Marketing officer for the Ronald Reagan president ial institute to those that defend our freedom around the world to men and women please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america. And to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And had the fortune to have many journalist print and broadcast speak here over the years but tonight covering six president s beginning with president reagan and speaking of we are first introduced in 2002 with a handful of other experts to share stories the president reagan stories we then used to make that experience that much more rich and then to discuss copies of his book prisoners of the white house and ultimate insiders white house photographers and how they shape history 2017. Covering the white house as 1986 he has material for many more books especially continuing insight into the white house of donald trump and perhaps if we are lucky we can share some insight into the upcoming election. Now to discuss the latest book president ial leadership in crisis. Speaking of the book president ial historian wrote ken walsh, one of the shrewdest observers of the presidency takes us on a tour of how 14 president s handle the crisis that came their way and donald trump rather than the exception. And how at the highest level of American Government here is a tale ladies and gentlemen its my honor to introduce ken walsh. [applause] thank you for coming i would be talking about the challenging times the president s have faced a challenging times getting here tonight. I was in San Francisco where my daughter lives one is canceled after another as you know. All the lifted drivers who are out there making money are now getting the surgical masks its hard to hear them understand what they are saying. But all i heard is can i help you. But im glad they are doing it but in any case thank you to melissa for having me as a White House Correspondent i have been wanted more than 30 years youre always looking for different ways to get insights with the people and personality and agenda. I found a number of ways to do that i wrote a book about air force ones to put together the exhibits and i did about celebrities and celebrity culture and how they participat participate. It also occurred to me since i covered the white house for so long that every modern president has to deal with a major crisis of some kind maybe this wasnt true without mass media or Mass Communication but so they always have to deal with a crisis i will come back to this later but President Trump is particularly interesting because he seems to thrive on the idea of a crisis some he generates himself and that he sells it in the likes the idea he emerges victorious. Now he is dealing with a crisis and it is completely out of control with this virus has never dealt with this sort of thing. I will talk about this but it is up in the air with this coronavirus and he still cannot correct some of the problems we have had initially or the confusion or the lack of understanding what the country wants from the president in the situation. But he can recover and thats what we will talk about. And just to give you a sense of some of the things that i discovered and as a defining moment and i did come up with a series of standards as a historian in my own right as to how the president s deal with crisis what the president s want is first of all taking action to change to circumstances, balancing principle with what works, persevere to have achieved success that is all wrapped up about what i will talk to you so this is a summary of what i gave you and then talking about them in the next few minutes in the presentation. The ultimate crisis of calamity with course the civil war and lincoln god is through this with that culmination to those standards that i talk about and to represent the values of those who are trying to convey through the civil war course he did not start off a critic of slavery but he changed his mind as time went on but during the war the union had terrible setbacks and realizing he was in the military earlier in his life briefly, have a lot to learn and thats one important thing willing to listen and learn. General mcclellan known as little mac, talk about those circumstance he hired and fired and then hired him again and then fired him again because he was not chasing down the confederate armies so you can see that perseverance as well and you saw that very clearly dealing with the civil war. I always like to show these pictures this is before he took office and giving a famous speech at cooper union this is what he look like when he took over as president three weeks before he was killed the ravages of the war had taken such a toll to embody the suffering and the civil war and that was important to me. Even in the south and known as father abraham and then to go through such trauma. And just amazing it would to embody that history with that crisis manager. And the focus of the book during the early thirties we have terrible economic calamit calamity, unemployment today is 4 percent we dont like it when he gets up at eight or nine or 10 percent it was 35 percent. One out of every three people that were basically men at the time could find it so that was a provocative pitcher and considered humiliation. They thought it was their fault they couldnt find work so people were tremendously upset by the whole circumstance there is a couple images here of people lined up. Actually they dressed pretty well they got all dressed up to do this. But people were clamoring for help they were just so desperate for so many people in Franklin Roosevelt stepped in to do that. One thing that roosevelt did in addition, he persevered and a specific way reflecting optimism. Every president since roosevelt has adopted this including president reagan who admired roosevelt all his life but he hired roosevelt and then to convey to the country this is the picture of roosevelt giving a fireside chat the basically everyone had access to with neighbors or whatever in scheduled fireside chats talking directly to the country about the depression. This is a particular example talking about the banks with a very clever way to do what he was doing having the federal Government Back into the economy instead of talking about shutting down banks to make sure they were solvent , he called it a bank holiday. But he was closing banks and gave the fireside chats and you can walk to a city or town or hamlet if people had the windows open you can hear roosevelts words he had such an incredible Market Penetration where people wanted to listen to the president and you could hear him wherever he went. A tremendously effective thing with these fireside chats with that presence that so many people remember. I cannot talk too long about each one but they are all in the book. So when roosevelt dies, april 45 truman had a lot to prove. A lot of people didnt think he was up to the job, elected to a fourth term just before he died. So during the treatment. This is a real example so very difficult and terrible conditions initially the war did not go well and then it started to get better because we had the general that so Many Americans admired from world war ii so i suggested to illustrate harry truman was to fire general macarthur. Obviously historians will do defining moments of president s with war and peace of military but so many things i have chosen to illustrate not just war and peace but others that were defining moments for the president. This took a great deal of political courage for truman to fire macarthur he promised to return to the philippines and became the Supreme Leader of japan is the American General and occupied forces and launched a brilliant move to the invasion of the north , very risky but Successful Operation so started off after the war and was going well you might remember the history and pushing them back and then the troops pushing the allies and americans back again forcing them off the korean peninsula. Then the americans and allies go back up again so during this period the macarthur started to say this is a different war we need to do things differently talking about nuclear weapons. And that was absolutely outrage with the chinese and harry truman kept telling him publicly this is a cold war we dont to have a wider war so to elect this popular general or the president is supposed to be a commander in chief so in the pacific began a sense of what the general is up to. The meeting went okay, they didnt get along very well but then macarthur makes the his bellicose comments and truman fires him and then there is a huge firestorm. Historians basically feel he was defending the constitution to control the military and very unpopular at the time costing truman a lot of support but he always defended it. And now the people who write the history books feel it was the right thing to do but at the time a tremendous gamble. The example of a political military related defining moment in the retrospective didnt do very well and eisenhower we do have to go rapidly because i want to be respectful of time but is considered not only unpopular president but successful to terms and eisenhower deliver that. Initially getting well with the leader Nikita Khrushchev but wondering what they were up to so these are spy planes they flew a tremendously high altitudes beyond the soviet technology to shoot them down and tell they improve technology and then he authorized several of the flights before the International Conference from 1960 which he thought would be the capstone of the presidency and be with khrushchev germany and france and the uk. But he launched a spy mission and then they shot that down. And with that prestige of the americans we were the warmongers president eisenhower authorized lied to say it was a whether mission. And then the feeling from his advisers is that they could not survive and attack in second the pilot would not survive to be shot down and the pilot also had a poison needle to inject himself. Then they also captured the pilot and khrushchev showed the debris in wellpublicized demonstrations and exhibits in moscow and said not only are they the warmongers flying over our country but eisenhower is a liar because he prided himself to become an honest politician so it didnt hurt his reputation in the soviets played the Public Relations much better than americans thought they would because they canceled the paris meeting but khrushchev went initially and demanded eisenhower call if any future missions and eisenhower didnt want to seem like he was bullied so he waffled on that. Was a Public Relations mess for the United States so this did not go well for an american president even though by a large those years were a success. Khrushchev was still in office takes office and 61 only a few weeks after he takes office we have the bay of pigs invasion were they support to retake fidel castro. And then to adopt the plan of the Eisenhower Administration to come up with so it was a tremendous setback so he meets with khrushchev with the bay of pigs in the meeting in vienna he looks at kennedy is weak and inexperienced and to get better of him. So what happens . One of the most dramatic and dangerous moments of the cold war, the cuban missile crisis with kennedy and castro and khrushchev. The soviets were installing offensive missiles that could have reached much of the mainland to wipe out millions of americans so kennedy felt he had reconnaissance to get pictures of the site and could not let this go so to see 13 days so he goes through many arguments to invade cuba bomb cuba and comes up with an announcement to the country of a quarantine rather than a blockade against the language a blockade is an active for that softened the impression so kennedy gives the speech i was just a boy then but you can see how riveted everybody was there with the Television Section it got tremendous coverage when he decided to blockade cuba. And we did not know how the soviets would respond. A couple of things that kennedy demonstrated not only perseverance, learning from experience the notion to change with circumstances when he felt there were openings for a peaceful resolution and he took them rather than pushing khrushchev into a corner learning from experience, also he learned from the cuban missile crisis he has learned from the bay of pigs that some military advisers, one general that is warlike is pushing him to a confrontation he doesnt want to have he didnt listen to the generals as he had earlier. Most historians would agree he didnt want to be pushed into being bellicose. So the confrontation ends and kennedy gets credit for this for steering is through the confrontation that could have ended up in a terrible nuclear war and later it was revealed to trade those outmoded missiles for the removal but that was not disclosed at the time that was the communication strategy as well. So kennedy was unflappable that was completely misread it his own defining moment to understand the stakes involved that he pursued in the and a prudent and sensible way to deal with us but Lyndon Johnson takes over when kennedy is assassinated. Photograph from the tet offensive it is a surprise move with the north vietnamese and the vietcong launches attacks all over the country and the south vietnamese by surprise. Basically the United States and south vietnamese one most of the battles. The problem was it made clear we were a long way from winnin winning, the enemy would not give up even though johnson said they were with light at the end of the tunnel , it was a Public Relations victory but this led to an antiwar feeling with a protest johnson had to deal with he had people in Vietnam Veterans and others protesting it johnson could not speak outside of the white house because he would have these violent protest to speak in military bases and then conservative College Campuses or he was a prisoner in the white house and remember the chant to go up hey hey lbj how many kids did you kill today. That is harsh even by todays politics. So johnson has to decide what he will do about this. There is a lot of interpretations that this is a political crisis in the end he handled well because he goes on television talking about our bombing clause and that he will not run again i will not seek a normal except the nomination from my party for another term as your president this was a shock because he saw the office all his life and loved being president. But as a defining moment to end his presidency, he did the right thing because even though he knew he would face a struggle to be reelected, he could have been actually because he was a strong figure they had doubts of others running for president , he didnt want to polarize the country and wanted to rip them apart so it was the right thing for him to do. And i think most would agree. So nixon of course to be a tough and for leader and faced with the watergate scandal, he violates all of the standards i come up with to look at president s under crisis conditions he doesnt adjust to changing circumstances and perseveres to save the presidency but not in dealing with the fundamental problems and abuses that the watergate scandal showed. It goes on and on. He Stonewalls Congress and as they moved to impeach him, he resigns. So this is the scene as he is announcing he is leaving the white house a famous photo as he gets on the helicopter and flies away to california. This is another case where the president does not do well in a crisis situation initially if he owned up to what happened with the watergate burglary and not try to cover it up, he probably could have survived it. The democrats were not offering alternatives. So this is the case he was his own worst enemy to handle the definitive crisis as president. General ford takes over and pardons nixon, we dont talk about this the great deal but for decides if he does not and the nixon controversy somehow he will be devil to buy it for the rest of his presidency they will ask if about it and so he does pardon nixon another big gamble he took. This probably cost him his own bid for the presidency and 76 when carter one because people wanted nixon to pay more of a price but they felt nixon had paid the price with humiliation with the findings that were made in that administration a very unpopular decision but it took political courage to do this , he was exonerated and the Kennedy Family was very critical and later gave a profile encourage award to say i was wrong senator kennedy said so there was a redemption there so this is the iranian hostage crisis still in the headlines today were the shaw of iran left the country the religious zealots took over and took control of iran while the despised for supporting the shaw who was very brutal so one day when the shot had left he went treatment for some terrible physical problems so where they let him in the United States with that opposition in iran with this hated figure in the and carter said its a humane thing to do but if these people take over the embassy i will come back to you and say what do we say now and thats exactly what happened students and other radicals captured 60 of the people and held them for a year and carter cannot get them out this is a case he was derided instead of taking action which is the defining moment he called for prayer and play for captive americans and with the cathedrals ceremony. And froze the presidency. And finally he did launch a mission at the center of my critique for the iranian hostage situation and to get the hostages was an utter failure. So the military later said he told carter this but everything has to go perfectly to have any chance of succeeding we have helicopters going into the desert find people from the country to get into the embass embassy, fly into tehran. Get to the embassy, find the hostages get the mountain back on the helicopter and back to the ships, so in every phase something could go wrong and they ran into each other and then it got worse from there. It was the terrible blow to the presidency and of course reagan got them out but the day he took office, which was reagan or the iranians were afraid the nevertheless that was a terrible blow to the presidency he never recovered from because he handled things in a rather hamhanded way. And this is when reagan was shot was his crisis the ultimate personal crisis. Giving a speech in washington only a few weeks after getting into the limousine and as he reached John Hinckley junior the starstruck arranged young man trying to impress jodie foster shot the president and ended up hitting press secretary a dc police man and a secret Service Agent one bounce off the size of one the side of the limousine and hit him in the side you can see them looking at the shooter this picture won the Pulitzer Prize by the way. So they push reagan into the limousine. He feels tremendous pain he thinks a secret Service Agent who pushed him into the limousine had broken one of his ribs so he cussed him. By this time he was bleeding from the mouth and frothing so the agent said were not taking you back to the white house were going to the emergency room. If not that he will surely would have died. You have the personal courage and grace under pressure of the individual person with this tremendous burden to be shot. So this happened by instinct because he was a movie actor he understood there was a role to play he gets out of the limousine and buttons up the jacket and walks under his own power and then collapses because he didnt want people to see vulnerability but he almost died. The doctors do their best to save them so it turns out the day he was at the hospital was the most prestigious specialist in many types of surgery and they were all there when he was shot so they could all help them they left the conference to deal with the surgery. So then the post operator which was brilliant in many ways because they understood the spotlight and to show the country he was capable so as a man in his seventies with two president ial candidates now we have three if you consider bernie sanders. So we handle that very well and is carefully orchestrated but this is a plus. To see if the president was so weak to take advantage and then to rise to the occasion and then recover in a miraculous way. And to meet. He looks frail. But it works and the country is very respectful of him and with that grace under pressure. And to pass all the standards we talk about in dealing with a crisis. And also shows he has support around the country and that the white house staffers photograph the get well card and he does other things that were very clever to show he could recove recover, an elderly man pumping iron soon after his being shot it was an amazing to word to force with this calamity and it helped with his agenda i was telling congress a lot of americans felt they would give him the benefit of the doubt because of how he dealt with a personal crisis and i can remember i like to talk to cabdrivers and i can tell you the number that said he took a bullet to the chest and kept coming i didnt like it at first but i like him now. And this is the image he reflected to have another with skin cancer and colon cancer but he did end up with an image as the leader charging ahead with his agenda. President bush wins the 88 election and then launches the persian gulf war he was a master at Coalition Building and to apply the standards , does live up to all the standards, to take action with principle and reality to persevere. This is him when he visits the troops as he organizes the coalition to drive iraq out of kuwait. He handled the situation very well. When we finally went to war it was a massive success for the americans and our allies