it gives me great pleasure to introduce lee huebner, a long and good friend. lee? >> thanks, geoff, very much. it's wonderful to be here to see all of you here. i should thank geoff for the wonderful job he's done of steering these nixon legacy programs over the last year and a half. and the series continues, i know, in good form. geoff's also been a leader in keeping nixon alumni in touch over the years. our thanks to him and everyone at the nixon foundation and the george washington university who helped to make this program, have it come together. i'm wearing my george washington hat this afternoon. in that role, it's a pleasure to welcome all of you to the school of media and public affairs. i see many students and friends here and we're all so happy to welcome those joining us on c-span. when i first joined the white house staff in 1969, there were five of us writers. and i think we'll see a picture of that group here. that picture actually hangs in my office. has been ever since then. my office is now one floor above this auditorium. we're so pleased that all

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 life to be able to earn $1,000 for each year of your life. so if you're 30 years old, you ought to be earning $30,000. haldeman had offered me 27 in our meeting, and i took it. i just went back -- half hour after our meeting he called me and said, i've been thinking about our meeting. i like talking to you. i think you're going to be terrific, let's raise it to 30. i thought that's right, right there. hit the nail. boy, times have changed, haven't they? but i -- those were extremely tough years working nixon, '73, '74, and yet all of us learned a great deal about ourselves and about the country and about leadership. i frankly don't remember having very many innovations. we did have another writer named noel koch who was extremely gifted. a whole slew of people. i left o