. >> how did you escape the rath of bob haldeman? >> i never knew. i don't think haldeman had a clue i was over there for a long time. >> if he had seen your office. >> if he had seen my political pedigree, seen my office and what a geek i was, he probably would have said forget it, we or not bringing this guy in here. ray was an extraordinarily good writer and he was a wonderful mentor for me and he really -- we spent a lot of time together. evenings i recall most vividly, at that time barack obama actually does this regularly now. but that time richard nixon on saturday liked to have a pact of the most interesting letters from the week, 20 or 25 or 30 because he could get a sense of what the public mood was and the tenor of letters is actually interesting. and there are 50 people on the staff that ray ran we had this correspondence unit. all the letters came through. we had a woman who wrote special letters. they would send up a bundle of letters, like 200 or something, 300 they thought was the most interesting. it was my responsibility to sift the

but at the end of -- after the election was over, ray went to bob haldeman and said, bob, i'd like to move into more of a counselor role. i'd like not to run this large staff, but i'd like to continue working with the president on big speeches and being an intellectual in residence which i thought was a great role for ray. at that time he recommended to bob haldeman that i become head of the speech writing staff which surprised me because i was just a kid and given my background. then haldeman called me over for a conversation and we had one. he offered me the job, which i accepted. it was some unhappiness at home, putting some unhappiness is a very mild phrase. in any event i agreed to do that. >> unhappiness because more hours of work? >> hugely long. just endless. but i really liked the people. lee huebner became my deputy. john coin, a wonderful group of people. but i remember walking back and i was thinking to myself, i don't know, it was like -- it must have been around 30 in there. i said, you know my goal in life -- this is a long time ago, i think it's really important in lif

pat buchanan and then next in line sitting on the sofa is the chief of staff of the white house, bob haldeman. carefully taking notes as he always did. then comes bill gavin. he's followed by jim keogh. he was the first director of the white house staff. he passed away about five years ago. earlier executive editor of "time" magazine and head of the usia. ray price took jim keogh's place as director. finally to the right, closest to president nixon, you'll recognize william sapphire who died less than two years ago. whom we all this afternoon are thinking of with special affection. now having introduced them through their photos, let me welcome them in person and invite our white house speech writing panel to the stage. very quickly, ray price, the chief speech writer for much of nixon's tenure. joined the new york staff in 1967. he had served earlier at editorial page editor at the new york herald tribune and later as president of economic club of new york. his memoir is called "with nixon." highly recommended. pat buchanan, a journalist democrat before he became the first full-time advisor

know who it was at the time, haldeman or ziegler or someone have gergen tell woodward x. so it was all through channels. as a result, bob woodward and i had periodic conversations in which he was looking for help on a story and i would try to plug him in with somebody there, sometimes ziegler and, you know, i knew he had other contacts but i was one. but he and i would have these conversations about what was really happening. and we both began to understand that he was playing with the pillars of the government. i mean, his stories were starting to really threaten those pillars. and it was so interesting because he had a -- what i was hearing inside was so different from what he was gathering in his reporting. the world that was being painted for me on the inside as a player inside was a much, much more innocent, they don't understand, they don't get it. they're just out to get us. this is the liberal press. they're trying to bring us down. it's kay graham is just, you know, on a vendetta against nixon. she's never liked him, etcetera, etcetera. and what i then was discovering was woodward was getting a much sharper vie