nixon's funeral. but he was never a major player in the administration. of course, when you think about what might have been if agnew was president, we'll never know. thank you. [ applause ] >> following up on what we are talking about, nixon's relationship with the press. coming up as an undergrad, i remember watching all of this unfold. in fact, i was -- let me sound like an old fart for just a second. i was standing over the wire machine when it came out that ap said spiro agnew just resigned. i still have that piece of paper someplace. that relationship between nixon and the media was not always an tast nisic in any way, shape or form. and it's curious we keep on hearing the word "complex." it was very complicated, and it's even more complicated because if you think about his -- the years of his public life, 1946 through 1974, when he started in 1946, radio news had just recently become a factor in american life. radio news did not become a factor in american life until well into the 1930s. tv had just begun in 1946. and as for newspapers, he caught th

national security council round tables, you will find discussion with former officials in the nixon administration, one for the clinton administration, one for the george h.w. bush administration, etc. and these are aimed at giving people a real sense of how the process worked. and they're totally open. they're on the record, they're available to scholars. and in the, and we had one with former national security advisers. and to that we taped the text of our interviews. we also had an interview with brzezinski, but i think we weren't able to get him l to agree to publish the interview. >> host: and we have been talking with i.m. destler, "in the shadow of the oval office." dr. destler, thank you for your time. >> guest: it's been a pleasure, peter. thank you for having me. >> you're watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and be books on c-span2's booktv. >>> booktv explored the literary culture of beaumont, texas, with the help of our partner, time-warner cable. watch an interview from our time there next on booktv. >> i'm amelia wiggins, educator of public programs at the stark museum of art, an

i think a lot of the things that got set in motion during the nixon administration we're still living with. i think exponentially, as a matter of fact, i think it's even gotten worse as time goes on. [ applause ] >> i want to thank the nixon library and also the miller center and timothy neftali for pulling on this conference. especially mel small for arranging this volume that really opens up, i think, a whole lot of interesting possible projects of scholarship for the future. i'm going to talk about the 1960 election. we still live within the framework that ken white laid down in 1961 in his making of the president volume. teddy white's book sold millions of copies and invented a whole form of journalism reporting the presidential campaign in a package volume as a book. of course, white himself went on to do more volumes, although none as popular as that first one. only in recent years have a number of people come forward, including myself, to offer correctives to white's cheerleading account, really, for jfk's victory. one of the first of these was tom carty, who re-examined the ca

pat, you alluded to the tension between the nixon administration and the nixon campaign and then administration and the media, some of which was carried by speeches by president agnew, vice president agnew, and i understand a pretty good speech write writer had the phrase the bombs of neglect tichl to characterize the network anchors and reporterses. can you talk about how it's safe to say this was the historical moment which it happened. there was an inkling of conservatives about the media in the 1964 convention speech of dwight eisenhower. eisenhower was not a great, blazing or for, and he got up and made a statement like, and we don't need the advice of sensation-seeking columnists and commentators. in that convention, the roof went off it. it said americans at least conservatives had already taken to heart the idea that the media was negative. then in 1969 dafsh this was agnew's famous speech in des moines where he attacked all three networks. incidentally, i wrote na speech. i suggested the speech first to the president. he said go ahead with it. so i wrote it, and then i wrote -- i did t

the final will be perspective from someone within the nixon administration, frank gannon. he received his doctor of philosophy from 1971 through 1974. he accompanied to san clemente aboard air force 1 and organized the research and writing. >> good morning, everybody. 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. the work turned out nicely. my task for the project was to assess the bigraph cal coverage from 1913 to 1945. focused on the accuracy and reliability of the work and look to see if bias was apparent. in the early works, the statements are unattributed regularly. my chapter was organized chronologically and works spanning from 1952 to 2009 for the companion. i am looking at trends in bigraph cal coverage of richard nixon. the first full-length biography was fining quaker and he wrote 1952. he was a former publicist and whittier college graduate. the work was never published. the only ones were in the special collections. he co

nixon was around because my step-father was covering for the "london sunday times" the kennedy-nixon administration, and i used to swim on the back of henry kissinger. he would come and swim in our pool and i would on to his neck and hold on and he was bombing cambodia at the same time. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin tonight with a political update. rick santorum is back on track after convincing wins in minnesota, missouri, and colorado. the next important test is arizona and michigan on february 28. national polls show that romney and santorum are very close with santorum ahead in michigan. receipt polls also show president obama gaining ground in his approval rate chicago may in part be a reaction to some good economic news. joining me from washington al hunt, the editor in charge of bloomberg's election coverage, dan balz, the national political correspondent at the "washington post." i am pleased to have both of them here. dan, you wrote a column in today's "washington post" about rick santorum. tell me whe

will become the center of international mix and research with the storying why ravi of the nixon administration can be seen in the more general -- not things were done, anyway, a more generous perspective. thank you. [ applause ] >> i want to invite the audience into the conversation. questions, reactions, for any of our panelists, there are two people running around with microphone s around the lecture hall. please don't speak until you have the microphone. the first question, rick? right over there. >> hi. my question is for dr. cannon, did you say those were 750,000 words that you wrote together with nixon on his early life? >> that's a lot. a real lot. >> so are those thousands of pages? do they exist and are they available to read? >> i can't answer -- we all know nothing was thrown away or erased. it might have been inat vertently erased or mechanically erased, but i don't know the answer to that, but i'm sure the answer is yes, and as i say, for two years or almost two years we worked exclusively on the early life with the knowledge that it would be cut and also with the knowledge that i

the final speaker will be perspective from someone in the nixon administration, frank gannon. and frank received his doctor of philosophy from oxford university. he won a white house fellowship and served in the nixon white house from 1971 through 1974. he accompanied president nixon to san clemente aboard air force one on august 9th and he organized the researching and writing of the president's memoirs. so, i'll turn it over first to joe. >> all right. good morning, everybody. first of all, i'd like to thank the nixon library and the staff for all their hospitality in welcoming the group today. also i want to acknowledge mel small, the editor the "companion to richard nixon project" which i think was a work that turned out very nicely. i was to assess the biographical coverage of richard nixon's pre-political years from 1913 to 1935. i focused on the accuracy and the reliability of the work and looked to see if bias was apparent in the author. in the early works statements or direct quotes were with publication dates spanning from 1952 to 2009 for the "companion." i'm looking

if you did anything negatively during the nixon administration, you did not get on another air force one trip right away, if ever. but while you're on there, the president would have his key aides on board with him because they would be going from place to place. and so they would come back, and the press would have opportunities to have these behind-the-scenes insights into matters that they would not know about otherwise. c-span: on the next page--and i'm going to move it over so that we can see it--is a photograph you took from an airplane. what kind of an airplane? >> guest: this was on the president's--the presidential helicopter. i had photographed president nixon at san clemente, and he had asked me at the time if there was anything else--how the book project was going and what else he might do to help me. and i told him, yes, i'd like to have more private access to him and opportunities with him and in the oval office. and that next morning, when he was leaving, i was told that--to report to the airfield, and i would--i was allowed onto the presidential helicopter. it was a v

the center of nixon research and thanks to books like mel small's, the historiography of the nixon administration can be seen in perhaps a more general, not generous, because good and bad things were done. a more generous perspective. thank you. [ applause ] >> i want to invite the audience into the conversation. questions, reactions for any of our panelists here. there are two people with microphones who will be running around the lecture hall. so i will call on you. and please don't speak until you have the microphone. so the first question. rick. right over there. >> my question is for dr. gannon. did you say 750,000 words? that you wrote about together with nixon on his early life? >> that's a lot, i mean a real lot. >> so are those thousands of pages, do they still exist, and are they available to read? >> i can't answer those -- i know nothing was -- i mean, we all know nothing was thrown away. or erased. well, might have been inadvertently erased. or mechanically erased. i don't know the answer to that, but i'm sure the answer is yes. and as i say, for two years, almost two years, we worke

he was very well versed, very well read but in terms of the nixon administration when it came to civil rights, particularly integrating schools, he was invited in new orleans when they were going to do it in 1977 who said i'm not going. through the riots he said even though i'm in charge of this policy i'm not going to do it. the final thing with maryland. maryland is a very strange state. is it south? is it north? is it east? is it west? it has a lot of people who are very difficult to discern what they are even in terms of are you a democrat or a republican? so agnew fit because he wasn't south and wasn't north. i do disagree with you. i don't think agnew actually was there, and i also disagree with the thing about strom thurmond. i don't think agnew was a part of the southern strategy. i think he was a part of the suburban strategy. nixon figured by '68, voters and the suburbs and states like pennsylvania were the once making the differean

what role, if any, did you play in the nixon administration's reaction to the pentagon papers issued? >> pretty major role. we had a lot of meetings in my office right after that started happening, which involved john mitchell and mel laird. maybe bill rogers. i'm not sure. ron zeigler and myself. maybe someone else. i don't know. possibly colston. and so the question was how do we handle it because the pentagon papers didn't indict us in the slighters. they were all about things beforehand. but our concern was keeping the public supportive of us in the vietnam war. so mitchell was really the dominant factor in the straenl that we ended up with of trying to prevent publication my approach to it was that the public was right had they cleared it but they knew we had a rule that you should classify a document, you should clear it and they hadn't done that and that was my argument against it. that was supported some by the courts. >> what was mel laird's issue? >> mel was just very angry about the whole thing because he thought it reflected on him and the department and he wanted to go ge

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

but in terms of in the nixon administration and when it came to civil rights, particularly integrating schools, he was invited down to new orleans when they were going to do this in 1970. he said, i'm not going. during the native american riots, he said, okay, even though i was in charge of this policy, i'm not going to do it. the final thing with maryland -- maryland is a very strange state. is it south? is it north? is it east? is it west? it has a lot of people who are very difficult to discern what they are even in terms of are you a democrat or a republican? so agnew fit because he wasn't south and wasn't north. i do disagree with you. i don't think agnew actually was there. i also disagree with the thing about strom thurmond. i don't think agnew was part of a southern vstrategy. i believe he was part of a suburban strategy. nixon figured out by '68 voters in the suburbs and states like pennsylvania were the ones making the difference and that's why agnew was on the ticket. >> you had your hand up in the purple right there. and then we'll continue. >> okay. the election, there's a

dhl gets attacked by a much bigger outfit out of seattle, by the nixon administration that says they're an air carrier, then they're attacked by the post office not just in the u.s., but around the world because they are doing something that is really considered illegal. the post office is supposed to have a monopoly on delivering mail. but larry just wins every time, and he starts to have this kind of uncanny knack for beating all of his competitors. so, um, by 1981, 12 years in, dhl's the fastest-growing company in the world, and larry is bored out of his mind. he does not want to run a company. he wants to be howard hughes, he wants to be behind the scenes, pulling strings. he does not want to be sitting in board meetings and sitting behind a desk and doing the typical things that a business marne would be required to do. -- businessman would be required to do. and he discovers this island called saipan which is very beautiful, but it's also a bizarrely magical place in that you get 95% of your federal income taxes rebated there. and larry just thinks this is the most amazing thing h

and was in fact it reaction to some of the perceived accesses by the nixon administration. part of an effort by the congress to reassert its role in the budget process and as a part of that they created a budget committee and budget resolution that if they were going to be equal players in the budget process they really needed to have their own budget agency as opposed to relying on numbers that came from the executive branch and that is the reason. >> host: has it been successful? >> guest: it has been phenomenally successful and its success is mostly measured by the fact that if you talk to most people in the media and most people if they are being honest with you on both sides of the aisle would say the congressional budget office at least concerning the budget probably has the most credible numbers, most credible information out there. that was not a foregone conclusion. it was not something that necessarily was destined to happen. if you had said to someone in 1974 we are going to create a nonpartisan agency in the middle of the most partisan imaginable environment. is

because my step father who worked for the london sunday times was covering the kissinger and nixon administration would use our pool, and i would hold on to his neck, and he would take me. we would do laps turtle style. to me, he was bombing cambodia, but who cares? he had a wide back. >> let's take a break. let's get more of the weird stories from the early years. >> i'll have a cocktail. >> and i want to talk about the blind date that set you up with your husband. i want all of the details of that. maybe this vacation wasn't a good idea vacations are always a good idea ♪ priceline negoti - - no time. out quickly. you're miles from your destination. you'll need a hotel tonight we don't have time to bid you don't have to bid. at priceline you can choose from thousands of hotels on sale every day. save yourself... some money >>> george, i never, ever get to see you at home. i love you. i shaved my legs and made you a steak. happy birthday, baby! >> that was a moment, maybe george stephanopoulos, i like him if my wife did something like that. >> he liked it. >> he looked quite excited by it. >> i'l

because my step father who worked for the london sunday times was covering the kissinger and nixon administration would use our pool, and i would hold on to his neck, and he would take me. we would do laps turtle style. to me, he was bombing cambodia, but who cares? he had a wide back. >> let's take a break. let's get more of the weird stories from the early years. >> i'll have a cocktail. >> and i want to talk about the blind date that set you up with your husband. i want all of the details of that. dad, why are you getting that? is there a prize in there? oh, there's a prize, all right. [ male announcer ] inside every box of cheerios are those great-tasting little o's made from carefully selected oats that can help lower cholesterol. is it a superhero? kinda. ♪ [ laughs ] [ mayhem ] please continue to hold. the next available claims representative will be with you in 97 minutes. [ laughs ] ♪ and if you've got cut rate insurance, there's nothing you can do about this. so get allstate. the only insurance company that guarantees your claim experience won't be mayhem... like me. [ dennis ] introduc

federal law that provides family planning services to low-income women that was create under the nixon administration. once again, the culture war is dominating headlines and driving news cycle. behind closed doors, a sure you the smartest republican strategists understand this is not good news. despite the chatter hmong pundits, polling shows a majority of catholics and independents approve of the obama administration's decision to apply the preventative care to catholic hospitals and universities. for the first time in history of polling on the issue, a majority of americans favor gay marriage. heck, even laura bush does. not only that, but in the plu plutocratic age, you don't want to be on the wrong side of the 1%. last week, billionaire mayor michael bloomberg responded to the susan g. komen foundation dumping planned parenthood by matching a contribution to lanned parenthood. this -- >> i'm chairman and ceo of goldman saks and i support marriage equality. america's corporations learned long ago that equality is just good business and is the right thing to do. >> in american politics, if you hav

. >> 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 m

we have seen administrations going back to the nixon administration and the gold standard and getting the u.s. off the gold standard and the rig in innovation with the accords to make our dollar more competitive, intervening debate and done it in a way where the dollar if pin still be traded on the open market. -- in a way that the dollar can still be traded on the open market. we have not held the chinatown yet. host: richard, independent caller. caller: thanks for taking my call. i have an anecdote and also -- the antidote is this. i was having chinese food the other day. at the end of the meal and you get the fortune cookie. i looked down on the package and said made in the usa. i said, what irony. anyway, the subject i want to get the gentlemen's opinion on, i was in business from 1960 to 1990, 30 years. if ever i was able to get a job, contract a job big enough that i needed 100 people to do this job and i was able to get that hundred people, about eight of them did not show up. that would be a%. -- 8%. that is what the unemployment rate is about now. my question is, i was always

i think maybe it was the eighth or ninth since the nixon administration, independent investigation andunday on the "new york times," gas prices give republicans something to attack. the gop is now going to attack him. this good man who has done nothing wrong. >> eric: nothing wrong other than slow down the permitting process on offshore drilling, decline the excel pipeline which could bring thousands of barrels into the country per day. >> steve: we don't need that for our electric cars. >> eric: there is nothing that he's done, the administration has done to bring oil prices down or gas prices down. >> excel pipeline, we wouldn't have the gasoline tomorrow, but it would send a very good signal to the market long-term. there are other places that need and want oil. everybody wants to have the same kind of conveniences that we all have, that we have today, all around the world. they want to be able to flip the switch v the lights turn on and have a little car or scooter to get around and you need energy to do that. >> gretchen: we will see you today on "the five" with eric bolling. he's

henry kissinger came to the house quite often because my step father was covering the nixon and kissinger administrationnger would come and use our pool and i would hold on to his neck and he would take me. we would do laps turtle style. unbeknownst to me he was bombing cambodia. who cares, he had a wide back. >>> let's talk more of these weird stories from your early years. >> i will have a cocktail. >> also, i want to talk about the blind date that set you up with your husband. i want all the details of that. [ nurse ] i'm a hospice nurse. britta olsen is my patient. i spend long hours with her checking her heart rate, administering her medication, and just making her comfortable. one night britta told me about a tradition in denmark, "when a person dies," she said, "someone must open the window so the soul can depart." i smiled and squeezed her hand. "not tonight, britta. not tonight." [ female announcer ] to nurses everywhere, thank you, from johnson & johnson. ♪ a refrigerator has never been hacked. an online virus has never attacked a corkboard. ♪ give your customers the added feeling of security

. >> and with that music-- >> listen, going back to the nixon administration, presidents have been sayingre going to lower gas prices, elect me, we'll lower gas prices. nixon, where are we now shall 2012. karl rove talked about the media standard, going after one president and not another. >> we won't hear much from the media, the other thing to touch on, remember, bush was pounded because the media was willing to mauck it an issue and jobless recovery at 5 percent unemployment the media made it an issue and lets he be honest, the media is complicit with the president now. so, there you go, the media double standard that seems to always hit on -- or we heard it week after week after week, open the oil reserves, and everyone was pressing george w. bush to open the oil reserves and the same thing hasn't been helping. >> dave: can a president lower gas prices? is a president responsible for the pain at the pump. that's open for debate. we'll have a former ceo of shell oil on later to talk about why prices are so high and what the president can do to maybe lower them. >> let's get to other he

we've been here before, way back in the 1970s, the nixon and ford administration imposed price controlsreacting to rising gas prices caused when opec cut back its production. what followed was interminably long lines at the stations and an artificial shortage of fuel. almost 40 years ago people panicked. gas stations only stayed open a few hours a day, and since they couldn't raise prices, they sold up shop when they, and people bought gas on the black market at exorbitant markets. as consumers feels more intense pain at the pump, there could be pressure on the government to intervene once again. just today secretary of state hillary clinton says she's skeptical about what she calls the reasons for the increase in gas prices. she says it deserves careful attention from congress. good luck with that. anyway, here's the question -- should price controls be imposed on gasoline? go to cnn.com/caffertyfile. you can post a comment on my blog or go to our post on "the situation room's" facebook page. wolf? >> jack, thanks very much. i want to get back to the breaking news. joining us on the ph

sign and express the repudiation it begins with the four parted of nixon and she'll lead the criminals and to the obama administration to shield called bush crimes of torture and obstruction of justice and the decision now not to prosecute criminals from the 2008 crisis and all of these acts in tail very explicit arguments the most powerful russian not be subject to the rule of law because it is too disruptive public to divisive we find ways of repeating the problem. use the cons been argument for that if the bill you stop being program it is not that mcorp tenth of a value in the longer. he said of course, i believe in the rule of law. and the law is the center of reality meaning if it is too disruptive and it is within our common good to exempt the most powerful from the consequences of their criminal acts committed is a template for each instance a and radically is different then how things were in the past. but the other difference is if we had a society that just decided we would be very lenient and merciful when people committed crimes as i just described, you can have baja a debated that was advisable or produ

nixon? >> thank you, administrator fugate, appreciate your service to the country and the tremendous relationshipsover the years and you're a great service. two areas i think our worth looking at when we look forward, the first would be the involvement of the corps of engineers and the process in both of your commands and assets. we see the court as not only having challenges in the management of the rivers and what not and the decisions were made there but also the rebuilding of those networks where there are significant challenges and big decisions made about not only the management of the reverse in the middle of the country but the rebuilding of the levees and i would just ask if you've got the extra start of the table that he would continue to press with the army how important it is and also we have worked together on a number of construction projects and would not afterwards with the core, but i just -- it is a -- it requires common sense and significant attention by both of you all to make sure that that is managed as the other forces of emergency management or both on the reconstruction si