. >> bill rogers and dick nixon were close personal friends through most all of his career. he was his best friend in the eisenhower cabinet. henley would have liked -- haldeman would have liked to get rid of rogers, but they would never say that to dick nixon because dick nixon was loyal. >> he did marginalize. >> he marginalized what he was doing. bill rogers wasn't able to cope with the ability to wield power the way kissinger could do, they knew how to move things around in a tougher way. bill was just a very nice guy, a very smart guy and a very honest guy. >> fast forward a bit. did you see president nixon after he was resigned? how long after he resigned did you see him? >> well, i saw him frequently afterward, i don't know how often. the first call i had -- before he left the smoking gun tape had him talking to colson about me in which he said -- between he and colson said he's not our kind of guy, he's got egg on his face. that was kind of the quotes. i was playing golf with some friends and i got a call from a reporter that said you better get back to your office a

in march of 1968, milton eisenhower wrote agnew a letter saying although dick nixon is one of my best friends, we need to do everything we can to make sure that nixon doesn't get the republican nomination. agnew wrote back saying, i'm very interested in talking to you about this. if nixon had ever learned that agnew had done this, we can be sure that agnew never would have been the running mate. but nixon never performed any sort of background check on spiro agnew. i think this is absolutely fascinating. today vice presidential running mates are subjected before they are picked to background checks by the fbi. nixon never did anything, never asked agnew any questions. never asked anyone in maryland about agnew. perhaps he should have thought about that, before he chose anybody, he didn't. he eventually chose agnew. the choice was to put it mildly controversial. and agnew would become one of the most controversial vice presidents in the country's history. after they were elected, nixon and agnew never developed any sort of working relationship whatsoever. agnew was never part of the in

then i knew that dick nixon was always at his very best the tougher the questions. like some of the best things he did were with the cbs correspondent, dan rather, who he didn't like at all. one of his best interviews was with dan rather. so anyway, i talked him into doing it. >> he needed money, too, at that point. >> yeah. but it wasn't the money at that point. it was question whether he would go on the air. my hope was that out of that would come this thing everybody kept saying why don't you say it was wrong? he won't say that. so he came close to it

was dick nixon was loyal. >> but he did marginalize. >> yeah. marginalized what he was doing. but bill rogers wasn't able to cope with the ability to wield power that mel laird could do or henry kissinger could do. they were -- they knew how to move things around in a tougher way. bill is just a very nice guy, a very smart guy and a very honest guy. >> fast forward a bit. did you see president nixon after he resigned -- how long after he resigned did you see president nixon? >> well, i saw him frequently afterward. i don't know how often. the first call i had after san clemente, before he left, the smoking gun tape had him talking to colson about me in which he said between he and colson said he is not our kind of guy, he's got egg on his face. those were the kind of quotes. and i was playing golf with some friends and i got a call from a reporter who said you better get back to your office and see what's been said. the way i treated it was, we're friend and i've sure heard a lot of things said in a locker room which people don't really mean so

when, okay, election night he loses and the famous press conference where he says you won't have dick nixon to come around anymore, kick around anymore. john elicman writes this was under the influence of a whole lot of scotch when he made that -- when he made that speech. nixon later on wrote that he never regretted saying that kind of thing. saying that at all. because he thought that was partially responsible for him getting more positive press coverage as he moved back up in the political life in through the mid-1960s. by 1968, he once again starts wearing the hat of the zen master. he has figured out probably before anybody else that tv -- that network tv news had changed entirely in the 1960s. i think it started in 1963 was a huge year. cbs, nbc both went from 15-minute to 30-minute newscasts. that meant a lot more than just another 15 minutes. the nature of what those organizations was about changed as well. also the coverage of the 1963 kennedy assassination totally changed the way people looked at network news. it was being taken very seriously. and he falls in with a fellow by the

dick nixon is one of my dearest friends and the very next cause of the sentence is i cannot let him become president. earlier dr. golan wrote how eisenhower wrote that he could have stopped nixon from becoming the vice presidential candidate in '56. i think it's a personal thing. eisenhower just -- i recall that milton eisenhower wrote negative things about nixon's trip to moscow. he would later say that he was embarrassed that nixon carried some of the family name. milton is someone who probably deserves attention since he was the much more famous eisenhower in t i93 just think that mostly it was a personal thing. >> great. >> there was a gentleman right there, right next to him. >> bill, i think you rightfully say that we should look at the presidential elections as a conglomeration of 50 state elections and it got me to thinking about a couple of names that would benefit from hearing your folk's opinion on. i know spiro agnew was a rockefeller man and nixon in his letters that i saw in the nixon project was particularly impressed with himself that he was able to turn nelson away from ro

milton eisenhower writes saying don't get me wrong -- and this is almost a direct quote -- dick nixon is one of my dearest friends. and the very next clause in the sentence is, but i cannot let him become president. earlier dr. gelman was talking about how milton eisenhower wrote that his brother, dwight, could have stopped nixon from being the vice presidential candidate in '56. i think it's a personal thing. milton eisenhower just -- i recall that milton eisenhower wrote negative things about nixon's trip to moscow. he would later say that he was embarrassed that nixon carried some of the family name with eisenhower. milton is someone who probably deserves a lot more attention since he was the much more famous eisenhower in the 1930s. i just think mostly it was a personal thing. >> there's a gentleman right there right next to him. >> bill, i think you rightfully say we should look at the presidential elections as a conglomeration of 50 state elections. that got me to thinking about a couple of names that i think would -- we'd benefit from hearing your folks' opinion on. i know that

dick nixon on jack parr. ♪ ♪ >> well -- >> fascinating. fascinating.be that's my failing as a student of history. the bottom line for all of this stuff is if you're going to put yourself out there, you better do it well. because if you don't, everyone is going to be watching. >> danger point. is it a danger for this president? the republicans are already rung an ad just razzing him on this saying he's acting like he's celebrating and there's nothing to celebrate yet. let's take a look. here's the attack ad. ♪ come on baby, don't you want to go ♪ >> the republican national committee is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> okay. they have him celebrating the rising gas prices. that's a pretty nasty -- >> it's a clever ad. hat's off to the rnc. they made a clever ad. >> but he still did the right thing? >> absolutely. >> thanks, jill. i like direct statements. >>> when we return, let me finish with a book i'm worried about. rick santorum's charge that president obama subscribes to a phony theology. we've done some research on that question.

dick? was it jefferson, fillmore, eisenhower or nixon?> has to be nixon. >> reporter: virginia is the birthplace of the most presidents at eight. 31 states and the district of columbia have never claimed a native son as president. who is the best looking president? >> best looking? probably kennedy, obama. it's a tie. >> reporter: bruce johnson, 9 news now. >> i think those younger presidents may have an edge there. in 1943 franklin roosevelt made the first presidential flight. richard nixon was the first president to visit all 50 states and bill clinton set a record for the most trips abroad, 133 of them. wow. >>> okay, top, we've been trying to give you a tough time teasing you a bit about the snow which we thought was coming our way but hate friday we found out it wasn't. >> it did snow 2 inches in southern fauquier county. if you were in gaithersburg, you didn't see anything. >> didn't have to be that far out. >> raleigh saw 3, 4 inches. it was a bizarre little snow. let's start with the pictures. thank you, everybody, for sending the

dick? was it jefferson, fillmore, eisenhower or nixon? >> has to be nixon. >> reporter: virginia is the birthplace of the most presidents at eight. 31 states in the district of columbia have never claimed native son as president. who was the best looking president? >> the best looking? probably kennedy, obama. it's a tie. >> reporter: bruce johnson, 9 news now. >> in 1940 try franklin roosevelt made the first presidential flight -- 1943 franklin roosevelt made the first presidential flight and richard nixon was the first president to visit every state. >>> we've got new information on that nor rock an man charged -- moroccan man charged with plotting to blow up the u.s. capitol. he was arrested friday at a d.c. parking garage as prosecutors say he was headed to the capitol intending to blow himself up inside it. authorities say el khalifi thought he was meeting with al- qaeda operatives, but it was actually all part of a year long fbi undercover investigation and prosecutors say the weapons he got were duds. >>> if those explosives had be

nixon, but they didn't think he could win. it was the electability argument. we love you, dick, but we don't think you can win. you lost twice to kennedy and lost the governorship. the brainwashing was made in september of '67. romney -- one of his problems was he was perceived as on the liberal wing on the republican -- the rockefeller ring of the republican party. he contributed 400 grand to him. he was a rockefeller republican, and by '68, unlike '60 when nixon went up to cut the deal with rockefeller, '64 goldwater might have got beaten but we took over the party. it was the conservative party. the center of gravity moved south and west. so the people we needed to get to win the nomination was john tower, barry goldwater and strom thurm thurman, not nelson rockefeller. romney was perceived as that part of the party. i remember the late nick timmish. it w it was before the bible shlg. we were on park avenue at the fabricated offices. he said you better get up to new hampshire. romney is working extremely hard doing four or five coffees a day and he's really doing the state in retail politics. i went to pres

and dick cheney, that was his driving goal to bring back what he thought they had given away under jerry ford and richard nixon. and he started that with george w. bush. and in many ways the obama presidency has continued some of those -- almost super powers of the presidency in terms of when we go to war, the use of drones, without getting any approval from congress. i think they're very, very troubling questions about super powers of the presidency under this president and the last president that all americans ought to be concerned about. >> and one of our tweeters, it is the democratic party. not the democrat party. >> it is. you know, that's such a silly thing to hang on to. but republicans think they're being so cute, following rush limbaugh's lead by saying democrat party. i mean, it's childish. >> did you see the cpac conference over the weekend? >> i didn't go down there, but i saw certainly a lot of clips of it. you know what surprised me about that? is that mitt romney won the straw poll. the last two years, ron paul won the straw poll at cpac. these are the true believers. they really are. this is t

dick cheney, that was his driving goal, to bring back what he thought they had given away under jerry ford and richard nixonnd he started that with george w. bush and in many ways the obama presidency has continued some of those almost super powers of the presidency in terms of when we go to war, the use of drones without getting approval from congress. i think they are very, very troubling questions about super powers of the presidency under this president and the last president that all americans ought to be concerned about. host: and it is the democratic party, not the democratic party. guest: that's such a silly thing to hang on to but republicans think they're being so cute, following rush limbaugh's lead by saying, democratic party. it's childish. host: did you see the cpac conference over the weekend? guest: i didn't go down there. i saw a lot of clips of it. what surprised me is that mitt romney won the straw poll. the last two years, ron paul won the straw poll at cpac. this is the 38th year they've come to washington and the fact that santorum went in, i thought he would get it. the fact that mitt

dick cheney, that was his driving goal, to bring back what he thought they had given away under jerry ford and richard nixonnd he started that with george w. bush and in many ways the obama presidency has continued some of those almost super powers of the presidency in terms of when we go to war, the use of drones without getting approval from congress. i think they are very, very troubling questions about super powers of the presidency under this president and the last president that all americans ought to be concerned about. host: and it is the democratic party, not the democratic party. guest: that's such a silly thing to hang on to but republicans think they're being so cute, following rush limbaugh's lead by saying, democratic party. it's childish. host: did you see the c-pac conference over the weekend? guest: i didn't go down there. i saw a lot of clips of it. what surprised me is that mitt romney won the straw poll. the last two years, ron paul won the straw poll at c-pac. this is the 38th year they've come to washington and the fact that santorum went in, i thought he would get it. the fact that mi