victory. and, of course, one does wonder if he only hadn't done the debate in chicago under those sort of strange conditions wearing a gray suit that faded into the gray background and being sick, i think a 101 degree fever, perhaps that debate is what really cost him the election. or maybe he was just up against the fact that in the country he was only the number -- the second most popular politician or third i suppose putting eisenhower number one opinion kennedy was just simply more popular and there wasn't anything nixon could do about that until 1968 and he didn't have to face that problem. i will end with one thing, i don't think that religi

and if rockefeller wants to be president, the best way is for nixon to lose the 1960 election. so rockefeller has very little interest in helping nixon win new york state or win the election, either one. so i think having a weak republican party -- the party was really hurt by the 1958 elections. and so that really made a difference. and it made it much harder for nixon to run in 1960 than it would have been had the governors -- republican governors who had been elected earlier in the '50s, had they still been in office. >> i think it helped a lot. one thing you had mentioned in your talk is the power of the uaw throughout the '50s and well into the 1960s. but the interesting thing about michigan is it's a ticket-splitting state. i mean, had a democratic governor in '60. 1962, john sweenson takes over. george romney gets himself elected in '64 and remained in republican hands for quite a long time. i mean, it was a master stroke. how many votes romney carried -- i mean, there was no way of knowing when people voted that romney was going to become the hud secretary. it was a smoo

was was probably a clip tied to the footage you had of nixon's speech at the miami convention. now, that speech whatever people -- i know people ridiculed it, but we took pieces of that speech and turned nixon's on own words into ads tied to the footage that you saw there. i think that was one of the convincing things, was that johnson had been with lyndon johnson. he was broken on the wheel of vietnam. he had stood down, and quite clearly one argument we had was if the democratic party cannot unite itself, it's fighting in the streets of chicago. this isn't experience unparalleled in mystery. 32 years from now most of americans living today will celebrate a new year that comes once in a thousand years, eight years from now in the second term of the next president we will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the american revolution. by this selection we all listening on television and radio, we will determine what kind of nation america will be on its 200th birthday. we will determine what kind of a world america will live in in the year 2000. >> as you know, pat buchanan, every c

it was about twice as large as the republican paerlt. what nixon did straight politically was take the socially conservative catholic ethnic southern bloc and move it into the republican coalition so that in the next five elections -- the next four after 1968 republicans won three landslides of 49 states, 49 states, and 44 states and george h.w. bush won 40 states. so i think richard nixon is the most important political figure he and fdr in terms of putting together ruling coalitions, governing coalitions in america. we see that gradually disintegrate for reason i described in other books we're not talking about today. >> we should point out this month marks the 40th anniversary of the trip to china, which was historic. >> i was with him on the trip to china. as i told folks, by the end of it, he would have been happy to leave me there. >> let's turn to brad and tim from the washington center for a question or comment. brad, we'll start with you. >> hi. i'm brad misell. it the story that really gets lost here is that in the summer of '67 george ro

the game. i knew nixon wanted to be sure he was home to watch the game. so finally after he agreed to my concept, he said what do you want to call it? i really hadn't thought about that so i knew that i had just a few seconds because the game was going to start. and so i said director communications. that's how that title originated. >> one more question about the '68 campaign. where did the idea of the -- one more question from the '68 campaign, where did nixon's secret plan to end the war come from? >> from the press. nixon to my knowledge never said had he a secret plan. he said he thought he could solve it and his solution was to negotiate which with what he did. but he didn't have -- he did not have a secret plan and never heard him say that he did. but the press picked up because he said he could solve it. they picked it up as a secret plan because he wouldn't comment on what it was. >> tell me about the -- during the transition, the administration wanted to announce the entire cabinet at once. >> the president -- that was the president's idea. each

thing it sounded like the voice of wisdom and reason. nixon, i have to say, thought quickly, thought on his feet and i thought he did remarkably well even in the studio. after all, he wasn't prepared for all this. i would like to know how i would have done in that situation. >> the other thing khrushchev and you have to really give him credit for this, khrushchev liked what he saw. what you don't know is that khrushchev most of the media don't know this, khrushchev came around about four times and i took him around at three of those and mcclellan was in st. petersburg or something, he loved the dome, i gave him a couple of bolts as souvenirs, he said we should have these, and the crowning touch came for my knowledge of what was happening with khrushchev and how he was the one who was responsible for this exhibition being there is when the soviets asked me to come to the ministry of foreign affairs. again, i think mcclellan was out of town, and they asked me to come at the end of the exhibition and i said okay, i'll bring my counterpart from th

the photograph. c-span: what was your relationship with richard nixon? >> guest: i was the photographer--i--that--that got access because of the work that i had done on a prior book on washington, which was my first book. i went to see herb klein, who was his director of communications, and proposed doing the book on the nixon white house. and that was approved after six months, and it was because of that that i found myself outside the oval office a lot of times, but inside the oval office also. c-span: and this photograph shows golda meir and yitzhak rabin. >> guest: rabin, yes. and--and it was a--you know, the--the middle east figures very heavily in american politics, and any time one of the chiefs of state would come, the--the white house and the rest of the establishment gave them special attention. it was interesting in--in that particular instance that the president said to golda meir that she and he had the same--one thing in common; they both had jews as their foreign minister. and she said, 'yes, but mine speaks english.' c-span: and then over

he lives in los angeles and never came to the nixon library. that's -- that's the long and the short of it. it's an ingrained nature among a certain subset of very, very influential people that looked at nixon from the beginning of his vice presidency. and for that matter, dwight eisenhower was a twit in the original books written about him in the late '50s and early '60s and sometimes even now. but for whatever reason, nobody really passionately looked at the papers of either dwight eisenhower and richard nixon. and to give another plug, if you're interested, one line and in the major libraries, there are the private papers of the presidency of dwight eisenhower as well as his early years. it's only 21 volumes. so if you wish to peruse it in a half an hour, it should be no problem. but vaney and galambose did this brilliantly. and those manuscripts that were put into book form are terribly, terribly underutilized. >> another question up here? >> yeah, my name is jeff kimball, and i have a comment and question about psychohistory. i agree that a

in turns out in the end that richard nixon sent someone there saying you probably didn't want the war to be over, and richard nixon had sent someone there saying if you back out of the peace process, nixon will win and you'll get a better deal from president nixon. that's documented all over the place now. >> what i'd like to do is let's share with the students two ads on the air in 1968. the first one is called failure. this is an ad by richard nixon taking aim at vietnam and the failed policies of lyndon johnson and hubert humphrey. we'll fom that with an ad from the humphrey campaign to give you a sense of what was going on. we'll start with richard nixon and the failure ad. >> how can a party that can't unite itself unite the nation? how can a party that can't keep order in its own backyard hope to keep order in our 50 states? how can a party that labels the results of its programs the great society ever find any real solutions? how can i party that lets the country get bogged down in an endless war against a fourth-rate military power promise anything but decades of conflict? how

nixon did not trust the state department. nixon very much wanted to dominate foreign policy himself. he found kissinger a congenial partner, and so they -- nixon said at the beginning that he was going to resurrect national security council meetings like eisenhower and have this open process where everybody could argue. but that it would be structured so that he could clearly make decisions. he -- and he did some innovations this terms of how they did policy studies is so that unlike under eisenhower where they tried to reach con seven is us on policy, under nixon they were supposed to reach consensus on what the options were so the president could choose one of them and not be buried under a bureaucratic consensus. and they did that for a while. but nixon after he came to office found he really didn't like high-level meetings with people shouting at each other and people challenging the view the president wanted. he found himself -- he had a peculiar problem that he could not sort of face down somebody, even as president, and

>> well, the one i did the most was nixon because he was in public life most of the time -- i came to washington before he did, and i did im as a congressman and as a senator and as vice president. so it covered a wider span of time than other presidents. >> did you meet him? >> yes, i met him once, and it was kind of a neutal conversation. he said -- this was when he was vice president. he said something about his spee, his nose in the drawing. >> what did you think of him? >> well, as a public figure, i didn't think much of him. i didn't think he was very good as a member of congress or as a president. >> >> wl, for one thing, he was -- he did criminal things as a president. he was corrupt, and that's pretty bad. he was the only presient who had to resign in disgrace, and he got out ahead of the sheriff, just before they kicked him out. >> look at the screen and we'll see one of your cartoons from the 1970's. >> that's when the tapes were being played and he was saying "i am" and in his mouth the word "not," then "a crook." this was the statement he made talking to editors at disney

, on the other hand, was -- there was a lot of suspicion surrounding nixon to put it kindly. a lot of people didn't like him. colleagues and a lot of people didn't trust him. i think that it was almost the opposite relationship with their colleagues that they had, and people were surprised that nixon did as well they did. people that worked with him and around him. so i don't know. it's a case -- it's early years of public perception being almost more important than who the people were. the public perception against humphrey was so strong it really became something quite different. people perceived him as someone quite different than he really was. with nixon, nixon appeared confident and in charge and you know he was -- he looked different than he turned out to be, obviously, with watergate. >> let me just share one ad from 1968 called the voting booth. it really goes to the essence of the democratic strategy as they try to coelesce that new deem. here's how the humphrey campaign tried to use that in 1968. >> a lot of democrats have done for you? let's think about it. your ki

so i think that the various things they devised for negotiations and all were primarily those that came out of nixon's mind and that the person who would do the negotiating then would be kissinger. i didn't go on the first trip, though zeigler and i had a job of trying to select who of the hundred people could go from the press corps. that was a political fight. haldeman didn't want some because they were not friendly enough. >> why did you not go on the trip? >> i was told somebody had to stay back and keep things going in washington. >> who thought about the television images of the trip to china back at this time? who was thinking about the public affairs part of the trip, scheduling and -- >> zeigler and i did primarily because we had to collect who was going to go. we were -- i arranged to have a number of like henry porter, write each one like a chapter out after book so we could have an intant book. television probably came mainly from roger hails. >> we talk about photo opportunities in terms of reagan. who was thinking about photo opportunities in china? >> i don't think anybody -- we didn't

relations opening up the doors to china and president richard nixon's historic visit to beijing. >>> back to washington, back to the budget debate and we heard earlier in the hour from jeff zinins, testifying on capitol hill, one of the number of the president's cabinet secretaries, discussing the 2013 budget plans. it calls for taxes on wealthy americans. a republican of idaho, he questioned the obm director on when the budget ultimately will be cut facing a debt and growing. >> the concern that i have it's now time to prepare the 2012 budget. we still hear that it's not time yet. for us to begin the austerity part of controlling spending at the federal level but we still have to engage on the spending side. we're not there. my question rhetorically is, can when will we ever get to step two? and the question i do want to ask you is about this budget -- i have seen a lot of budgets in congress, i have analyzed a lot of congressional budgets and one of the biggest problems that i think we have that we overlook every year is that you have a built, in this case a ten-year budget that mak

dollars from the subtle but walker is peeling twenty five million off the top of it to cover general state expenses democratic governor jay nixon is playing do the same thing with the settlement funds in his home state of missouri so how are homeowners once again getting a raw deal while the banks once again make off like bandits literally conservative commentator david sullivan joins me now to give us his take david welcome back. thanks for having me as always it's a pleasure being allowed to take the other side of the position of well in that case love me as the obvious question why do you hate all moaners. well i only ate some homeowners and i want to tell you and your listening audience we should really sympathize with these banks they have been victimized by some of wisconsin's failed liberal policies and by unscrupulous borrowers many of whom or illegal aliens who really did not qualify who lied about their income on their no income check mortgages and subsequently defaulted those poor people they brought out they brought down our economy is that we are saying really those people or volunteers they weren't victims and the

state will take a forty million dollars from the one hundred forty million dollars dollar settlement to use for funding public universities governor jay nixon took this settlement as a way for him to get back on everyone's good side after he originally announced a twelve percent cut for public schools and make some saw the settlement as a way to fix his budget problem and conveniently analysis transfer of money last week now made is planning on following in nixon and locks are all his footsteps in the state as a whole be receiving twenty one million dollars and eight point two million will be headed to the government attorneys general william schneider has already said that five point seven of that eight million is going to go toward the general fund so we can only imagine where that money is going to end up certainly not homeowners hands those are three different examples of the same travesty states taking money and intended to help prevent future foreclosure crises that help fix the current crisis that's going on and moving that money to fix their troubled budgets that they're responsible for those obama shaking his head yes well he shoul

the woman. you created a new way to look at pat nixon. ary woods as we recall from that still photo of the 18 and a half minute gap. you looked at her as the loyal, trusted and spritely, loyal secretary and alex along with roosevelt that one of the most dynamic portraits. >> nixon did go to her 90th birthday party. she was still completely with it as she closed in on 90. watergate, she couldn't get enough of it. she was sort of my witching chorus in the novel. she was the person with the longest memory and could see the comedy of it. had been close to the nixones from the time he got to town in the 1940s. >> you've imagined her as to giving him advice of handling the scandal. >> she was in the nixon white house an awful lot but not quite as much as i have her there. >> just the value of creating a fictional account of watergate, what does this bring us? >> i think if you speculate on how it felt to people, what motivated them. rose mary goods with a good example. she comes down to that one awful memory of the photograph of her stretching.

he stole the show. nixon. nixon gave a speech, and it was okay. i would give it a b. but he wasn't really, and humphrey got up and he was the funniest thing you have ever seen. he went up for seven minutes and he never sat down. and he went on and on and on. lost thet his humor was terrifi. that's what they like. and kennedy was wonderful at that. my father told me not to buyd s great at that, and he was much better than nixon was, and humphrey did a great job but he lost the night because of that. this is the gentleman -- let me give you some -- you mentioned on speeches. i'll say this. jack kennedy said if you've talked for 20 minutes and you haven't convinced the audience, you're not going to, and you start losing them after 20 minutes. make it brief if you'-- if you'g to speak to an audience, make understandable language, and also use anecdo eecdotes and st to the degree you can. in close, make it uplifting, make it positive. go for the 20 minutes. that's what i think is best. and if you want to have q and a with a friendly audience, that's fine, but do not talk wi

thought that was fought the nixon rational republicans were followed by the radical republicans again oh reagan rain comes in office created the biggest tax cut for the rich since warren harding which produced and by the way that was so bad i mean that hurt the budget so badly that he also passed the biggest tax increase on working people in the entire history of the united states he started a war on working people by busting the pac oh you know this was in the spirit of the do nothing congress in one hundred forty six forty seven after the result of reagan's tax cuts massive tax codes and his war and working people was a twelve percent unemployment rate a great market crash these were the worst since the great depression the rate of ministration of the most convicted criminals that any administration in history and produced the biggest debt in history that was followed by the rational republicans george h.w. bush course the radicals didn't like him much they kicked him out of office and they end he was followed by his son the the irrational george w. bush cu

and the number one product in the shop, president nixon and elvis in many different forms. tim naftali, the moderator of tonight's program, is the director of the richard nixon presidential library and museum in yorba linda, california. before joining the archives tim taught history at several universities including the university of virginia. there he served as director of the presidential recordings program at the miller center of public affairs. as director he oversaw a team of researchers who transcribed and annotated meetings and telephone conversations secretly recorded by presidents roosevelt, truman, eisenhower, kennedy, johnson, and nixon. tim is a prolific writer for both popular and scholarly audiences. his work has appeared on slate.com, "the new york times," "the washington post," foreign affairs, and other publications. he's appeared on national public radio, the history channel, and c-span. he's the author or co-author of four books, including two involving the cold war and nikita khrushchev. his most recent book, a biography of former president george h.w. bu

ira talks about this in the apocalypse, but it's a long, involved thing. i think nixon looked upon this coming out of the vice presidency and coming out of his own presidency as part of his training. it was an acceptable thing. here is the general of the army, the 800 pound gorilla who did it through france and wherever he was and with whatever force he needed to use. there's a mir yayed of ways we can go into this and if you want to talk about it later and go into it further, but i do think that his background comes from the training under eisenhower and the use of military power. >> i proposed that although it had to do with journalives and not scholars also. he told me that he expected to be put under a microscope, that when they used to practice it was going too far, and i think books like abraham, some of the psycho -- >> they weren't se psychobiographies and they had never met and brodie's book from which i say is just the worst case explanation for anything and then accepted. the poignant thing early on is that when he came in from vietnam, he came in with great

appointed him to the supreme court and he got his chance to do just that did did nixon in your opinion no the paul was all about this kind of stuff you know let's because it causes so many things came out of this away from heritage and cato and all these think tanks and federalist. or did nixon just think he was a because he had been asked before to be on the supreme court he turned it down yeah and at the time nixon actually had two nominations that had gone south of the .

the nixon library in southern california will present a major exhibit about mrs. nixon's life opening march 16. and the national archives in washington will host a forum for her work in april. thelma kathryn ryan was born on the eve of st. patrick's day on march 16, 1912 in nevada, a mining town. her father, william ryan, called her his st. patrick's babe in the morn, so she was called pat within hours of her birth. the ryans moved to southern california for a better life and settled on a small truck farm in arteeshia -- artesia. a young person of tremendous courage and determination, mrs. nixon had her heart set on higher education and work continually to secure the necessary funds. she drove an elderly couple to the east coast and worked as an x-ray technician in new york. returning, she graduated magna cum laude. she held part-time jobs on campus and was a department store salesclerk and a hollywood extra, appearing in several motion pictures, including the 1935 film "becky sharp." mrs. nixon taught at at a high school in the late 1930's where she met her husban

relations opening up the doors to china and president richard nixon's historic visit to beijing. back to washington. back to the budget debate. we heard earlier in the hour from jeffrey zions. testifying on capitol hill, one of a number of the president's cabinet secretaries and administration officials discussing the 2013 budget plan that includes taxes on wealthy americans. mike crapo is a republican of i'd eye. he questioned the director on when the budget ultimately will be cut facing with a $16 trillion debt and growing. >> the concern i have that it's now time to prepare the 2012 budget. we still hear that it's not time yet for us to begin the austerity part of controlling spending at the federal level. but we're not there. my question, restorically is when will we ever get to step two? and the question i want to ask you about is this budget. i've seen a lot of budgets in congress. i've analyzed a lot of congressional budgets. one of the biggest problems that i think we have, is that you have a budget, in this case, over a ten-year period of time. but it's only the first yea

special line on the special exhibit "what's cooking uncle sam sam" the number one item in the shop, president nixon and elvis in many forms. >>> tim naftali director of the richard nixon museum. he taught history at several universities, including university of virginia, he oversaw a team of researchers who transcribed and an oh take itted meetings recorded by presidents roosevelt, truman, eisenhower, kennedy, johnson nixon. a popular writer, his work amend on slate.com, the new york times, foreign affair and has appeared on national public radio history channel and cspan. he's the author or co-author of four books including two involving the cold war, and nikita khruschev. his most recent book biography of george bush, undergraduate degree from yale, please welcome tim naftali and tonight's panel. [ applause ] >>> gooding -- good evening. join me in welcoming the three members of our panel to the stage. [ applause ] you will be

. >> 89-year-old henry kissinger, secretary of state in the nixon and ford administrations, played a key role as a national security adviser and later secretary of state in opening the doors so china. this month, of course, marking the 40th anniversary of that iconic moment as richard nixon walking through the great wall of china and toasting chairman in beijing. celebrating the commemoration of opening relations between our two nations and there are a number of stories related to this 40th anniversary, especially on the "washington post" and "the new york times" website. let's turn to politics. >>> from politico, jonathan martin writing ric santorum may be leading in michigan polls but you wouldn't know it from talking to mitt romney's most prominent backers two weeks before the increasingly pivotal showdown in romney's state of michigan and michigan supporters are kpuding confidence that he'll win and win easily and send santorum into the process. ric santorum is ahead in michigan and a new poll showing he's ahead in ohio. one of a number of states with super tuesday primaries on ma

and the number one product in the shop, president nixon and elvis in many different forms. tim naftali, the moderator of tonight's program, is the director of the richard nixon presidential library and museum in california. before joining the archives tim taught his ri at several universities including the university of virginia. there he served as director of the presidential recordings program at the miller center of public affairs. as director he ever saw a team of resenchers who transcribed and annotated meetings and telephone conversations secretly

we have seen administrations going back to the nixon administration and the gold standard and getting the u.s. oft gold standard and the plaza accords intervening to make the dollar more competitive. they have done it in a way where the dollar can still be traded on the open market. it is not the classic definition which is what china does. they are not supposed to do that under their obligations to the international monetary fund. we have not held them to account yet. >> one last call from laurel, maryland. hi, richard. >> caller: hello. thank you for taking my call. i have an anecdote and also a question. the anecdote is this, i was having chinese food the other day and at the end of the meal, you get the chinese cookie. i looked down on the package and it said "made in the usa." i said what an irony. anyhow, i was in business from 1960 to 1990. 30 years. if ever i was able to get a job big enough, contracted job big enough that i needed 100 people to do this job, and i was able to get 100 people, but eight of them didn't show up, that would be 8%. that's what the unemployment rate

of those weapons the us sold historically more than four hundred billion dollars worth of since the nixon sixty's have gone to the middle east and you can't argue. seriously their region anymore stable in the past few years nearly fifty percent of u.s. weapons exports have been flowing to the middle east many countries with the biggest appetite for american weapons have also made headlines for carrying out brutal crackdowns against dissidents and opposition groups if you are you're ok for their thought you're not i mean this is for all of us who have been overseas the duplicity in a park or sea of american foreign policy is painfully. evident according to congressional figures america has sold one point four billion dollars worth of weapons to bahrain since two thousand and america struck its single biggest arms deal when saudi arabia ordered sixty billion dollars worth of arms the us has long subsidize the israeli military and recently supplied them with bunker buster bombs experts say this strategic arming. middle eastern countries is aimed at iran and extending u.s. dominance in the re

presidential ballots how many other than last time more than two dozen hominy of those did not carry the name nixon dollar bush. fraction three four one one one hundred sixty four goldwater miller it was the only one since nine hundred fifty two who didn't have one of those three and prescott was fifty two in fifty eight and the bushes were eighty eighty four eighty eight ninety two two thousand two thousand and four and so will be two thousand and twelve there's a lot of talk about you know they're going to roll jeb. he's he speaks spanish he's he's articulate he's a guy that popular governor of florida actually is yeah and he's the guy that they were going to put out in two thousand and karl rove blew that up much to the chagrin of the bush family well and former governors of course kerry that kind of cost that they were in charge of an entire economy somebody like mitch daniels has really high marks for fiscal stewardship maybe that's what ticket needs sort of if it's going to be iraq has a lot of negatives he's got a lot of people who dislike him and i'm not sure that always issue and they all

"sunday london times" the nixon administration. and i used to swim on the back of henry kissinger. he come over and i'd swim and he was bombing cambodia at the same time but who knew. >> rose: but he had a broad back. >> he did. he had a fantastic back to hold on to, and if you're going to do a turtle with an older man-- for me, i didn't know any different. this was the world i grew up in. if somebody was late for tennis practice, a parent, it's because they were signing a salt treaty-- you know, everything was -- >> you knew about the salt treaty, didn't you? >> of course. >> rose: i thought so. >> of course! >> rose: you fled that scene to go out to hollywood because you wanted to be an actor. >> i did. always from the get-go. even-- you know, we would be grilled on current events at the dinner table, and i would always be funny and imitate people. so i graduated from n.y.companied, and went to hollywood. and was on my first big job was "in living color." >> rose: tell me how you auditioned for that job because if you had gone in