and his people didn't want nixon agreeing and the following three debates. nixon was nixon. and was adversarial attacking kennedy for where he was weak and doing a quite good job. but after the first debate as a communications major, how do you think that the newspapers responded? thing it was a tie. it becomes untie over 60 years. and it becomes kennedy winning the first debate by a mile, but the initial reaction in all of the newspapers was that there was no difference between the two of them. they both did equally well or equally bad the whole story of the kennedy being this wonderful guy, but what did happen? what did happen and what i didn't say was the greatest thing that john kennedy did was run for office. he was a wonderful campaigner. and by staying up and not making any massive mistakes in the first debate. what happened was is democrats said? this guy is a lot better than we thought and might be able to do a good job. so they rallied around the flag. and henry got more. adulation after that first debate because it didn't blow it not because he did great because h

in particular to the nixon library and the richard nixon foundation. and also to c-span viewers who are joining us virtually. starting a little bit more personally, welcome back to the west coast. i think for many years this was a second home or a home for you, how many years did you spend here and did you miss it? >> i spent with susan, seven years going through documents day by day, week by week, year by year. this volume as a mere two and a half million pages of research which is what i do. since you asked that question, i have a little plug and i forgot to give. a year from now, luke nichter will be sitting in the say. he has been finishing a study of the election of 1968 and the incident had virtually nothing to do with the election of 1968. if you are here now, come back for a loop a year from now and find out what really did happen in 1968. >> we can just be an opposite sides, at that point. but, juxtapose that experience of studying residential records for seven years with what it came from. i once heard you talk about or describe yourself as a

nixon and mrs. nixon and as you say in the book, it was him getting to know you and to trust you because the jobs you did were well done that made him at ease with you and it was that ease that sort of characterized the relationship and and the closeness of it. yes as the clock goes ahead here and you'll find this in the book. after in 1967 as i after i become his personal aid, it's just the two of us traveling all over the country. no, no other aids or anything occasionally pat buchanan might go if there is a big speech or ray price one of the other speech writers, but for the most part it was just the two of us criss crossing the nation doing political events and so forth and for a young man, like myself who at this time is 26 years old at that juncture, you know, it was just one phenomenal education. today that role is sort of known white and well known as a body man. i think in those days when the media was just travel was becoming easier and politics was picking up into a media enterprise the r

in particular to the nixon library and the richard nixon foundation. and also to c-span viewers who are joining us virtually. starting a little bit more personally, welcome back to the west coast. i think for many years this was a second home or a home for you, how many years did you spend here and did you miss it? >> i spent with susan, seven years going through documents day by day, week by week, year by year. this volume as a mere two and a half million pages of research which is what i do. since you asked that question, i have a little plug and i forgot to give. a year from now, luke nichter will be sitting in the say. he has been finishing a study of the election of 1968 and the incident had virtually nothing to do with the election of 1968. if you are here now, come back for a loop a year from now and find out what really did happen in 1968. >> we can just be an opposite sides, at that point. but, juxtapose that experience of studying residential records for seven years with what it came from. i once heard you talk about or describe yourself as a

charge that nixon was dirty because he was encouraging bigotry same old nixon staff. you do not have to prove it all you have to do is say. >> we have already talked a little bit about fraud, let's close on that topic. nowadays we see every political election in these red and blue maps, the outcome from 1960. and the version of it that i like because you get more original terms is the one by county. of course, red being republican, blue being democratic. i guess when you see a map like this, comment a little bit on a couple of things. what do you see when you see a map like this? an outcome like this. for its own sake but also compared to what eisenhower was doing in the south. ultimately, the big west, shun was there fraud? if so, was it decisive? >> the numbers that iran, first of all, say that nixon had every likelihood of winning texas and illinois. had he won texas and illinois he would have been president of the united states in 1960. but, what i say when i look at the entire route is a precursor of what you are experiencing now. the nation is starting to divide

and i staff nixon's counselors. on watergate issues as you all know it ended rather badly president nixon resigning in disgrace and two dozen members of his administration going to jail. i've pondered ever since what exactly went wrong in our response to that burgeoning scandal. without really coming up with any answers. that is until i learned some time ago that the watergate prosecutors files. at least those that survived are maintained at our national archives. the prosecutors were after all technically government employees. i spent a lot of my time ever since reviewing those files. and that's a bit about what i'm going to talk to you tonight. but it's been 50 years. since the scandal and the backstory is rather complex. so we're going to approach this in two ways. i'm going to give you my own one minute summary, and then i'm going to expand a little bit on that. nixon was defeated. but it turns out the prosecutors cheated. they also left a paper trail. and that's what i've been spending in the past few years unc

like nixon, except i graduated in 1966. and friends from the nixon white house where i served for five years. i don't know that any of my friends from harvard law school or here, but if you noticed on the book, the cover -- my criminal law professor, alan dershowitz, said some very nice things about me. in addition to the above, as jeff mentioned, i was defense counsel in president nixon's watergate defense team. i was there throughout the scandal and it's unfolding. i transcribed the white house tapes. i ran the document rooms holding the seized files of the watergate defendants. i staffed nixon counselors on watergate issues. as you all know, it ended rather badly. president nixon resigning in disgrace. two dozen members of his administration going to jail. i have pondered, ever since, what exactly went wrong in our response to that burgeoning scandal, without really coming up with any answers. that is until i learned some time ago that the watergate prosecutors files, at least those that survived, and are maintained in o

nixon. dwight was born in kansas attended the university of southern california and joined the nixon for governor team in 1962 at 21 years old. he had caught the political bug. and his hard work and uncanny ability would take him to nixon's side throughout the entirety of the historic 1968 campaign and into the white house on january 20th 1969. dwight has written a terrific new memoir. the president's man, which you can see here to my left and much of it deals with his work with president nixon. the president's man is without a doubt one of the most important contributions to the understanding of the nixon presidency and president nixon as a person that has yet been written. dwight will speak this evening with frank gannon. frank joined the nixon white house in the summer of 1971 as a white house fellow assigned to counselors to the president donald rumsfeld and bob finch. he then worked for john erlichmann on the domestic council staff. along with colonel brennan and a handful of other staf

i know we haven't talked about nixon but a gentleman named jeff sheppard who served under nixon his entire presidency and makes the case that nixon was driven out of office as part of a plot by a series of people who took advantage of a situation that happened with plumbers and break-ins that nixon had no idea what was going on and spun it up to the place where nixon couldn't defend himself and there was no republican to defend him and he resigned and if the facts came out in totality there were criminal acts but it wasn't nixon who was the criminal in that situation. i will get off the area and enjoy the last few minutes of this program. >> host: jeff sheppard was a young lawyer in the white house. i did a 2-part podcast a few months ago. on c-span washington journal on the anniversary. >> guest: there is a lot to that. i wonder if watergate would have happened differently if we had today's media environment, fox news would have been defending him, twitter would have been alive with the from of the cycle might have gone quicker, nixon might have been gone in 6 month or he might have survi

[applause] i am a board member here at the nixone foundation and the grandson of president richard nixon. a and the proud grandson of richard nixon. [applause] thank you so much for being tonight that i know is a fascinating discussion we are delighted to have you here again in person not in front of a zoom camera or computer over the years we have had the honor to host many distinguished guests here in yorba linda however we have never had the opportunity to welcome someone who has served as attorney general of the united states not once but twice but not in one presidential administrationst but to separated by 25 years. pretty unique. that is a unique distinction in american history and says a great deal about william bar's patriotism and commitment to public service. and perhaps the two tour of duty as attorney general were the inspiration of his book one damn thing after another. our guest of honor has had a distinguished career both public and private sector. he began government service under president reagan as a member of the domestic policy staff 1982 through 1983 after several y

your writing about nixon victory to which nixon attempted to politicize the service. by my count the big grievous offenses pretended offenses were for salty water to use the secret service to entrap ted kennedy because he feared kennedy as as a political tht either in the 72 election or he wanted to even disable and potentially for 76. nixon is relying on the service to take on a number of expenses that were not legitimately renovation expenses at nixon's private properties. it also nixon's attempt to you secret service members to remove protesters to basically disable the ability of americans to protest peacefully, if not loudly, against their government. it reminded me, carol, i'm what happened during the trump years. >> and it reminded me of the same. i mean, there were so many eerie parallels between nixon and trump just regarding the secret service. this idea of we are going to handle antiwar protesters and anti-nixon protesters by sicking the secret service on them and using them kind of as a tool. president nixon, president nixon's view of the secret service wa

president nixon, hen resigned and then nixon first family. we love so dearly. we're leaving the white house. here's the day. i will never forget. but today has provided me an opportunity to reflect on our many years in washington and all the wonderful times we experience which led to the privilege of our serving in the white house. before my husband and i ever started our journey to that wonderfully historic house. everything's where everything was quite different. jerry's goaling. congress had always been to become speaker of the house of representatives. but a solid and continuing democratic majority seem to be just as distancing him from that goal. in 1973 jerry who had then be in serving for nine years as minority leader. began talking about in just one more turn and then retiring. that sounded like the most wonderful idea to me. but as we began our planning it never dawned on us that outside influences. might rearrange our plans and not just slightly. when president nixon was considering his selection for a new vice president following mr. agnes resignatio

the really interesting take away about nixon to which nixon politicized or attempted to politicize by my count the grievous offenses or attempted offenses he wanted to use the secret service to a trap ted kennedy because he feared kennedy as a political threat in the 72 election were he wanted to disable for 76, nixon was relying on the service to take on a number of expenses that were not legitimately renovations expenses of the private property, also nixon's attempt to use secret service members to remove protesters to basically disable the ability of americans to protest peacefully peif not loudly against their government. it reminded me of what happened during the trump years. >> it reminded me the same and nixon interruptus regarding the secret service. this idea of we are going to handle anti-war protesters and anti-nixon protesters. president nixon was much like president trump. like these are my goons. and donald trump deployed them the same at lafayette square, nobody can forget the presidents wish, president trump's wish to look at the law & order president. >> look tough do

the grandson of richard nixon and patricia nixon. the proud grandson of richard nixon. thank you for being here tonight for what i know will be a fascinating discussion. we are delighted to have you all here again in person not in front of a zoom camera or computer. we've had the honor to host many distinguished guests here and we've never had the opportunity to welcome somebody that's been attorney general of the united states twice and in two presidential administrations separated by 25 years. perhaps two tours of duty as attorney general under two very different presidents were the inspiration of his book one damn thing after another. our guest of honor tonight has had a very distinguished career in both the public and private sectors. after several years in private practice, he returned to government in president george hw bush's administration and serving as attorney general in the office of legal council and next it deputy attorney general and next as 77th attorney general of the united states from 1991 to 1993. i'm sure he didn't have to deal with as many damn th

nixon might have survived. we can't know that i think there will be a lot of revisionist history at their watergate that will come to different resolutions. >> new york, you're next. >> first off it's great to hear about -- i'm happy to hear that everything is going well with that. >> your health. >> oh thank you. >> what hasn't been talked about with the reagan presidency is the role howard baker played his chief of staff after the debacle around contra what look like reagan was and did trouble especially with questions about his mental w capacity. i would like you just to lay out how consequential it he was his chief of staff towards the end of the -- i'll hang up and listen to the answer. >> wouldn't it just in question. the whole chief of staff cycle in reagan's presidency, i would say this. one reason reagan shows howard aker who retired from the senate but in washington had been the ranking republican on the watergate hearing. reagan wanted somebody who had good relations with the hill will force vector t

and nixon says, hire this guy. >> tonight, the nixon answer. >> hi, how are you? >> ailes became nixon's media advisor, and he produced a show, a townhall television production. >> mr. nixon, what would you do as president to bring law and order back to america? >> by law and order, i mean, law and order for everybody. >> ailes is yelling, stop shifting your eyes back and forth, look straight in the camera. when you go like this, you look shifty. he is responsible for the new nixon, for the more relaxed statesman who makes the greatest political comeback in american history. >> believe me, we're going to go forward and i hope to be leading in that charge. >> and he became the go-to guy for campaign advice. >> he is the master image maker, you know, some would say the master of dark arts. during the 1988 presidential election, there is a lot of debate about how involved he was in the infamous willie horton ad. >> dukakis allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. one was willie horton. horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man

of richard nixon and patricia nixon. [applause]n i want to say the proud grandson of richard nixon. thank you so much for being here tonight for what i know will be a fascinating discussion. we are delighted to have you all here again in person not in front of a zoom camera but in person. over theve, we've had the honor. not once, but and not in one presidential administration, but to presidential administration separated by 25 years. it is pretty unique. that is a pretty unique distinction in american history and it has a great detail about his patriotism and commitment to public service. perhaps his two tours under very different presidents were the inspiration of his book one damn thing after another. [laughter] our guest of honor tonight has had a very distinguished career both in the public and private sectors. he began in the administration of president reagan as the domestic policy staff from 1982 until 1983. your return to government and george h.w. bush the legal of counsel next is deputy general and next is the

it was nixon who created the dea. it was nixor who put marijuana on among the most dangerous drugs that same schedule one list that biden is now asking be reconsidered by the federal government. and some policies age poorly as we learn more or as times change. but other policies were broken from the start and that is the war on drugs according to its own creators like the nixon aide i just quoted you. then, later administrations first led by republicans pushed even further. reagan plead it a centerpiece of his domestic policy and his american vision and crime did rise in the '80s and there was violence linked to hard drugs and gangs. let's be clear about that. but the efforts to equate pot to heroin and push jail as answer to all drug and health problems did not work. and then you had the moderate democrats like bill clinton who started to echo part of that initially conservative nixon/reagan agenda. some of the most controversial harsh books on the law today were pushed not only by nixon initially as i showed you but

nixon tried and it is part of the watergate story. things have marched on and look back in hindsight and say reagan could have been bolder and attack harder but it turns out our own homegrown problems are tougher than dealing with a decrepit soviet union. john: we started with the question about the perfect conservative. was ronald reagan a perfect conservative? steven: stay close as a politician. stan evans is -- i thought about the title for the book because he was so check you medical and his views. john: that current work -- m danton evans, conservative wit. we have been talking these past two hours to steven hayward, the author of eight books, among them, and age of reagan follow the old liberal order. at age of reagan, the conservative counterrevolution, patriotism is not enough and most recently, the stan evans book. i

who took advantage of the situation nixon had no idea what was going on and it was up to the place nixon couldn't defend himself and there were no republicans to defend him and he resigned. the fact had come out in totality there were criminal ads but it wasn't nixon it was the criminal in that situation. i will get off the air and area tocontinue the last few mif the program. >> i did a two-part podcast with him. >> there is a lot to that subject we don't have time to do. i will just say this. i've often wondered if watergate would have happened differently if we had today's media environment twitter would have been alive with stuff. it might have gone quicker. nixon might have been gone in six months or he might have survived. there will be a lot of revisionist histories i will just say that. >> out of new york. good morning. you're next. with questions about his mental capacity i would like you to just lay out how baker was as the chief of staff at the end of the reagan administration i will hang up and listen to your answer. i think one reason reagan chose howard baker had been the r

unlike what happened in watergate we are -- finally the leadership came to nixon and said enough, you are caught, you got a problem, you got to go. we've got leadership that on the one hand, january 6th and seventh will criticize trump or make -- may criticize him on other behaviors and then turnaround like kevin mccarthy, go down tomorrow lago and make nice and so it seems to me there are so many things that are such misbehaviors on trump's part that he's not held accountable for in the public forum except for people like liz cheney, and so how can we accept a person, republicans accept a person who has so much missed behavior, most recently now with these classified documents, and nobody comes out and says your behavior is wrong, get off the public forum, work in a different way if you wish but this cannot represent the party? and yet they continue to pander to him constantly? >> host: was that aaron? michelle. we will mark you down is undecided on the trump question. i don't mean to say that. your first point about the confusion in public leadership remind me of will rogers's comme

you had nixon's there's this quote i have in the book of nixon's saying, you know, one of his aides had this in his diary. haldeman had this in his diary. nixon says, the whole problem is really the blacks, the key is creating a system to make it look as if that's not the case. right. and so they were. so these were sort of, you know, more overt. they said these things among themselves. and then later in interviews or when their diaries came out, they were more open about it. but i also, you know, at the time, like, they literally wrote a book about the southern strategy, like they were not they were not quiet about doing this. it was a very open strategy of saying, we are going to use coded racial appeals to force for political gain. another i think important aspect of this is like these folks often recognize. so, you know, you said people deny that race is built into the, you know, the social environment in ways that are hard to see. one of the things that nixon and these folks did was they relied on that, right? they knew the other aspect of colorblind racism was saying we no longer

we will never take nixon off the hook. but nixon never applauded against his own people. yes, he did in the crimes of watergate in -- and the espionage and sabotage campaign. but he -- i've never heard anything where he would say oh well, we are not going to worry about, like, the health of the people that he was president of. and this is what trump is doing. >> and carl, after years and bob's reporting on the trump presidency, capital, attack hearings with the january six committee, do you think the justice department will indict the former president, carl? >> i have no crystal ball, but what's very clear is there the proof is there already, just in terms of what the january 6th committee has developed. and hopefully, we have an attorney general and a system in place in the justice department that will allow the indictment of a former president of the united states for his crimes against the united states. no president has ever committed these kinds and levels of crime against the united states. just stop and imagine a president who refuses to leave office, who finds the

he invites nixon on. they are in the green room and nixon says it's a hell of a thing that you have to use a gimmick like television to get elected president. >> the things that senator kennedy has said, many of us can agree with. >> nixon had contempt for television. ailes you can't have contempt. television is not a gimmick. if you think it is, you are just going to lose again. nicks-says, hire this guy. >> tonight, the nixon answer. [ applause ] >> hi, how are you? >> ailes became nixon's media advisor and produced a show, a town hall television production. >> mr. nixon, what would you do as president to bring law and order back to america? >> by law and order, i mean law and order for everybody. >> ailes is yelling, stop shifting your eyes back and forth, look straight in the camera. ch when you go like this, you look shifty. he is responsible for the new nixon, the more relaxed statesman who makes the biggest political comeback in american history. >> we are going to go forward and i hope to be leadi

and watergate cover—up, any of the things alleged against mr nixon. as bad as they were they won't an effort to overthrow the basic system of government. however, we need to remember that there are few things that are odd here. one, why was a sabina issue now, they could have been issued a year ago? the facts that are alleged are all not new. why are they subpoenaing mike pence, a former vice president, who had half a dozen meetings with the president solely and the electorate certified by the state to satisfy president biden as the president of the united states. lastly, unless congress asserts its inherent contempt power, affirmed by the united states supreme court over a century ago, there is no way that their subpoenae will be enforced before the november elections, before the congress expires and the subpoenae will expires and the subpoenae will expire injanuary the third inevitable happens in november, because a subpoenae by congress can't extend beyond the life of the congress that issued it. so it looks to me like it's a political study rather

but we are at the nixon library and lot of out of the 11th and that's first lady pat nixon just. she's deserving of so much applause because she really was so special. she was the first first of so many firsts, really. she was she was the first first lady to ever go to active combat zone vietnam, where she visited orphanages and these wounded soldiers, these wounded american heroes first lady, first first lady in africa, one of my favorites, first first lady to throw out the first pitch at an mlb game. all of this. but so many people, they don't know this. they don't know about the path she paid for women that came after her. she they don't they don't know how special she was. so do we bring a woman like pat nixon to the fore front of the woman empowerment movement? you know, i think we have to talk about them. and that was the thing is the hardest part, when you can only do ten, there are so many women that have really laid the groundwork for what's happened the country. and that's why i loved reading those biographies of first ladies, because these ladies really steered the cou

evan thomas says in one of his books said that nixon nixon lost the president say by 8000 votes have been changed in texas and chicago, both of which were probably truthful allegations about election fraud and says he says some of his books. he says the kennedys were surprised that nixon didn't contest the election in 1960 and he didn't because he said he thought it would be harmful to the country so even if he didn't think much of the president nixon and i came from a family that really respect president nixon my grandfather father who was a subsistence farming county, tennessee, and had ten kids and an outhouse and, you know not much more. he used to say you could make it here than if you were not oppressed and a republican, but you had a leg up if you were an and he was a staunch republican. my mother came from a stance republican family and our and so. but every with whom i served was very nice to me. president trump, the both the bushes, i, i will tell you, though, that a lot of the democrats had a little have more trouble with president obama than i did steve cohen, the congres

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