one of them was married to richard nixon's daughter, tricia cox -- tricia nixon cox, a candidate for that job. i thought i have a zero chance, a great chance to go to the white house. this is a lark. it was very fun. i told him i said you ought to know i voted for humphrey. i'm actually a great admirer of richard nixon's foreign policy. i'm more liberal that this domestic policy. but i'm interested in talking to you. i know you're going to hire somebody else. i was in north carolina, was right on the verge of accepting a job there when the phone rang. they fished me out. it was the white house calling. it was ray price on the line. he said i interview everybody, i'd like you to come to work for me. i said i can't believe it. i said, i want to remind you. he said that's fine. he said why don't you come for a year, it's 1971. we won't have an election campaign. i'll try you out, you try me out. we'll see how it fits. but i think we need diversity around here. i like the fact that you have views that are not consistent with everybody else. we have pat buchanan as far over to the right a

as i recall, i called richard nixon for all of the flaws of that generation and for all of nixon's enormous flaws as president. there were parts of that legacy that should be remembered in a positive way as well as the things that we all bowed and wondered how did we ever get there. how did the tragedy ever unfold? >> let me ask you, do you recall president clinton's response to the message about nafta? >> well, i think it was then that he may have told me about russia. i can't remember the exact sequencing, but it's very important that president clinton took his advice and did exactly what he said. i thought that was one of the bravest moments of president nixon's. he took on his own -- and he got bashed for it, but as you'll remember that's when he called in the former presidents who could come and visit there to support him and stand with him, and i have a -- very positive memories of the way george h.w. bush and jimmy carter and jerry ford as i recall all came here to support that in day one and that was exactly what nixon would recall, and that is when the chips are down and people sta

richard nixon. you see, soaring rhetoric alone cannot sustain a presidency. it takes substance. but substance without sizzle cannot persuade. every administration struggles with a combination of substance and sizzle to show presidential leadership. how that was worked out with our 37th president is the topic today. and we have an excellent moderator with us that i'd like to introduce right now. lee huebner. [ applause ] >> lee came to richard nixon's attention in 1962 as the co-founder of the ripon society at the university of wisconsin and he worked with richard nixon in what we call the wilderness years when he was a private citizen and successfully was with him in the 1968 campaign when he was elected president. so lee became the youngest member of a speech writeing team that started on nixon's white house staff and he was, by no means, the least contributor. he had opinion with the man for so long, he was a contributor from the very outset. at the end of his white house years, he then became the

and halderman got up to see nixon and nixon didn't recognize him. they hadn't seen each other in such a long time. they literally -- and he literally didn't catch who he was. bob halderman had been central to his presidency. but the other thing was, when i got up, i was sort of toward the end of the line, and nixon said, come on. i want to show you some of the library. we walked around together. and what was really striking was, he said, i want you to see this part of the library first. we walked through the domestic side of the library. i want you to know my domestic presidency was as important to me as my foreign policy. we never thought that when he was president. he used to be -- make disparaging remarks about being a domestic president. the real issues were in the foreign policy side. of course, he devoted most of his time. but he was very proud of the domestic legacy and wanted to talk about the war on cancer and what he'd done in health care and his efforts on the environment and, you know, he brought us the epa. he'd lost on health care, of

and richard nixon -- >> i don't remember that phrase, pat, but -- >> richard nixon went out also and he became -- agnew was supposed to carry the hod, be the bayonet of the party. richard nixon went out and began taking up some of the themes. we were using with the vice president. he came off as exceedingly harsh. ed muskey had that famous cape st. elizabeth address on national television where he was calm and statesman-like, they say we're for crime, and that's a lie. they know it's a lie. clearly we were looking for an up, positive thrust. and put that election behind us. >> john mitchell even said of the '70 campaign, looks like we're running for sheriff. there was a backing away maybe from some of that harsher rhetoric. ken, you came to the white house just at that time. you were involved in trying to rally a lot of people on behalf of the cause. what do you recollect? >> i rise in tribute to the junior speechwriters in the white house. you had the murderers row of buchan buchanan, saffire and price and then a whole tribe of us who were really jr. speechwriters who never got to w

i must also observe that it's been a forum that nixon might love, nixon's mother might love, but it's also taking place at a university. so one of the questions i have is this. the title of the panel is "writing for 37." nixon has been presented in a certain kind of way. we might reflect on certain aspects of the controversies of the vietnam war, bombing of cambodia is not something we perhaps want to be laughing about. nixon did prosecute a war for another four years, got the same peace deal he could have gotten in 1969. nixon was someone who inaugurated a southern strategy, american politics, using race in a very ugly way. and then we have watergate, an umbrella term for a wide range of trillion activities. criminal activities. the smoking gun tape did not reveal a perceived credibility gap. there was a huge gap. the elephant in the room here, as the distinguished gentlemen on the forum are implicated, in this. what's it like to write for a president who should have been driven from office? that would be fascinating to reflect on now that we've had some 35 years to think about that.

but nixon could pull that off. and i've always admired that part of him, and i believe to this day that it came -- that his capacity for strategic thinking came from an extraordinary amount of discipline and hard work and a lot of reading. i've never known a president who took history as seriously as he did, who drew as much from it. i remember so well when he would ask -- ask pat moynihan for a list of books he could read late at night. he gave him this list. >> -- >> and that was even after -- i didn't know moynihan in those days. but i remember to this day when after moynihan left, the -- nixon would bring up the disraeli book. he recommended it to me to read, which i got a copy of and it was a biography. of course moynihan introduced -- wanted to talk about disraeli because he was the conservative prime minister who brought the welfare state to britain. just as bismarck had been a conservative bringing the welfare state to germany. and nixon was the only republican who has ever proposed universal health care in

here we are 40 years later and we're doing these panels with veterans of the nixon white house and nixon administration who can tell you about what it was like to be there. and, you know, we have almost the full original staff of speech writers. we're going to be talking about a lot of on other substantive areas as we go forth, but it is because there was a very, very young staff and we have matured quite nicely. you saw the colored hair in the beginning of it and you look across and we don't have that anymore. thank you all for coming. >>> a generation before president john f. kennedy acting on behalf of a grateful nation designated him an honorary american citizen, winston churchill paid his own heartfelt tribute to his transatlantic origins. appearing before a joint session of congress on the day after christmas, 1941, he puckishly observed, i cannot help reflecting that if my fathered had american and my mother british instead of the other way around i might have got here on my own. today outside the british embassy on massachusetts avenue churchill literally describes two nations wi

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 imp

but he was so articulate in defense of nixon policies and such encouragement to nixon, and nixon brought in kissinger to meet him, made a big thing of him. he went out from there, did his thing with help from staff, getting interviews to promote him as set to john kerry. who i had never met. knew him only from public appearances. i thought i had a balanced picture of the guy. nothing that happened since changed that picture. he is an interesting character. interesting isn't the right word. i did my best to undermine him. >> what did do you other than find john o'neal? >> probably called veterans organizations there was no attempt to smear other than some of the information picked up about him which wasn't very complimentary. i passed on to reporters. but there wasn't -- he is paranoid. he has an idea i ran this big campaign. said this in the 2004 election. he said wush people are pulling out the stops. they now have colson watching. didn't have anything to do with the 2004 campaign. met bush, had long conversations with him, but wasn't involved in the campaign. don't believe should be in

i didn't recognize the nixon of hole very stone. the nixon of nixon frost i recognize. but the nixon of oliver stone i didn't recognized. i thought this was a harsher portrayal than i thought was appropriate. i went to the preview in washington and i remember walking out and bob woodward and i were there walking out together. we compared notes. i think he shared my view, that it had too harsh a view of nixon. he came through as a real drunk there. that's not what i saw. i did know when you got closer in you saw the darker side more clearly. and you saw -- i thought what you saw when you got closer in also was a lot of vulnerability, personality vulnerability and loneliness. i have -- one night i was taking a speech to him over in the residence and you normally went over to the usher's office and asked the usher if you'd take it up to him, if you were late on trying to get a speech in for the next day. the usher said he's waiting for you but he's over at the old executive office building. he's bowling over there. he wants you to take it over to him. i said, fine, i'll be

he remained loyal to nixon. i'm sure pat, you know, pat came up from a -- i'm a big pat buchanan admirer and i've always enjoyed his company. and, you know, because he went to gonzaga and a good catholic background, great family. more conservative than i am but so what? but i don't know where he was on that. i do think pat -- pat was a real skeptic about my coming in there at first because is this guy qualified? and he was probably right. but he became a good colleague. i enjoyed working with pat. but i do want to say this. as this was going on and i was also in a phone contact with bob woodward. in fact, john dean later thought i was deep throat, which i wasn't, but bob woodward and i had gone to college together. we didn't know each other in college but had gotten to know each other in washington after we both got there, and he and woodward -- he and bob had teamed up on the watergate story. and he started calling me. i remember the first call i got he was at "the washington post" and they -- it was like 8:00

he was so articulate in defense of the nixon policies and such encouragement to nixon.ade a big thing of it. he went in there and did a lot of his things. he got interviews and that sort of things to promote him as an offset to john kerry and who i had never met. i picked up a lot about him from people who knew him. i had a pretty balanced picture of the guy. nothing that has change that picture. he is a very interesting character. i did my best to undermine him. >> what did you do other than finding john o'neill? >> we probably cut veterans' organizations. there is no black operation. there is no attempt to smear him of them in some of the information i picked up about him that was not very complimentary. he is paranoid. he has this idea that i ran a big campaign. he said this in the 2004 election. he said that the nixon people are pulling all the stops. and do not believe that should be involved in a campaign. i tell you what kind of a guy carry is. this is interesting. i went to the national bar breakfast in the early '90s. one of the speakers was announced with john

she's also the second daughter of president richard nixon. julie is also a best selling author, editor and a recognized public speaker on such subjects as the presidency, women in politics and life in the white house. she began her career as a writer for and then assistant managing editor of "the saturday evening post." julie eisenhower's books include "pat nixon, the untold story," as well as "special people" and julie eisenhower's cook book for children. julie eisenhower has served on several non-profit boards and serves as a trustee of the richard nixon foundation, the nixon center and the eisenhower medical center. after graduating from smith college, she earned a master of arts from catholic university of america. when david's book "eisenhower at war" and julie's book, "pat nixon, the untold story" were published in 1986, it was the first time a husband and wife each had a book appearing simultaneously on the "new york times" nonfiction best-sellers list. please join me in welcoming mark and david and julie eisenhower. [ applause ] >> th

eisenhower and her family, vice president richard nixon. julie nixon married david eisenhower in 1968 just before her father took his own presidential oath of office. they recently collaborated on the book "going home to glory: a memoir of life with dwight d. eisenhower, 1961 to 1969." in this conversation at the lyndon b. johnson presidential library, the eisenhowers recall ike's presidency and later retirement in gettysburg, pennsylvania. the relationship between ike and his vice president and the reasons that propelled richard nixon to make another run at the presidency after his close closes loss to john f. kennedy in 1960. this program is one hour and 15 minutes. >>> good evening and welcome to our program tonight. i'm done carlton. i have to get my classes out or i won't be able to see what i'm talking about. i'm the director of the university's to be brisco center for american history. the brisco center is delighted to join with the lbj library in co-sponsoring tonight's program featuring david and julie eisenhower's fascinating book

i mean, i could tell when nixon was putting on an act and when nixon was manipulating people. i've been with him enough. i was enough like him, actually, interestingly enough, that i knew when he was doing things for effect and when he wasn't. he was genuinely concerned that there could be a wholesale breakdown in our security system and we would get cia assets exposed. we would get secret operations like national security study memorandum number one which was a contingency plan for vietnam out in the public domain and this could be catastrophic with us particularly in our relationships then which he knew about, most of the people didn't, and i didn't in detail, that were going on with russia and the soviet union, soviet union and china. so he was aware of the consequences more than anybody else. more than kissinger, i think. and he was genuinely alarmed and told me we had to do something to stop. we had to get these -- told mitchell to go ahead and sue the papers. get a restraining order in the court, which, of course, failed. and told me to do whatever it took. find out who

he felt he should apologize to nixon because he felt he had done something it hurt nixon. you didn't, you felt that the blame could be shared. >> i didn't apologize to him because, basically, i was doing exactly what he told me to do. and i didn't really think i was involved in watergate and i had given him, turns out the assistant prosecutor told me i was the only one who had done this. i had given the right advice. get rid of the people who did this and hire a special investigator. technically, i left the conspiracy when i did that. but it didn't matter because i had already pled guilty. but i realized if he had taken my advice, he might still be president. so, i didn't feel i owed him an apology, no. >> so, did he disappoint you? >> sure, of course. but i also understood the man. families disappoint each other sometimes, but you're still family. >> thanks for spending time with us today. >> thank you, tim,

and the nixon pardon has had terrible ramifications. we've are other pardons of top flight government officials who clearly engaged in wrongdoing and now -- and we're permitted to go free. it's happened with president bush one. questions have been raised about president bush 2 will issue the pardon. so i think it set -- it ended -- the watergate proceedings was a bad taste, at least in my mouth and i think it established a bad precedence in the future. high government officials can expect a pardon if they do something wrong, and criminal. >> there's -- there has been some talk that the barrpardon d provide some healing. >> i think that's nonsense. i think the healing took place -- first of all, there is no healing. we're grownups. oh, we can't survive an impeachment, they said that. the country can't stand it. guess what, we can withstand it no problem. to the extent there was any division, in my mind, the impeachment process brought the country together because whether hu voted for nixon, whether you were republican, an independent, a

franks nixon literally went to a catalog. it wasn't a sears roebuck catalog or a montgomery ward catalog. we still don't know the identification of the manufacturer of this wonderful house. but we know that it was a kit house. he actually took his horse and buggy and drove it to the train station. there's actually a section of the train still there on imperial highway that you can see. frank nixon brought these boxes and crates back to this yorba linda site and built this wonderful house. as you can see, as i mentioned to yourks it's never been moved. as you look around to seerks the mill house, nixon family came to this area to raise a family. so 300 orange trees and 300 lemon trees were planted by frank nixon, but they did struggle financially. and hannah nixon would actually walk to a packinghouse. there was two packinghouses here in yorba linda. and to help with the income, she actually would go back lemons. she would walk over there. remember, there was no concrete and there was no cement. it was lots of dirt, lots of mu

he was troubled by what was going on in the nixon white house. he was also trying to protect the fbi and people forget about, this he was not a volunteer. he didn't come to us. we went to him and i actually was -- you used the term stalker to get him to talk. >> there's another fundamental flaw in this book. bob maybe won't be as forth right as i am about it it, and that is the idea that felt somehow played us, tricked us. that we obtained information all over the lot. it was rare he volunteered information. he would certainly confirm it. certainly the idea that he played us is uter nonsense. the people who got police department were the prosecutors. and they really good played prp partly because the attorney general and assistant attorney general were in on the play and we wrote it. >> the panel is called how would the story unfold in the digital age. i want to bring other people in as well. josh, tell us where does watergate fit in your life and how do you see investigative reporting today? >> i think like everybody else it's the totemic invest

was nixon devoted to eisenhower, and did eisenhower value nixon's service as subordinant? finally the general's come up with an assignment. it's been a year or so forth. he's writing in his diary and so forth. and when he returns to manila. literally his key would not fit in the lock. his successor has been appointed. eisenhower confides in his diary saying, i will not give the general the satisfaction knowing i'm being fired. what general macarthur is telling the war department is that this is the finest oftser i've encountered in the united states army and the moment war breaks out in europe he should be detailed to high command immediately. mcarthur is firing him and recommending him for high command. i think what that means is macarthur understood he did not have a staff officer on his hands. eisenhower, as much as he wanted to, he will never be a staff officer. so this thing generates into a series of misunderstandings. macarthur is driven to call eisenhower the best clerk i ever had. eisenhower is driven to call him the greatest instructor of dramatics i ever studied

people said, was nixon devoted to eisenhower as a subordinant and did nixon value as a subordinant. i ran off to the united states to do work, finally, you know, the general has come up with an assignment, it has been a year, so forth. i have been bored to tears and when he returns to manila, literally, his key does not fit in the lock. his appointment, his successor has been appointed in his absence and eisenhower confides in his journal i will not give the satisfaction of knowing i was being fired. what action he is telling the war department is that this is the finest that i have encountered in the united states army and he should be detailed to high command immediately. mcarthur's firing him and recommending him for high command. and i think what that means is mcarthur understood he did not have a staff officer on his hands. eisenhower, as much as he wanted to serve mcarthur, he is never going to be a staff sergeant. so, mcarthur is finally driven to call ieisenhower "the best clerk i ever had." but, you know, they went their separate ways. what we personally saw, what we narrat

and there is richard nixon. has the responsibility and the high purpose of president of the united states and he wants to

this is the birthplace of president nixon. i'm very excited and pleased to tell you that the most often asked question i get out here, has the house ever been moved? and, no, it's never been moved. it's always been on this spot. it's actually a kit house. and please use your imagination for a moment, because let's go back to 1912. in 1912 frank and hannah nixon arrived in this area, and believe it or not, there was only 200 people in population in yorba linda. now there are thousands. look around. see how beautiful the grounds are here today. 1912, there was plenty of lemons and orange groves and frank and hannah nixon arrived here and thought, what a great place to raise a family. he literally, frank nixon literally went through a catalog. it wasn't a sears catalog, and wasn't a montgomery ward catalog. we still don't know the identification of the manufacturer of this wonderful house and, but we know that it was a kit house. so he actually took his horse and buggy and drove it to the train station. there's actually a section

in the other room you saw the picture of my presenting that to nixon. as part of a subcommittee that urlachman had created to vet my idea, which included general counsel of transportation, general counsel of commerce, jim lin, and various white house officials. you saw i met with the president. we met with the president. sitting on the other side of the table was a white-haired gentleman who had been in congress with nixon when taft-hartley was passed and was quite conversant to the taft-hartley bit. there was a real engaged discussion about the pros and cons of this domestic initiative. when i went out of the meeting, i turned to ed morgan to ask who was the white-haired gentleman sitting on nixon's side of the table. he said, that's george mckinnen. at which point i had judge mckinnen? he was a judge on my court now he said yes. you can't have a federal judge sitting in on the development of legislation. why not? don't you remember what happened with fortis? federal judges can't be involved with developing policies matters. neither morgan nor urlachma

that's the end of nixon. >> that is the end of nixon. we almost had the same thing happen seven or eight years ago. bush and mueller. >> jon: that's right. this is about the data collecting. >> that's the secret electronic eavesdropping program that bush into place after 9/11 where the n.s.a.is reading your email and everybody else's email in the world. feeding it to the f.b.i.. mueller is the head of the f.b.i. goes to bush and says, mr. president, it's too much. it's illegal. it's unconstitutional. unless you take it back i quit. >> reporter: ashcroft said he would quit. >> that's right. the next day's headline. f.b.i. director quits. won't say why. what's the next question? what the hell is the president of the united states doing that is too secret for the f.b.i. director to talk about snn no, the next question would be, who you think he's banging? the first thing would be like f.b.i. steps down. they must have found something out on him. >> that's a whole different thing. >> jon: do you have five minutes? i want to talk very briefly

and it was for a number of years. >> did he talk about nixon -- president nixon? did he tell you what it had been like when it was just the two of them or the three of them with bud crowe? >> he talked about it a lot, and i know that's all he talked about when he went to graceland from talking to my friends. don't forget, i've left and i'm in los angeles and i don't see him for a little bit after that, but he -- i really think he had this real love for the president, you know? i think he understood how it was to be in that position, and the fact that the president was so gracious to see him, to listen to him, and to actually agree with him, and you know, they both made -- this tells where they both were coming from. the president could have used this for publicity and maybe as halderman or somebody said, this could be a great way to reach the youth. elvis could have used it, you know, as a pride and all that. they never told anybody. this was a private meeting between these two giants and i think it was over a year later did it come out of "the washington post." >

he met nixon. nixon took him on.nd he reinvented himself in 1966 and in 1968 when nixon won a close election to go on and become part. and pappas are the heart of the next frustration at a speechwriter in a time of extreme air conflict with america perhaps closest to civil wars and remarkable time. he is one of the very few people who emerged out of the nixon administration and out of watergate with a clean reputation and tom braden, your colleague once remarked of pat buchanan is the only former member of the nixon administration who didn't require a letter from a parole officer to go on tv. pat and went on to become one of the nation's first professional he tv pundits to show crossfire which radically change the way in which right-wing people appear. in times past conservatives tend to be at william f. buckley, you know, very sophisticated, quite a right, intellectual and very much dealing with a highly wrong with ideas. you can almost imagine him to eat and a shared record. things the style, the son of ordinary ro

richard nixon said. government must learn to take less from people so that people can do more for themselves. let us remember that america was built not by government but by people, not by welfare but by work, not by shirking responsibility but by seeking responsibility. in our own lives let us -- let each of us ask not just what will government do for me, but what can i do for myself. and i wonder, that comes pretty chose to what john kennedy said. >> it might be. i'd have to look back at his. but this was certainly central to what richard nixon was trying to do, uh-huh. >> what's the hardest thing about writing an inaugural speech? >> i don't know. i guess probably just feeling the weight of history on it. and you want to be much more careful about, be sure it's right, right in tone, right in substance, right for the occasion and also what you want to do, you want to lift the public up, you really do. and try to get your administration off to as good a start as you can and also give you a little levera

she met richard nixon.rned things from the exhibit. >> i knew she was in a band scene in the movies. >> pat nixon didn't show affection in the public but it there is love letters. >> i look in the stars and you have two people. she was practical and down to earth. and he was a romantic. >> some of the lasting images of pat nixon are sad ones of political defeats. but the real woman was a fighter. >> she was battered what happened . felt the election was stole yen she hated pictures of that night. it was the first time she lost her self control. and yes, the resignation was dev sphating. she wanted my father to fight. in her eyes he hadn't done anything wrong. but i remember she was always layoffing. >> i have you know, pandemonium is going to break out here. >> and pat nixon was an active first lady. she visited more than 80 countries including china and sent two pandas to the u.s. . credited to do more to fill the white house with american treasures than any first lady except dolly madison. in public there

and who would have known that pat nixon had a delicious sense of humor. the first couple of months of the nixon presidency, the president and his staff had just come back from europe, the first overseas trip, and apparently there were what lucy characterized as a couple of evil individuals in the west wing who thought it was the height of sophistication to return from paris with a large blowup doll. female doll for purposes we'll leave to their imagination. in anywhere event, word got back to the first lady who for some reason thought it would be appropriate to requisition the doll. she and lucy send it to the white house carpentry shop to be blown up. turned out the daughters of the american revolution were coming to the white house the next day, and president nixon, not knowing what was going on, had run into the secretary general of the der and said oh, listen, why don't you come early. you can come upstairs to the second floor. we'll show you around the private quarters. so cut to the picture of mrs. nixon and her social secretary getting off the elev