Transcripts For CSPAN2 Kasey Pipes After The Fall 20240713

Youre a member, would you please stand up and be recognized . Oh, come on, theres a couple of you here. There we go. Thank you. [applause] the president s society with an exclusive group of members that supports the ongoing works of president nixons foundation which awe applies the legacy and the vision to, that he had to opportunities facing our nation and the world today. And if youre interested in joining, please see any member of the staff, come track me down [laughter] or one of the front desk associates. Anybody can get you signed up this evening. Id also like to tell you about a a few special events that are on the horizon. On august 20th we will host Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino for their new bestseller, justice on trial, about the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings. On september 11th, we will host two programs. The first is an annual commemoration of patriot day, and then we will host Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch that evening at 7 p. M. For a discussion with Nixon Foundation president hugh huwen. And finally, james mattis will appear in conversation with hugh hewitt from this very stage, and tickets can be purchased by visiting Nixon Foundation. Org. Were pleased to host the author of a new book on the postpresident ial years of Richard Nixon. This very important and littlestudied of nixons life of achievement, setback and comeback is certainly deserving of a book of its own. In fact, probably a series of books. Not one to be written off, Richard Nixon rose from the worst of defeats to become america easeledder statesman elder statesman n. This 20 year period of 19741994, he reinvented what it means to be a former president , serving as an advise arer to every one of his successors. He made 29 foreign trips and worked with World Leaders all across the globe. To tell this remarkable story of after the fall, we are joined this evening by kasey pipes. Mr. Pipes is an historian whose previous book on president izenning hour is well acclaimed president eisenhower. He served in the administration of president george w. Bush as a speech writer and later at gettysburg college. Would you please join me in welcoming for after the fall kasey pipes. [applause] well, thank you all very much. Thanks for being here and thanks for having me. Jim, thanks for those kind words. I want to thank jonathan and chris and the entire nixon staff for making us feel welcome here today. And, wow, after hearing all the people that are coming up later this month or or later this fall, i kind of want to come back. [laughter] i want to hear neil gorsuch as well, so thats awesome. I also want to thank hugh hewitt, the president of the foundation, who was indispensable to me in the writing of this book and had me on the radio last week to help promote it. You could not be in better hands with anybody else than hugh. I want to thank a couple of the archivists that worked with me on the book, greg couple us and pamela isenberg did great work greg cummings. So many people helped me along the way. Sandy quinn that you all remember, ron walker, many of you remember, fred fielding. Just a tremendous number of people helped make this possible. I also want to say hello to linda and larry sarlos who are right here. These are the parents of friends of ours in important worth, kirk and kristin. Kirk is the pitching coach at tcu, and we live right around the corner from tcu and kirk and kristin. You guys get the award for traveling the farthest, two and a half hours, so thank you very much for being here. I hope the book is worth it. Let me know. Ill be asking you. And thanks to all of you for being here as well. Gosh, its great to be back. The first time i came to the Nixon Library was in 1995. I was an intern at the Ronald Reagan president ial library, and Richard Orton smith, who was the director of the Reagan Library at the time, brought me down. His friend john taylor was running things down here, and john showed us around. Ill never forget it. It was wonderful to be here x. Then i came again in 19 or 2007 with the release of the eyesenning hour book. Eisenhower book. Sandy quinn was kind enough to have me come down. And then in 2010, once the book was out, i began once the book was inked and i had a deal and was able to research it, i came here and began going through the files and spent a number of months here in 2007, 31, 12 and 13 doing the research. So its been amazing. When i first started this project, i wondered is there really an audience for this, is there really a market in last week with we were the number one new arrival ahead of bill oreilly. Weve aa arrived. This is awesome. [laughter] i did an interview last week in the Dallas Fort Worth area with the number one morning show, and the anchor is a football playbyplay guy, and i thought, wow, i better have my nixon sports stories ready for this interview. He spent 15 minutes walking me through the postpresidency. And at the end of it i sent him an email and i e said i really appreciate having me on today, and he wrote me back and said nixon is one of the most fascinating peel. Ive always been a people. Ive always been a fan of nixon. Its amazing how there are nixon people all over the world. An amazing man and an amazing career. My story as a historian has always been to try to tell the stories that have been untold but need to be told and to focus on stories that we know something about but we need to know a lot more about. And so for me, the road less traveled in historical scholarship first led me to story of eisenhower and civil rights and a story which came out in 2007 in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Central High School crisis. And, of course, the road less traveled has also led me to nixon postpresidency. This is a story that needs to be told. And its a story that needs to be understood in a way that it has never been fully understood before. We have an idea of what nixon was doing during this period. We have an idea that he was active. Hopefully, after you realize this book read this book you will agree he was more active than you thought he was. Hopefully, after reading this book youll realize he was even more successful than you could have ever realized. But before delving into the book and talking about it and whats contained in it, i think we have to understand how high he climbed as president to appreciate how far he fell at the end of his presidency. You think about Richard Nixon in 1972, hes opened the tour to china the door to china, hes closing in on a deal to end the war in vietnam, and he wins 49 states in the largest land slide in american history. Hes on top of the world. And yet less than two years later with public Approval Ratings hovering in the 20s, hes forced to resign, and he finds himself, as he says, really fighting for his life as he talks about in his diary. Well talk about that more here in a minute. Now, there have been entire libraries of books written about nixons life, entire libraries of books written about his presidency, even the vice presidency and certainly about water gaipt, but there has been precious little written about the last 20 years of his life. We have the Monica Crowley memoirs which are wonderful and detailed, the last four years which she worked with him. We have a book that covers the first few years in exile. Theres never been a 20year volume that covers the entire story of what happened to him after watergate. Now, historians will always debate whether nixon was a great Prime Minister i think this book president. I think this book makes clear theres no debate he was a great expresident. Nixon is one of the Great Stories in president ial history. And the history of his postpresident ial years is the greatest nixon story thats never really been told. So why a book about nixons life after watergate, and if its so important, why has no one done it before . Nixon is a shake shakespearean figure. Weve all experienced triumph and tragedy, suffered setbacks, but none of us will experience professional setbacks the way he did. So in a sense, the storys about us. Its about how we all come back and we all find our way within when we get lost. When we get lost. But the other reason this story has not been written is because the papers, of course, are privately owned by the family. Theyre deposited here. And i was able to secure the cooperation of the family in writing this book. And is so not only is this a new book about a new period of life for nixon, but it has new material in it. So i think that makes it interesting, and i think it makes it worth reading and worth with thinking about because this is a very extraordinary period in the life of a very extraordinary man. When Richard Nixon left the white house in august of 1974, he had no money, he had no future, and he had no obvious way to make a living. Within weeks of moving back to san clemente, he faces a health scare that almost claims his life. And after that he faced years of litigation and battled through a case of what was almost certainly depression. Heres or what he wrote in his diary in late 1974 about how he might climb his way out. Write books. Make speeches. Try to put things into context. This is the road map that he would use for 20 years; writing books, giving speeches, television where possible, and putting things into perspective for the people and for history. And its amazing how well he did this. He does it so well and becomes so effective and so well known for his books and his speeches and his appearances that people begin to accept him back again. The public begins to accept him back and the president s do too. Part of the story in this book is his relationship with three president s, reagan, bush and nixon. And his advice and counsel to all three of them and how it helped change policy and change history. Let me quickly mention three changes youll read about in this book. Two changes that occurred because of nixon and one change that occurred because of nixon. And i think this is really the heart of what this book is about, is change. First, nixon in the postpresidency changes the very nature of the postpresidency. When nixon becomes postpresident , there are no postpresident s. Theyve all died. Johnson has died in 73, truman died in 72, eisenhower died in 79. He had watched what they did in retirement, and what they did was different than what hes going to do. They basically retired. Eisenhower writes his memoir and another book, thats pretty much it. He becomes a doting grandfather. Johnson goes to his ranch. I mean, these are men that basically accept retirement and go away. Nixon has no such choice. He has no such choice. He has to make a living. He has no money. He has to resign from the bar in california, he has to resign from the bar of the Supreme Court. He wants to resign from the bar in new york and they wont let him because they want the privilege of kicking him out. He cant practice law. He has no way of making a living, and he has to find a way. And what he does, with no template in front of him of what an expresident should do, is he invents the template that all Prime Ministers to this day president s to this day more or less follow. He writes books. He travels the country and the world giving speeches. He stays in contact with other World Leaders. He stays in contact with political leaders in washington. He talks to president s. He used his ideas, the power of his ideas to influence events in washington. You think about the postpresident s today, you think about clinton with the clinton the fund, george w. Bush with his own think tank in dallas churning out policy proposals. You think about barack obama writing books. They are all in some way following the nixon model. Nixon didnt have the option of retiring. He wanted to remain active. He told john taylor during this period that he had to remain active for his own health and to keep his mind as sharp as he wanted it to be. He spent years writing book after book on his main area of expertise, Foreign Policy. And he becomes a trusted adviser and confidant to three Prime Ministers. He to three Prime Ministers. He doesnt just write books, he writes books that matter, that people realize and absorb and Pay Attention to. He didnt just say something, he had something important to say when he was writing these books and when he was speaking. And he showed through this process he still had an Important Role to play as an outside counselor. Ronald reagan realize the real war in 1980. He was inspired by it. It confirmed his own view of the soviet union. He carried it around with him at one point. And in many ways, this led him to have an even closer relationship with nixon. And nixon relished the chance to use the only thing he had left, the only power he had left which was his mind and his ideas to influence policy. He gives counsel to president s. He influences them with his ideas on things big and small. Let me give you an example of something small that nixon did that weve never known before. Nixon, shortly after reagan becomes president , wants to find ways to take advantage of reagans ability. Nixon has great admiration for reagan. They had a complicated relationship, all politicians do. But nixon said to his soninlaw ed cox, i have a great mind, reagan has a great gut. And this is a guy with tremendous political ability. He can speak to the country, he can rally the country, and nixon sees this and he wants to take advantage of it. So early in the Reagan Administration nixon sends a message to reagans longtime communication adviser urging the creation of a weekly tenminute radio talk. To allow the president to dominate the monday papers. Nixon suggests they do this on sunday. Its tweaked, and a saturday morning radio address is born. The saturday morning radio address lasted from 1982 all the way to 2008 when trump discontinued it. Weve always known reagan started, weve never known the idea came from a letter from Richard Nixon. But his real contributions to reagan came on bigger matters of substance. When gorbachev comes to power, nixon meets with gorbachev. He finds this could be a man that reagan, as Margaret Thatcher said, could do business with. He senses theres an opportunity here to move forward and perhaps end the cold war, and he wants reagan to meet with gorbachev, but he wants reagan to do it from a position of strength. And so when reagan announces intentions to build a strategic defense initiative, nixon immediately doubts the science of this. He doubts that the technology of it will ever work. But he loves the idea of using it for leverage in a negotiation. And almost from the beginning, he sees fdi as a key bargaining chip for reagan. Later on, when gorbachev threatens to pull out of any further negotiations unless reagan abandons fdi remember reagan walks out. He says no. Nixon helps come up with a solution. Nixon suggests to bud mcfarland, reagans National Security adviser, quote i feel very strongly that the president could pull off a real coup by formally offering to mutually share with the soviets the results of our research on sdi. This, he wrote to mcfar land, would undercut gorbachevs decision. He was right. Reagan took the advice. He offered to share the technology with the soviets publicly and essentially boxed gorbachev in and brought him back to negotiating table. This maneuver helped the negotiations continue forward and played a role until getting the soviets to agree to the inf treaty in 1987 where an entire class of Nuclear Weapons were eliminated. With president bush nixon privately went to china after Tiananmen Square tragedy, taking advantage of the goodwill that people had for him in that country. He met with chinese leadership and spoke brutally blunt language to him. Ty january 9 11, he told him tiananmen, he told him, would be the, quote, depth with of the relationship with the u. S. If it happened again. Upon returning home, he reported back to the president who was faced with a political crisis at home, something the president didnt want to do, something nixon didnt want to see happen. But the fact that nixon delivered the message helped diffuse the situation and helped the president out of a deep crisis. And, of course, with president clinton heres Richard Nixon and bill clinton working together to assist boris yeltsin, to assist democracy in russia, the breakaway republics. Clinton later said that it was, quote, the best meeting ive ever had as president clinton marveled at the wisdom that nixon gave him as he urged him to be brave and to support the Democracy Movement in ways that, frankly, he didnt believe president bush had done enough to do. So he changes the postpresidency, he changes policy through his work with reagan and bush and clinton. Most importantly, this book shows in many ways nixon changed himself. During this 20year period, he comes to terms with all he had achieved and all he had lost. The conventional wisdom says he accidentally confessed during the watergate section of the interview with david frost. This has, of course, been a myth that frost and others have perpetuated. The reality is quite different. They talked about it in advance, what he wanted to say when this question came up. And he apologized for his moral failures. He said i screwed it all up, but he would never admit to any criminal wrong doing because he didnt think he had violated any criminal laws. This would be the message he would use the rest of his life whenever he was asked about this topic, and it came not as an accident, it came as a planned a answer to a question that he and ken had wordmythed together. Still wordsmithed together. The moral failures weighed on him. He began to reveal himself more and more and to come public with people. When hubert humphrey, his opponent in the 1969 election, called to let him know he was dying from cancer, nixon consoled his former rival. When the two men hung up the phone, nixon turned to his aide, jack brennan, he said i dont care what it takes, im going to his funeral. Start working on it. Humphrey hung up the phone and turned to his wife and said no former president should have to live in exile. He wanted nixon to be seen at his funeral because he knew it would give the cub the country is a sense that there was grease. And the funeral marked nixons first public appearance in washington with since watergate. Ten years later, nixon publicly emerged at another funeral, this time to deliver the eulogy for his friend, former ohio state football coach woody hayes. This is what nixon said in his eulogy of his friend. He was never satisfied with success, and he was never going to be discouragedded by failure. Theres a rule in life, nixon said of hayes, if you take no risk, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you will win no victories. Nixon, certainly, was describing woody hayes, but almost just as certainly he was describing himself x. When Ronald Reagans National Security adviser, bud mcfarlane, survived a failed suicide attempt, when he woke up in the hospital, the first person he saw sitting by his bedside was Richard Nixon. Youll need an anchor, he told mcfarlane, pointing at the bible on the night stand next to bed. Your strong faith will get you through. This finally, after the dedication of his president ial library in 1990, where we are today, nixon told friends who had gathered around him afterwards about the time that his grandkids asked him what what name he wanted to be called. You can call me anything you want to call me, he said, because aye been called everything ive been called everything. This period of his life shows nixon as a human. It shows him as somebody who struggled through the failures of life, struggled through the setbacks of a political career and yet came out on the other side of it. Nixon in exile is a different man. Its a man in full. A man who could look back on success as well as failure, on tragedy as well as triumph, on defeat as well as his defiant response. He never gave up. And theres a lesson in that for all of us. Its remarkable to think in august of 1974 when he left in disgrace and arrived a few miles from here in san clemente, not even Richard Nixon could have imagined that he would be back inside the white house giving president reagan advice or going to Tiananmen Square delivering a message that was important to the Bush Administration. Or meeting with bill clinton and becoming friends with bill clinton to the point that in april of 1994, bill clinton arrives at the funeral to deliver a magisterial eulogy in which he says may the day of judging Richard Nixon only by watergate come to an end. Nixon himself said only those who have been in the deepest valleys can appreciate how magnificent it is on the highest mountaintop. In a life spent constantly navigating the political peaks and valleys, nixon in his last 20 years could finally look back on his entire life and, for once, enjoy the view. He had made it back. Thats the story of after the fall. I hope you read it, i hope you like it, and i hope you know how grateful i am that you came. And with that, im happy to take questions or comments. [applause] thank you, kasey. We will take questions. If you will just raise your hands, i will come to you with a microphone. I want to ask the first one though. Can you give me what you think Richard Nixon would think of the Current Media arena . And what i mean by that is, what i mean by that is in this day and age we have media that is so instant, so quick and spread viral instantly with social media, can you give me your take of what he would think of that and how he would use it to his advantage or it might be a disadvantage to him . Well, he certainly would be more diplomatic about it than our current president , but i dont know that he thought much more highly of them than our current president does. Theres a story in the book in 1990, the New York Times runs a favorable review of a new biography. It was a book written about nixon, and Richard Norton smith, who was one of nixons favorite historians wrote a review, and it ran in the New York Times, and it was very positive about nixon. And nixon reads the review in his office and says to his staff, well, you know, the New York Times once a decade will write something nice about me. I guess because its 19903, they just want to 199 0, they just want to get this decade out of the way. He always had a very skeptical view of the role of the media, and i dont think that that improved over time. Obviously, the media environment today is very different with all of the different platforms, social media platforms. I think i mean, he was an innovator. I mean, this is the whole concept of him developing the idea of the saturday morning radio address, he wanted to find ways to communicate more effectively. And so i think he would be somebody looking for ways to use those tools to his advantage and, you know, to the president s advantage whoever the president may be. I just, i think he would probably be uncomfortable with how this president goes about that. I just, i cant imagine he would enjoy reading some of the trumpian tweets. [laughter] thank you for coming and telling us about your book. I was wondering if nixon ever acknowledged, publicly acknowledged the sacrifices that president ford made by giving him the pardon and completely short circuiting any legal process. No doubt about it, it cost ford quite a bit. It did, and theres a scene in the book where ford comes to see him in the hospital in october of 1974 when nixon has his health scare with phlebitis. And its an emotional scene. I think its probably as close as he ever got to thanking him. The whole concept of the pardon was a very difficult thing for him because it he did feel bad about it, as i mentioned before. He publicly expressed remorse for what had happened, but he also didnt feel like he had broken any laws, and he didnt feel like he had directly i mean, as he said to frost, my mistake is was i wasnt a very good butcher, using gladstones phrase. You get rid of people when they do things. He was trying to help his people, in his view. So he had very complicated feelings on this topic. And i dont know that its something that he would have ever thought to sit down and talk to gerald ford about. They didnt have that kind of relationship in the first place. It was kind of a a formal relationship anyway. But i think the scene in the hospital in the book between the two men is probably as close as i can get to it, and its, you know, its worth reading. And he certainly, he was in an emotional state. I mean, he almost died, and here comes the president of the United States whos just issued this pardon. I mean, its a great scene, and i would recommend. That but thats, other than that, i dont know that there was a lot of direct conversation between the two. Could you talk a little bit about some of the postresignation relationships . There was lady halderman, coal match, that group. And coleman. Specifically henry kissinger, how were those relationships after . They were all very different. The kissinger relationship has been well documented, theres a book about how the two men kind of jockeyed for credit over different Foreign Policy accomplishments. It was a complicated relationship, for sure. Finish i think his relationship with some of his aides was a little more personal. And, again, he felt their suffering very personally, particularly the ones that went to jail. You know, mitchell and ehrlichman and haldeman if, these were things that weighed op him. And theres stories in there where he occasionally reaches out. When haldeman gets out of jail, you know, nixon calls him. Its a pretty emotional conversation. I mean, he felt their grief very personally. And so there are a lot of those stories in here and a lot of those conversations. The heart and soul of the book by design is really to show him kind of emerging from this emotional state in 74 and 75 and really focusing on his policy objectives and really sort of taking him seriously as an expresident and what was it he was trying to achieve. And what he was trying to achieve was to become a counselor and adviser on Foreign Policy. So most of the book tends to focus on those relationships; reagan, reagans team, schultz, al haig, mcfarlane, i mentioned earlier, and of course bush with james with baker and bill clinton. Those are described in more detail. But there is certainly a good amount of him reaching out to his former aides, visiting with them and you just, you get a sense through the dialogue in some of those conversations of how much it weighed on him. I mean, he definitely felt a burden for each of those men. Mr. Pipes, back row to your right. Yep. Hello. Im a republican woman from northern california, and i just want you to know that im a naturalized american originally born in taiwan. I have two questions for you. Number one, i was here for my sons sports activity, and when i was going through the museum, i was very puzzled why is it that president reagan or president nixon later on would go to china and establish that kind of relationship with china knowing that china is a communist country. When i saw in the exhibit that in 1947 he said it was clear that we had come to a continent tottering on the brink of starvation and chaos. Europe would be plunging into anarchy, revolution and, ultimately, communism. So that tells me he was very uncomfortable with communism. So why is it that later on he would feel so comfortable, i want to say, with coming to china . My second comment is growing up i dont think i was taught properly in public education. I really feel after going through the exhibit here that i dont think president nixon did anything wrong. [applause] he i dont feel that he needed to resign. I wish he had just stay on and then let the world know what kind of person he really is. Finish the real criminals were those who broke into a building. He as a president , i wonder if he felt compelled to do what he did because of National Security . Because back then we were dealing with a lot of communism that came from leftover world war ii, you know, problems. So those are my e two comments, thank you. Well, theres a lot to unpack there, let me start with the first one. [laughter] so you mentioned nixon being a cold warrior, and he was. And the china play was a a part of his cold war strategy. I think this is misunderstood in some places, that nixon was naive about china or, you know, he just wanted to have good relations with them and bring pandas back to our zoo and get the photo op. This was actually real politics. This was a man, essentially, trying to drive a wedge between the chinese and their patron soviet union. And in that sense, it was a brilliant strategy. The other piece of the strategy was, as nixon himself said at the time, you cant simply ignore a country of, at that time, 750 million. You have to have some sort of engagement with them to try to influence events there. Theres a story i cant remember where i read it, and it may be apock rah fall, but it sounds true about reagan visiting with some taiwanese leader around this time and reagan saying to them somebody was going to recognize china sooner or later. Youre better off that it was nixon. And theres a lot of truth to that, that, you know, this was he was doing this from a position of a great cold warrior. He was not naive to what the chinese were doing. And as i mentioned, was capable of being very brutally honest with them even in later years after Tiananmen Square. So he viewed it as a cold war strategy, as a way to, in some ways, separate them from the soviets and, you know, people can debate the wisdom of that. But thats what he was trying to do. In materials of watergate in terms of watergate, i can only tell you what he himself said which was, you know, he certainly felt that he had made moral mistakes, he had let people down. As he often said, i screwed it up, as he often said. But youre right, i mean, he viewed his role in this as essentially, you know, trying to cover for his friends who were doing these things. And he, you know, he resigned because he didnt believe he had enough support to sustain himself in the senate, and i think he resigned because he at some level knew it was best for the country. And theres, you know, there was that was part of his factor. That factored into his decision as well. But those are questions that, you know, historians will debate forever and, you know, hopefully this book sheds somewhat new light on it. [inaudible] hi. Can you please share with us the role that pat nixon had in president nixons reinvention, in his rise from the ashes . And what was her perspective of him going back into the political arena . She was his rock. I mean, just as she was when he was president. She was his biggest cheerleader and his biggest fan. She felt he had been dealt a really bad hand, always did feel that way. And they remained enormously close during this time. Of course, he had a series of Health Setbacks that only bring them closer, i would argue, including the stroke in 76. And its interesting, theres a fascinating pat in addition son story towards nixon story towards the end of the book where shes of watching Television One day in the late 80s, and shes watching the phil donahue show of all things. And who shows up on the phil donahue show as the main guest, but new york businessman donald trump. And she watches the show and shes impressed. And she tells her husband, you know, i watched donald trump on television. Hes answering all these questions, and he was talking about issues, hes actually kind of good. And nixon writes trump a letter. Nixon didnt see it. Hes taking his wifes word for it. My wife said she saw you on television, she said you were great, and if you ever decide to run for office someday, youre going to be a winner. That letter is now framed and its in the oval officed today. Its one of trumps prized possessions. [laughter] nixon never quit handicapping politics. He never quit looking at races and potential leaders. Even all the way through his death, i mean, so he obviously wants bill clinton to deliver his eulogy. He realizes the symbolism of that, having a democrat president deliver this magisterial tribute to him. But he also wanted bob dole and pete wilson to deliver eulogies. Now, why did he do that . Those were the two people he thought would run for president in 96 and be the best candidates, and he wanted them to have a national audience. And doles speech is magnificent as well, if you recall. And so he stages that, essentially, that they would get this platform. And wilson does run for president. He doesnt run very well, as you recall. But dole ends up getting the nomination, and its clinton versus dole in 96 which is basically what nixon predicted it was going to be. Just fascinating how his mind worked, and he was always thinking several steps ahead. Our next question. Sir. I respect your scholarship, and i want to ask this with all due respect because i know i am in the Nixon Library, after all. I know that you wrote a biography on general eisenhower, and i just finished g. Edward smiths biography, eisenhower in war and peace. And in that there are all sorts of little tidbits about nixon, and it doesnt seem like nixon was very well regarded by president eisenhower. I know that one question was asked about general eisenhower, what has Vice President nixon done in tribute to your administration, and he said e give me a week, ill think of something. Theres the legacy of his dirty campaigning, the racial epithets that are caught on tape with, during the watergate scandals. It seems hes a very checkered, dark character. And you talk about his redemption. My question is what is the heart of nixon . What kind of a person was he really in what was he really aiming for . Because i cant quite make out what his objective was in life. So let me before i answer that, let me tell you my favorite story about my eisenhower book, the story ofizenning hour of eisenhower or and civil rights. In 2009 after the Bush Administration is over, i went over to dallas to see my former boss, the former president , and i took him a copy of my book. Ill never forget, i handed him the book, and he said hes a very blunt man. What is this . Its a book about eisenhower and civil rights. He said surprised its not a shorter book. [laughter] in terms of getting to the heart of nixon and what kind of heart did nixon have, i think he had the same one we all do. There was good and bad in it, and thats the human condition. Thats why this period is so fascinating to me, because this period of his life, his last 20 years, is very humanizing. You know, watergate the book starts after watergate. So i dont spend a lot of time focusing on that because i didnt want that to be a part of the story. I wanted it to be the, okay, watergates happened, weve had libraries of books written about it. What happened after that. How did he deal with it as a man and as a human. And i think he dealt with it like any of us would. I mean, there were successes and failures along the way. He certainly wanted to reestablish himself. He never used the word comeback or anything like that with his family or his friends, but he wanted to be, he wanted to be useful. He wanted to have a role to play with the rest of his life, and the one thing he still had after hed lost all the trappings of power, all the levers of power, he still has the power of his mind and the power of his ideas. And its a tribute to how effective that mind was and how effective those ideas were that he was able to persuade Prime Ministers, including president s, including a president of a Different Party that he had something worth listening to. This was a remarkable achievement for a person that no one would touch by the end of 1974, and by the end of his life, president s are calling him and asking him what do you think about this . Thats quite a comeback. And, you know, what his internal motivations were, i mean, i cant get inside his mind any better than anybody here can. I only know that he was very human, and he certainly wanted to be relevant in the last 20 years of his life and do something meaningful. And i think this book argues that he did. Question. Just as like your shirt. As Richard Nixons postpresidency has not been studied that much, i feel that reagans presidency, his postpresidency has also not been studied. Theres more to it than just alzheimers. He left office in 1989, and it was in november of 1994 when he realized, when he released that letter. Do you think that would also be a good topic for a book . I do, and there actually are a couple. Craig shirley has a book on the reagan postpresidency. Bob spitzs new book which is a full life, cradle to the grave, has a lot of new material on the postpresidency. Theres an amazing story about reagans doctors coming to the house in bel air to tell him their diagnosis, and he while theyre talking with mrs. Reagan and others, he gets up and goes over to a table and starts writing his letter. Thats where he wrote the letter that was released to the public, right there after the doctor had just told him. And he later gave it to an aide and said, you know, why dont you clean this up and send it out as a press release. He said, no, its perfect the way it is. They released it in his own happened writing. Just an a handwriting. Just an amazing story. I think in general postpresidencies are fascinating because youre looking at, with president ial biographies youre looking at the use of power. With the postpresidency, youre looking at the loss of power and adjusting to life without that power. In this case, in a much more dramatic way, having it taken from hum. So i think its from him. I think its a fascinating topic. We also now have president s who are living longer lives. I mean, george w. , i mean, based on his genetics, will live well into his9 90s, and hes only in his 70s now. Barack obama is a healthy, fairly young person. I think its scholarship thats probably underdone, and i suspect well see more of it. Sir. A couple questions. Did he reach out to former president s, you know, in correspondence and ask them if they needed help . What one or two things did you really learn this mans like a visionary. Ive been on, like, he was at the cusp of so many different things. Did you learn anything in your book about where he was even ahead of the curve again, and how was he compensated . Was he paid as a consultant . How did that go . Yeah. I mean, the finances are difficult to track down. I mean, obviously, his books were bestsellers, he made a lot of money doing that. The frost interviews were paid, that was a 600,000 gig. So there was money out there. But it, in terms of his relationship with the president , he never that i saw ever called and said, hey, let me help you out. It was usually in the form of a memo or a letter that says, in the case of reagan, you know, heres you did great in the election, heres some things to think about building your team, and, of course, he names a bunch of people. Al haig he suggested for secretary of state. It usually came in writing. And then that sort of builds the relationship a little bit, and then the phone calls start. And the phone calls are typically from the white house to him. And theyre calling him asking for advice. I mean, its bill clinton who reaches out to him in 1993. So its, its a very subtle process, its a very gradual process. And, again, the thing thats driving it is he is saying things that matter. I mean, hes saying things that no ones thought about before. Until sdi example that i gave earlier or even the saturday morning radio address. I mean, he is offering ideas that these president s and, for the most part their staffs, find very useful. And so its a real tribute to how he used his intellectual abilities in those last 20 years that he became a trusted confidant for these men. Just to your right, sir. China on the world stage today is extremely ambitious and extremely aggressive. Should president nixon be alive today be called in by the white house in what kind of advice or comments do you think nixon would have to offer . Today . You know, its hard to say. I mean, again, nixon viewed it, first and foremost, he viewed china in the context of the cold war. And so that context has sort of gone away now. So its very difficult to judge that because that was motivating so much of what he wrote and what he said. But i think that, you know, in some ways tiananmen end sold is kind of insightful episode. It shows him not willing to speak in tough language to them, to tell them to knock it off when theyre out of line. He certainly believed that a nation of more than a billion people now could not be ignored and that they were a player on the world stage, they werent going away, and we might as well have some kind of a relationship with them for our own sake. And i think he would try to preserve that relationship as best he could but with some tough love sprinkled in as well would be my thats probably as good as i can do on that. Its a great question though. Oh, hi. Im from texas, and i did hear you on hugh hewitt. Oh, good. [laughter] but anyway, i was curious with Chuck Coulson becoming a christian after watergate if he had contact with nixon. And the other one was i think im right in nixon and carter came to the iran contra hearings, and whoever was speaking said that carter was kind of all over the place, not organized, but nixon had it and that has stuck with me so many years, that he was a brilliant man, very organized in his thinking. Do you have anything like that in the book . So on the coulson question first, they did remain friendly. Coulson remained a defender of nixon to the very end. Of course, he was pretty preoccupied with his prison ministry. But there is some relationship in thats documented in the book. The iran contra hearing fascinating, and i write quite a bit about this in the book because nixon had a unique perspective on scandal x. He i dont know if this is the exact story that youre referring to, but its in the book where he is delivering a speech to republican senators that the Washington Post gets, this is leaked to the post and they write a story about this, and he basically says to the republican senators you need to have reagans back on this. Like, you need to stand up for him. And, you know, if his staff made mistakes, thats one thing. You know, he wasnt trying to do anything wrong and dont cut and run from him on this. And its fascinating to watch him kind of, you know, reflecting on his own experience and speak to that. So thats the im not aware of the carter story at all. Carter is not somebody that nixon thought very highly of, thats well documented in this book. He is just sort of mortified at the hostage crisis, hes mortified at how the shah was treated before that. I mean, he but he sort of senses this is all setting the stage for reagan and for big things to happen in the 80s and, of course, hes right about that. So carter does appear in the book but not in terribly flattering light. [laughter] here we are a couple decades after Richard Nixons becoming relevant, and were learning that hes become relevant. [inaudible] deproposal city and foreign diplomacy and Foreign Policy. Do you have any feeling that he had any sense that it wasnt publicly acknowledged in his lifetime, was he satisfied that he was relevant or not . I think he certainly sensed how far he had made it back. I dont know that a person with that kind of intellect and ambition, i dont know that satisfied is ever the word i would use. I think youre always wanting a little bit more. But he certainly realized he had come a long way, and he certainly realized that the policies he had been a part of as president namely, in fighting the cold war and the policies he had sort of helped craft with reagan or at least advise reagan on in the postpresidency he certainly lived to see the triumph in the cold war. Theres a story in the book that Monica Crowley has told and i retell it where, you know, he says, you know, remember when i had the kitchen debate, and khrushchev said well bury you, you know . And its just that moment of realizing he had been on the right side. He had his side had won, the west had won. He got to live to see that. And i think that was pretty remarkable for him. And i think he enjoyed that. I think he appreciated that moment. But in terms of his personal comeback, i dont know that satisfied is the word he would use. I think he certainly believed he had become relevant again, and he certainly enjoyed being able to use his expertise and his intellectual powers, but i imagine he probably wanted even more. Thank you for giving us this insight on the past president. One of the things ive noticed about him was he came from very humble beginnings. Unlike most president s we find they have great support before they even get to office, and nixon moved real rapidly through the ranks from senator on through to presidency. And, of course, the his trials were great the hess trials were great things. But his perceptiveness is what i i believe the man had vision that was so far out qond what we were thinking at the time. I think he saw that 750 million chinese, which we had ignored for 25 years, no spokesman had even gone to china, he saw them teaming up with the soviets. What an overpowering force that could have been had we not and he saw the opportunity to talk to china at a very important time. And that scared the russians into saying maybe we ought to talk about some defense moderation. I think he was very perceptive. Right. I also think when the Gold Standard was in trouble, we lost many tons of gold at the tend of the 60s thanks to too much spending during the 60s. And so we had to take us off the Gold Standard the. And so my question is dont you feel that he felt very satisfied at the changes that he made because of the contributions he made which are still active including epa and clean air, all the things . I cant believe the man wasnt totally satisfied and wished he could have lived longer, dont you in. Yeah, i think he again, i think he certainly appreciated how far he a had come and how far the country had come. I just think ive had the privilege of being around some elected officials, i worked for a president. Theyre wired a little differently than you and i are, as a general rule. They get up and look in the mirror and say i want to be president which is not a very rational thing to do, honestly. [laughter] and so i just, i just my sense is he probably wanted a little bit more. And i think if nothing else, i think he and this is in the book, he talks about, you know, his term being abbreviated, his presidency e being abbreviated and not being able to finish it. And so i think some of those feelings come out. I think he wished he had been able to finish it. But this was sort of the next best thing. He could kind of help others, and i think its, again, its a remarkable story. Mr. Pipes, thank you very much. My pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, lets give him a round of applause. [applause] i think i heard at least a half dozen times its in the book. That book is, fortunately, available for sale in our museum store. Pick up a copy on your way down the hall, and kasey will be up in our front lobby to autograph it. Thank you for coming, we will see you next time. Thank you all very much. [applause] heres a look at some of the events booktv will be covering this week. On tuesday look for us at politics prose bookstore in washington, d. C. Where jack goldsmith, former assistant attorney general in the george w. Bush add manager, will call the administration, will recall the life of his father. Also that week, peter finns book on ger trialed wijean. All of these events are open to the public. If youre in attendance, take a picture and tag us booktv on twitter, facebook or instagram. Booktv has live weekend coverage of the southern festival of books from nashville, tennessee. Starting today at 11 a. M. Eastern featuring jason day parol with a good provider is one who leads. And saeed jones talks about his memoir, how we fight for our lives. Our live coverage from the southern festival of books continues on sunday at 1 p. M. Eastern. At 2 eastern, susan nyman discusses her book, learning from the germans. Former u. S. Ambassador to the unitedded nations samantha power. And david katie with his book, religion of fear. Be sure to watch our live weekend coverage of the southern festival of books starting today at 11 a. M. Eastern and at 1 p. M. Sunday on booktv on cspan2. The shock doctrine in the recently published, unfired, the burning case for green new deal. You for joining us in our studios here in new york. We are branding and marketing, is the big business orn it may begin your first book no logo. Did you learn about nike and microsoft and starbucks in branding. Sure, great to be with you and have the sign. When i was writing the no logo, came out of the very beginning of 2000, so its almost exactly at 20y years old, the period in which i was recent