And hugh hewitt, the president of the Nixon Foundation who youll hear from in a few moments. We have many distinguished guests here today. Many former officials from the nixon and other administrations and staff and friends of the Nixon Foundation, and were honored to have you here tonight. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Patricia Nixon becoming the first lady of the United States. Under her leadership, the white house collection added over 600 paintings and furnishing elements to the white house collection which is the most of any presidency. The significance of this will be discussed in tonights program, but its very important to us here at the White House Historical association as a core part of our mission which was inspired, as most of you, or all of you know, by first Lady Jacqueline kennedy, to be the private nonpartisan private partner to the white house for conservation, preservation, restoration of those beautiful state homes in the white house for the acquisition of items for the Permanent Collection at the white house as well, and for our education programs. Programs like this where we teach and tell the stories of the white house and its wonderful history going back to 1792 when George Washington selected the site across the street where the white house is today and hired the young irish architect james hoban. To commemorate the occasion of mrs. Nixons 50th anniversearars first lady, the White House Historical association has also undertaken an Additional Partnership with the richard Nixon Foundation. And this is where we have created a digital exhibit highlighting mrs. Nixons efforts to restore the blue room in 1972 to the original french empire style. Photographs, documents and video footage of her refurbishment project provide greater insight into her accomplishments as first lady and highlight her commitment to enhancing the white house collections for future generations. This digital exhibit can be found on our website starting today at white house history. Org and soon will be available on the Nixon Foundation website which is nixonfoundation. Org. Tonight marks the third of four episodes in our quarterly programs for 2019 moderated by ann compton. Our Fourth Program takes place october 29th with former white house executive pastry chef roland messenier along with jennifer pickens, another author. They have two new books that will be out at that time and well celebrate and jennifer walks in right on cue here. Shell be joining us on october the 29th. And ann will have another program with chef and jennifer. Tonight everyone in this room and those watching by cspan and Facebook Live are in for a real treat. Ann compton, no secret to say, is one of my very favorite people in washington or anywhere. Her role as a former reporter and white house correspondent, as well as her being the first woman assigned to cover the white house for Network Television is known to everyone in this room. What may not be known or as well known is the extensive contributions that ann continues to make to organizations and missions such as ours, the Miller Center at the university of virginia and many others. Ann, i think its also very fitting to acknowledge this particular week with tomorrow being the 18th anniversary of 9 11, your unique place in American History on that tragic day as you were the only broadcast reporter on air force one with president bush that entire day to report on behalf of the press to the American People. So thank you for your career, but particularly acknowledging that special moment in history that we will acknowledge tomorrow. [ applause ] we have three other distinguished guests on our panel tonight. Anita mcbride who serves on our board of directors at the White House Historical association and in addition to being on our board of directors, she chairs the education committee, which is our david m. Rubenstein National Center for white house history, and she chairs our president ial sites Summit Committee where every two years, we convene about 200 president ial sites from across the country and it will happen again in september of 2020 in dallas, texas. She is the executive in residence at the for congressional and president ial studies at american university. Anita is a leading authority on the role and history of first ladies. She, herself, has worked for four president s and was chief of staff to first lady laura bush. We have Patricia Matson with us, who was a speechwriter and press assistant for Patricia Nixon and continued in the office of the first lady for betty ford. Shes had an extremely distinguished career, including many years in senior roles at Capital Cities abc. And our dear friend Betty Monkman who worked for more than 30 years in the office of the curator at the white house, retiring as chief curator. Betty is a great colleague for us here at the association. She has worked with us and continues to work with us on many projects. She authored our book on major our major Decorative Arts in the white house book which is available in our book shop. Shes a consultant to our white house history quarterly, which is our quarterly scholarly magazine that were very proud of. And betty is a master of knowledge regarding the white house collection. So we have a wonderful panel for you to hear from tonight. But before ann comes up and our panelists, id like to introduce hugh hewitt representing our partner, the richard Nixon Foundation. Hugh is president of the Nixon Foundation and has been teaching constitutional law at chaplin College Law School since 1995. You will recognize him as a frequent guest on many, many Tv News Networks and programs. He has written extensively for the new york times, the wall street journal and the los angeles times. Youll also be very familiar with him as the host of the nationally syndicated radio program. He served for nearly six years in the Reagan Administration and a variety of posts including assistant counsel to the white house and special assistant to attorneys general. Following hughs remarks and a brief video presentation, our panelists will join us here for tonights program. Those of you on this side of the room, no worries. This podium is going to be removed so youll have a clear shot of our panelists. And i cant end without a little bit of selfpromotion. Our shop is open until 8 30 tonight. Its right at the top of the ramp from the door where you came in. And everybody here will get a 10 discount on anything that you would like to take home with you tonight. You can finish your Christmas Shopping right here tonight. So thank you very much. Hugh, welcome. [ applause ] thank you, stewart, and welcome to all of you on behalf of the Nixon Foundation which i became the president of only in july. And what a great first event celebrating mrs. Nixon to be a part of. I want to get out of the way of the experts and get them up here in a hurry. We all know the definitive biography was written by julie nixon eisenhower. As of this friday, it will be available on audiobook read by her daughter and mrs. Nixons granddaughter, jenny nixon eisenhower. I think youll enjoy listening to if you did not already enjoy reading or want to read again the definitive book about mrs. Nixon. I was very, very lucky, 41 years ago, to be asked by David Eisenhower to graduate from college and drive across the country to san clementy and go to work for him. And after three or four months, i went to work at Casa Pacifica for president nixon at the old western white house. From their days serving the president. In their retirement, there were not a lot of people around, but i got to know mrs. Nixon in her retirement. And in a very unusual way. 22 years old. Dont know anyone in california. Thanksgiving rolls around and mrs. Nixon invites me to dinner at thanksgiving. That was the first of many invitations at their three homes post presidency. But it was that first dinner when im 22 years old and really dont know what im doing and im surrounded by the president of the United States, former president , former first lady, and their children. And she was the most incredibly gracious person to me. A youngster who really had no idea what they were doing. Clueless as to manners with the absolute expert in protocol. It was only five years later when my wife and i moved back to washington, d. C. , to go to work for president reagan, and my wifes grandmother was living in the dresden on connecticut avenue. And helen smith lived in the dresden. I got to know helen very well because we took over grandmothers apartment during the summers when she, as all right thinking people, left town. Helen would explain that my graciousness, that i had experienced from mrs. Nixon, was not unique to me. She was, in fact, gracious to every Single Person that she ever met. In every capacity, young and small. She traveled the world relentlessly beginning in 1953 as the second lady, setting a pattern for the second lady which was unique. When she became first lady, she was the first, first lady to not only visit africa and south africa, but the first lady, first time to go to china and to the ussr. And at every step she always insisted on seeing people, school, children, orphanages because she wanted to get out of the diplomatic protocol and talk to people. And it was there she again exhibited on behalf of america the same kindness i experienced firsthand. Well, wasnt she an amazing first lady in so many ways . And i want to start with patty matson who i covered when i arrived at the white house at the beginning of the ford administration. Patti, you had already been hired as a speechwriter and Deputy Press Secretary for pat nixon. And you told me once that she she had a keen eye for what was appropriate. And she was very much shaped by that by her growing up, how hard she worked. That work ethic. Its one of the things that i think is so important about her. She i had been in television, in politics. Ive known a lot of people who work hard, but this this one takes the cake. She really was she was in full bore. And the first thing i noticed, really my first day on the job, can you all hear me back there . When you sent something up to her that needed her input overnight, literally, it was on your desk the next morning before you got in. It didnt matter if there had been a state dinner the night before. She had a job. She treated it as such. The daytoday handling of constituents was so important to her. It was one of the first things she said to me in our job interview. That she considered people to be her project. She didnt want a pet cause . Yes. And that just wasnt her. She wanted to, on a day in, day out basis make life better for people who came to visit the white house, people who really wanted to connect with their government. I used to watch her stand in some of these receiving lines, and she was never one of these people who shakes hands and kind of pushes the people through. You know what i mean . You can see her looking directly at the person in front of her. And meeting of minds and taking time to shake our hand and sometimes say a few words. And she had all the energy in the world to do that because she understood how much it meant to people to have someone that cared about them in government in washington. And she felt it very strongly. And it also went and spoke to how she liked all of us to make sure that requests got filled very quickly. To make sure that mail was returned very quickly. She had a real feeling for being able to connect with people. And it was quite a gift, and she used it for the presidency. It was a very rare gift, and i was fortunate enough to see it, which was marvelous. She had been in the public eye for so long before she actually arrived at the white house. Why do you think that reputation of being kind of timid, even in the video, she seemed amused that people thought she was shy. She didnt seem that way to you. You know, she had a reserve. And i found that very attractive. She was a very elegant woman. And she was of an era, the best part of an era. And we dont see so much of that anymore. She was not one that was going to i guess the going thing now is to unload yourself and to confide with america on whatever is going through your mind. And a little bit of that goes a long way, if you dont mind me saying so. She was appropriate always. And she just had an innate ability to be that way. It was wonderful to behold. Betty, let me ask you because you were present for all of this period of time. First of all, thank you for all youve done for the white house. Thank you. As curator and the Lasting Legacy that you have helped create there. We think about first ladies, the more traditional role of worrying about the house and home, but she felt strongly about doing more with the white house, including opening some of those doors. Very much. In fact, i think the film mentioned her tours for the blind and the deaf which julie was very instrumental in participating in as well. But she was the first first lady to open the grounds for garden tours in the spring and the fall. And those have continued to the present time. And the christmas hancandleligh tours in the evening. The public could come in and see the house during the holidays all lighted up and beautifully decorated. And another legacy that endures today is the lighting of the exterior of the house. Right. She had gotten a lot of inquiries from people talking about how the house was so dark when they brought tourists by the house in the evenings. And, too, when she and the president would come in on the helicopter, they couldnt even see the house. It was so dark. So very early using inaugural funds from the first inauguration, she worked very closely with the National Park service in having the engineers design and plan and implement the lighting of the house. And that is the legacy that endures today. The idea that she brought in more works of art than any other first lady has ever, how did that moment in history happen . Well, i think it happened when she and president nixon had gone to the state department to the diplomatic reception rooms there in 1969 and had seen how beautiful those rooms were. And a year later, in the early 1970, she called the curator at the state department and asked if he would be willing to come over and be the curator of the white house. And he had a job at the state department. He worked in the Protocol Office as well as in the diplomatic reception rooms. But mrs. Nixon invited him to the white house, and they walked through all the rooms from the third floor down to the ground floor through the private quarters and the state rooms, and he thought about it for a few days and decided to accept it. And she was a very strong supporter of this program. The rooms had been last refurbished in the early 60s in the kennedy administration. But there had been tremendous visitation, tremendous receptions and a lot of crowds in the 60s. And things really needed to take shape. And klem was an ambitious person who knew how to raise funds and appeal to donors. And mrs. Nixon would often write letters to donors and have receptions and teas for people that were potential donors or museums that might lend objects, such as the Dolly Madison portrait by gill bert stewart that belonged to the Pennsylvania Academy of the fine arts which was hung in 1971. And then finally was purchased by the association here for the collection. But she was a big supporter. In fact, she did go up to philadelphia to the Pennsylvania Academy to thank them for lending that painting, and she put herself out a great deal and worked very closely. She came very attached to a consulting architect who worked with mr. Conger on many of the projects and became very good friends with him and his family. I, too, second what patti says about her graciousness. We were not directly a part of her white house staff, but i do remember once she invited her staff to go out on the yacht, the sequia and included her staff. We got a chair that belonged to the blue room suite and it was mrs. Nixons birthday. And we invited her to our office to show her the chair and had a little Birthday Celebration with her friend mrs. Drown was there and some of the butlers and the household staff came in. And theres a wonderful photograph of her looking at something about, youre not quite 49 or Something Like that on the placard. But she was a very strong supporter. As patti said, had a lot of energy and was extremely gracious to people visiting the white house and to people who would contribute in some way to the collections. Anita, you have worked over a period of several president s. And youve got to see threads today that were begun by pat nixon. Oh, sure. Absolutely. First of all, i have to say, its an honor to be here with the two of these wonderful women who had the opportunity. One, i wish i always had. The one first lady i would love to have sat to have dinner with is pat nixon because of her impact, her love of the house, her incredible privilege that she felt to be a steward of the white house. And anybody that works in the white house knows the impact or sees the impact. You read about the impact. You see it on the walls of the things theyve been able to acquire for the collection that make it, you know, part of the Beautiful Museum and gift to the people that it is. And when patti mentioned about correspondence, i sort of chuckled a little bit on that, too, because ive worked for several first ladies whose correspondence was incredibly important to them. And one of the things about mrs. Nixon and her focus on correspondence is, she came from a small town. And she really understood that if somebody got an envelope from the white house or the president of the United States, what that would mean to receive in their mailbox. And thats why she was relentless about having her mail responded to and that anybody that wrote to her would get a letter from the white house and still means to this day, of course. But the fact that she took that so personally is one of her great legacies. And there are people in this audience who work as volunteers and correspondents right now. So they know what talking about and how that is something that every white house really feels is important and thanks to mrs. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt who really established the first formal Correspondence Office at the white house and she was the eyes and ears for her husband anyway. But she really understood what that connection to the American People would be through mail they wrote to her or wrote to the president and that they would get a response. So thats something talk about the thread of history, is a wonderful example. The connection to the constituents. And you can never forget that. What that reminded me of is that she had a mindset that was almost like a member of congress. In terms of having a constituency. And the people across america were her constituency. And she understood them because she had grown up with them. She was an incredibly hardworking person from, gosh, the time from the time she was 13 years old and her mother died, she was up working on the farm in the morning, taking care of her older brothers. Really raising her older brothers and cooking for them. And then went on to start working really as a teenager. And sometimes holding two and three jobs. So she was a professional for a very long time. But the main thing is she understood how people felt about Something Like their white house. And it was very important to her to have them leave feeling better about themselves and about what was going on. Opening up the white house at night would also mean that people who had day jobs where they couldnt just take off and go look at the white house, it would give them an access as well. And patti, i remember from my years, i covered seven president s starting with gerald ford and all the way through president obama. And i remember a sign that probably all of them wanted on their desk. I think it was Ronald Reagan who had, theres no limit to what you can accomplish if you dont care who gets the credit. That was pat nixon. Yes. She lived that. Really, she was the embodiment of that. And you could see it. It was never about her. I ran into a quote, and it was a barbara bush quote. Pat nixon didnt seek credit barbara bush was not shy. No. Pat nixon didnt seek credit, which is why which may be why she is not as fully appreciated as she should be. She never sought recognition for herself but those of us who knew and admired her always wish she had received the appreciation she earned over a lifetime of service. Mrs. Nixon always wanted the work to speak for itself. She didnt care about getting credit. And she genuinely did not. Anita, you once told me that the role of first lady adapts to the woman as much as the woman adapts it. Some day it will be a man. I think thats the white house in general, right, throughout our history that the occupant adapts to the office, and the office adapts to the occupant. But i think mrs. Nixon, like all first ladies through our history, the thread that binds all of them together, is theres no person who cares more about the success of the president and the presidency than the president s spouse. That is their single focus. And that is something, really, that does bind all of them together in what they share as the Single Person who has experienced the ups and the towns and who at the end of the day is not like any other adviser. They are a different confidante. And i think mrs. Nixon doesnt get the credit for what an incredible political mastermind she was. This was the hardest working person on the president s campaigns. And think about it. In Richard Nixons campaigns. In six years she saw him go from congressman to senator to Vice President of the United States in six years and all of these campaigns, some of them that were very difficult. 1952, of course, running for the vice presidency when the scandal on the finances erupted and how that personally wounded her so much because it was a challenge to their integrity. Not so much challenge to policy and to projects but to their integrity. This famously shy person or quiet person, she didnt have to be the loudest voice in the r m room, was wounded by that. And you can understand why. You know, i was watching again this wonderful tape that was done and really encapsulates everything that she was about. I was watching it and thinking, oh, i wish she could have seen that. Then i thought, get a grip. She never would have let you do Something Like that. Never in a million years. She was much too modest to ever, ever think about letting you do Something Like that. Well, one thing she has not gotten adequate credit for is the pandas. Who can tell the panda story . A great story. She is going with her husband to the breakthrough opening to china. A remarkable i mean, a seminal moment for american relations. And they add her to the trip and hairdresser, so that at the request of pick up the story. Shes at the state dinner . At the state banquet. At the state banquet, and theres a package of cigarettes sitting there. Right. Somebody tell the story. I dont know this story. I dont know that either. They were panda cigarettes. And mrs. Nixon said, i like that. Mrs. Nixon said, we should have or these are such these are so wonderful, you should have some. And he said, cigarettes . And she said, no, pandas. And he said, ill send you two. That definitely is something and i heard a wonderful story tonight. I dont know if i can share that. You told me that the actual cartridge of cigarettes is an artifact that you will now have at the library. That the cartridge, or the little pack of cigarettes was found. Its a metal pack. And i thought, isnt that terrific . Because thats a great way to tell the story, too, about this incredible diplomatic skill of mrs. Nixon and her gracious and very quiet and lovely way is saying, oh, i would like those. And then here we have, you know, here we have this National Treasure at the national zoo of the pandas. And again, you could imagine at the state banquet, so much pressure and tension and preparation that went in to that visit. No president ial aide could have scripted that that would be the outcome of that visit. But look at the legacy that its left behind. Remember, excuse me, Lucy Winchester who was mrs. Nixons social secretary told me a wonderful story one time about the logistics of getting those pandas here to washington. I hope theyve done an oral history with Lucy Winchester about that incident. You know, one thing that i know pertains to mrs. Nixon is in the same subject of how hard she worked, i think people dont realize that whether its a state dinner or whether youre doing a foreign trip, for one thing, for years, there were no jet airliners. So you can imagine what it was like going to some of these places. But the other thing is the amount of time and work that goes into making sure youre appropriately briefed. You read the guidance because, if youre sitting next to a head of state, youre talking to that person on their own level. And you have to know what youre talking about or what youre not supposed to be talking about. So it requires a lot. You cannot phone it in. You have to very conscientiously know those briefing books and make sure that you can handle something along those lines. She was someone who worked very hard on that, too, and understood the nuance of why you had to do that. There were so many things to admire this woman for. And she just took it in stride. It was a part of her job. Her unpaid job. And she excelled. She was comfortable talking with heads of state. She was very comfortable. For example, the trip that was mentioned earlier when there was that terrible, terrible yeah, the earthquake in peru. She landed in a mountain and met the wife of the president there. And they walked for five hours through the muck and everything that had been involved in that. It was something. And it all happened because she read the stories to begin with and the government sent our planes with some things. And three weeks later, she was noticing that all the coverage of it really had stopped. And she went to the president and said, i would really like to be helpful here. Id really like to do something. And within a week, she was on a plane headed for peru. And she was in fact, she had to sit in a makeshift chair in the front because it was obviously a plane that was taking as much as many things as they could load up. Cargo. Exactly. And the wife of the president met her and then they, as i say, walked for five hours through all of this muck. And then the rest of the day, she spent there were 50,000 people that died in this earthquake. And Something Like 800,000 people who were without a home. It was wrenching. And she spent the day talking to everyone that she could see and hugging them and it had the diplomats it had this consequence. The diplomats were very nervous about it because the president of the country had gotten had made some overt overtures to the soviets. And so that it was one of those moments that you didnt know what way it was going to go. And by the end of the day, he had heard everything that had happened with mrs. Nixon and how everyone adored here and what she had gone through to actually initiate this and go over there with all of this. And by the way, the p. S. To it was that not even a week later, the soviets sent 60 planes of materials to help these people. So it was not only her own government support, but the irony was that it also ended up in getting them more support from another country. The times in which she was in the public eye were such dramatic ones. And by the time they got to the white house, with the civil rights movement, with the war in vietnam, with the womens rights movement, pat nixon walked that kind of careful line without getting overtly political into her husbands decisions. Yet she would stand up, she and her successor betty ford would stand up and say, yes, you should pass the equal rights amendment. My daughter and my kids dont even know what the equal rights amendment is. But she would talk about that, and she would talk about women running for office. Women getting involved in politics. Remember, when they were in the white house, the ivy leagues were still all male universities. Women did not have Sandra Day Oconnor couldnt get a job right out of law school, except a sectari tesecretarial one. Barbara was running the office of womens issues. So im going to tell your story. These folks who worked in the white house then knew mrs. Nixon, knew how she worked within the white house office. And the departments that were there, thanks to leadership with you, Ann Armstrong and others, that were very conscious of this burgeoning womens movement. And mrs. Nixon, because shes politically astute, realized that the republicans were losing some ground on this. It was the democrats that were proposing legislation and, you know, bills to support women. And she worked very closely with the office of womens issues in the white house to help get more appointments, right . Appointments of women in the federal government. And as you said, spoke publicly about women. A woman for the supreme court. She was disappointed that was not the president s decision, of course, and may have expressed that privately to him. But publicly, of course, she supported the president. And thats again, i think that was her character and the appropriate way to do it. But she was responding to what was going on in the country. And make no marlene, can you come on up and join us . Theres a seat here for you. Weve got a chair up front for you. Go ahead, patti. No, i was going to say, make no mistake about it. She was what i would call quietly, politically astute. She wasnt about to brag about what she could do or not do. She was very quiet about her sophistication in terms of doing things that were appropriate politically. Thats well said. The times that she lived in were dramatic ones. But there are some things that dont change. There is always in the years that i covered the white house over an arc of 40 years, there has always been for every administration ive covered, a bit of tension between east and west. East wing and west wing. And anita, does it come with the territory . Its just sort of its just natural. I mean, its constantly evolving. My experience with working in the white house and working both west wing and east wing is that a lot of the way this is handled, it comes from the leadership at the top. And i think the way for mrs. Nixon, the way she comported herself as she was there to support the president of the United States. She was going to take her personal interests and her own character and her integrity and do what she could to be a representative of the president and a representative of the American People. And i think people respected that in the white house. And its just constantly an evolving relationship between east and west wing. And sometimes in some cases, its better than others. But i think i dont think its any secret that mrs. Nixon was frustrated at times. Maybe whether her position would be heeded or not, but it didnt stop her from doing what came natural to her and what she felt she could do to make a contribution. So i would say, my experience with this, too, and mrs. Bush was the same way, what i remember when i interviewed with her to be her chief of staff and the first thing she said is, im not here for myself. Im here for george and because of george. And with that, that message that helped me as a chief of staff get access to the assets and the things that i needed to help her help him. And people knew that. And for that reason, too, we had a successful run, i think, for her as first lady. Maybe you and susan rose, you and the others, became actually took the title assistant to the president , which is the highest ranking position within the white house. Top staff level. So there was some recognition that the east wing had a voice and has a role to play thats invaluable. The president completely depends on the first lady. During the early nixon days, Kate Anderson braugher who wrote the book first women three years ago writes that no first lady had a more fraught relationship with the west wing than pat. Basically because bob haldeman wanted to run everything. And i think a lot of people now patti, you came to the white house after mr. Haldeman and ehrlichman were gone. I missed them. Im so sorry. But there were those in the administration who clearly saw how important she was. Chuck colson who had an interesting path of his own, actually wrote to the president at some point saying that pat nixon on a foreign trip had broken through where we failed to project a more human side of the administration. Parade magazine wrote just five years ago that saying that despite his reputation for being a neglectful husband, dick was a sentimental partner. And they write in march 1969, he summoned pats social secretary to a private meeting in the white house. A Surprise Party for his wife. He was so excited during the meeting, he sang the entirety of happy birthday to you. And he described his details for the event in minute detail. Pat once told report eer fran lewen of the associated press, quote, hes very dear personally. I dont think i would have stayed with him otherwise. And there were others. There are other interesting voices that come up about that need to have a first lady seen as a partner. And youll recognize the name roger ailes who was a nixon media adviser who says in a memo to mr. Haldeman on may 4th, 1970, pat nixon he wrote to haldeman saying, please tell the president to talk to her and smile at her. And haldeman wrote back, you tell him. But she had backbone, patti. She definitely had backbone. And just to back up for a minute. There had to be a genesis for the word mansplaining. And i think it may have originated in the west wing. Im not sure. Mansplaining. Get it . Okay. No she just continued on with what was on her agenda. She didnt let bob haldeman deter her or even slow her down. She was gracious as always and then went ahead, did what she thought she should do. But i think in the early 70s, its hard to imagine now, but there was a white house east wing press corps of women that covered the first lady. It was a very different time. And they looked at it more much more in a traditional manner than since, i think. So it was her press secretary first press secretary used to do briefings for the press for a few years. Pat patti, you can speak to that perhaps. It stopped later. It was very gradual. You couldnt even give it a date. But in the beginning, yes, it was just a core of maybe four or five women that also, you know, followed around to various things. And then she started doing international trips. Remember, in the Vice President ial days, she had already done 53 foreign trips. I mean, thats unbelievable. It is unbelievable. She may have been the most the best prepared woman to be first lady that theres ever been in history. She had so much experience and so much experience at a young age. She was very, very confident of the things that she needed to do and could enhance the position and also enhance the the stature of the role, too. I was going to say, the acceptance of her constituents in the presidency. Knew pat nixon or met pat nixon, worked for pat or president nixon. So many of you who are involved with the reagan with the Nixon Foundation. Were going to open this up to questions in just a moment, and i want to ask all three of you, did pat nixon come back to the white house . Did she come to visit . Or did she, once they left and went back to Casa Pacifica, did she kind of leave that behind . I dont recall that she ever came back to the white house. I dont either. No, another first lady did, and i would give a lot of credence to mrs. Nixon for her graciousness toward the mrs. Kennedy mrs. Onassis tell us about the well, very poignant. I think this was the early 70s when the two portraits of president and mrs. Kennedy were completed and mrs. Nixon wrote to mrs. Onassis asking what shed like to do about a ceremony to present them. And mrs. Onassis said she really wasnt up to a ceremony. So mrs. Nixon then invited mrs. Kennedy and her children to come back for a private viewing. And i remember they locked down the house was locked down that day when mrs. Kennedy mrs. Onassis was coming back. Nobody could enter through the east or west wings into the residence area. And they invited mrs. Kennedy and the children to look at the portraits that we had hung them on the locations they were going to be. And then invited them up to the private quarters and julie and trisha showed the children the rooms that they had been in when the kennedy children were young. And then the president and mrs. Nixon invited them for a lovely private dinner. And i thought that was just one of the most gracious things they could have done at that time to preserve mrs. Onassis privacy and give her the time. Her one time that she ever came back to the white house. And mrs. Onassis wrote the most touching and beautiful letter you can imagine saying that the nixons had made the day she most dreaded a wonderful experience for her and her kids. And it just i mean it would bring a tear to your eye to see this letter. She was also very complimentary to mrs. Nixon about how the white house had been improved. And she said every there were no dark corners anymore in the white house. That she had done a beautiful job. And she also complimented their ability raising the two lovely daughters that you have and that she was so she said to raise young women like that who are in the public eye their entire lives is a very difficult thing to, do and you did a beautiful job. And she was so happy that her children got to meet the nixons children. Theres a portrait of pat nixon. Right. Tell us about that. Well, its a very poignant, extremely beautiful portrait, i think, painted out in san clemente in 1978. And henriet wyatt went out there to paint it in her house, in the nixons house there, and it came to the white house. But i have a quote from a note from wyatt sent to julie about her impression of her mother while she was painting this portrait. And id like to read a little bit of it because its so i think so beautifully evocative about who mrs. Nixon was. This is henriet wyatt. Above the bridge of a nose thats almost greek. Your mother has eyes like no one elses. The eyes reveal an unusual spirit. They are the eyes of a 16yearold girl, an expression of great sweetness. And in that expression occasionally the doors close and the lights go out. For there is a wistfulness in your mothers beaut che is what one finds in all great beauties. Always the feeling of something beyond. The desire for the unattainable. She has maintained a kind of fragile beauty about her life. When she looked out the window at the hummingbirds and there were humming theres a hummingbird in the painting i like the expression then in her eyes best. She still believes, despite injustices. I just thought that was a beautiful tribute. Ladies and gentlemen, lets hear from you. We have a microphone. Julianne over here and another microphone over here. Could we bring a microphone down to bobby killburg . Im going to try to stand, but i broke my hip, so its a little difficult. You talked about mrs. Nixons support of womens rights and its just one story that all of a sudden flooded back to me. And that was in 1972 at the Republican National convention. They had a Platform Committee, obviously, to decide public policy. For the first time it had to be 50 men and 50 women. And the majority of women on that Platform Committee wanted to do something about child care and supporting it financially. The majority of men, im sorry, hugh, did not want to. And it was it got very feisty and fairly tense. And then all of a sudden, all the tension went away and they supported funding for federal child care. And i asked why, and people just looked at me and said, the east wing just said it was time. This is a lively crowd. Over here in the third row please. Thank you. Thank you all. Ms. Monkman, your story is about the collection is amazing to hear. Is there another one youd care to share with us please. About an acquisition perhaps mrs. Nixons favorite or even your favorite . I dont know there was a favorite. I think mrs. Nixon was very interested in portraits of first ladies particularly in president s. I mentioned the Dolly Madison portrait. She also hosted a large reception at the time that the adams family gave the portraits of luisa Catherine Adams and quincy adams that had been in the family for over 150 years since they were first painted in the 19th century. She gave a wonderful reception and invited many, many adams descendents to that reception at the time. So i think and i remember, too, mrs. Johnson had worked on trying to acquire a portrait of james madison, but it didnt come into the white house until the nixon administration. And she invited mrs. Johnson back for the ceremony when that was unveiled in 1969 1970, i think it was. I do remember when the blue room was unveiled in 1972. And that was a major, major project. And mrs. Nixon had gone with mr. Conger to an Historic House in georgetown to look at plaster work which was then copied and replicated for the blue room. So they were having this enormous reception that was going to be held. And it happened to be the evening that George Wallace was shot in maryland here out in the maryland suburbs. But they went on with the reception. I remember president and mrs. Nixon speaking at that reception that night. Thank you. A good question. Right here. Not loud enough for cspan. Mrs. Trump recently went to an active combat zone. And i dont think she got very much coverage. But what really surprised me was how few commentators mentioned mrs. Nixon going to one and mrs. Bush. And it seems to be a very rare occasion, and i was hoping you all could tell us what its like for a first lady to do that. And did mrs. Nixon get much press coverage at the time . I couldnt find out much about it. Its amazing i even heard stories about it being an open helicopter. Its interesting. Actually, thats one of the first things that ive really learned about and admired about mrs. Nixon was the fact that she was the first first lady to go to an active combat zone. And ill tell you where i really learned this. And it was while i was working for mrs. Bush. And we went to the National Constitution center in philadelphia and there was an exhibit about first ladies. And what struck me was, what i didnt know until that time that she and still to this day is the most traveled first lady in history to 81 countries. And no one has eclipsed that. And then really studying more and peeling back the layers of what the bravery to go to an active combat zone she was fearless. Fearless. And but in terms of coverage, at the time, jennifer, i am not sure. But i will say this. I think that i really commend the Nixon Foundation because in this last couple of years, you are seeing so much more attention paid to the contributions of this woman, this extraordinary woman and what how much that she did, not only at the white house but the impact that she had on our politics, the impact she had on women and womens rights, and the fact that she was the only she is the only first lady that was given the title of personal representative of the president. So as a global diplomat, no one comes close. And i traveled to 77 countries with laura bush. It was remarkable achievements that she had, too, to afghanistan, the middle east, all over. And we had difficult time getting coverage. We didnt have a press corps that traveled with us. We really had to beg people to come and come on our trips. And she and president nixon i believe when he was Vice President had gone to south america and they were in the middle of a riot that was so close she didnt know for a number of years because they werent told how close they were to death. So she had had close calls before this and she was going. You know. She was undeterred. We have a question right over here. Theres a microphone coming from behind you. Thank you. And this is television. Work the microphone. Think i can get that one. Its interesting to me, ive read a few quotes and id like to hear from each one of your panels telling me exactly because she was quoted as saying she gave up everything that was precious and dear to her to support the president , but listen to you ladies and watching the video that doesnt seem to be the case, that she was quoted as saying that. The thing that was most dear to her was her privacy. And she did certainty give that up for her husband. Right. And in fact theres a wonderful i highly encourage everybody to watch this, you can find it on youtube, in an interview she gave over a period of days in california, san clemente, with Virginia Sherwood. Of abc. Of abc. That was a wonderful interview and she was asked that question about what bothered her the most, all these years in public service, all of the contributions and the places shes travelled, what bothered her the most and she said to always have to be guarded all the time and be surrounded all the time, again, giving up privacy and anybody would say thats pretty hard to do. I think thats why she made the house such a home, particularly in their private quarters. That sanctiuarsanctuary. The other thing that came out is Virginia Sherwood asked why didnt you do everything in the white house, a whole scale project, and we dont see anything around about it, and mrs. Nixon explained that she thought comparons on that were irrelevant. That she was very grateful to mrs. Kennedy to bring the nations attention to the white house and lifting it up and have people understand how important it was but she didnt want to get into making comparisons with other first ladies. Gracious. And remember too when Jacquelyn Kennedy did so much to improve the white house, he Jacqueline Kennedy did so much to improve the white house it wasnt the time when decorating the white house was considered an important priority to promote. During those years when it wasnt much of a priority mrs. Nixon would find a white house, the story was Lucy Winchester would go around with manicure scissors and snip stragley strings off the furniture which it desperately needed. That was part of it. It needed to be refurnished desperately and she worked hard at that project as i said before and gave it her full support to do that. I do recall that there were press, when a room was refurbished or a painting would be donated and there would be a ceremony, there was press coverage but it didnt seem to get much out of the white house unfortunately. Those were the days there were three televisions and punch about of newspaper and into twitter. I dont know that pat nixon would have gone on twitter. I dont think it would have been prudent. We have time for two questions over here. Lets go way, way back. Okay. Gentleman here. And ill get to you next, sir. I had the privilege of interviewing best abel, mrs. Johnsons social secretary and she told me a story how its protocol for the outgoing social secretary to leave a gift and note for the incoming social secretary which in this case was Lucy Winchester and she said she was very surprised that mrs. Winchester never responded to her note. She said she only found out several years later that she had been reformed not to respond to the note under threat of termination. You can pretty much guess what mrs. Abels reaction was. I wont tell you. You can use your own imagination. My question was what do you think pat nixon would have thought if she had found out that this had occurred . I find that very surprising, because i have to say, one club of people who is pretty close are the social secretaries and really, they still, those that are still around all get together very regularly. So i find that puzzling, sad. Or hard to believe. Question way in the back, please, yes, sir. Good evening. Thank you for the presentation. Its most enjoyable. Im a history buff. And i want your input if you know the answer it to this. In one of his books president nixon wrote that in 1940 he was a trustee at Whittier College in california and at the same time he was the trustee lou henry ho hoover, herbert hoovers wife was also a trustee and i wonder if any of you know if the two first ladies ever met . I dont know but id like to find that out. I dont know. Well try to google. Well have to do a Little Research on that. Youre talking to the right people. I dont want to ignore this side of the room. We have time for two more questions. Way in the back. For the lights its tough for me to see but there is a hand there. Thank you. You were speaking about mrs. Nixons jealously guarding her privacy. Im surprised you havent brought up how she had to give that up for one of the biggest events of their family life, trishas wedding at the white house. How did she handle all of those preparations and opening that event to the world. Thats a great question. Good question. Yeah. She it was trishas desire to have it in the garden and she went with it and i can only say that im certain that she handled it very graciously. And certainly with all of the photos that i saw subsequent to that she looked radiant and she made it look easy. What can i say. White house weddings are big events, as you know, and i remember when president George Herbert walker bush and Barbara Bushs daughter dora was going to get married at camp david and i saw mrs. Bush and said so, what can you tell me, and she said, absolutely nothing. There are some things, first ladies, and then family time. Lets lean on this point. Every president who serves brings a family that also finds itself in the line of fire, in the very, very public glare of public life. And how the nixon daughters and soninlaws and their children have flourished so, despite what they went through, especially the last couple years of his administration. Betty. Well, i do remember working a lot with julie when she was living, david must have been somewhere else because i think he was overseas or something. He was, he was in the navy. Yeah, and she was living in the house at that time and she became very involved with the projects mrs. Nixon encouraged her to have tours for the blind, so forth. I remember trying to review her scripts she was writing. So she was very active in the house and very interested in people. Like her mother. Very outgoing. Trisha was much more reserved. She did tutor a student while she was there but she wasnt there for too long. And would be good to note that at their first possible moment they all got out of town. Uhhuh. You know, they all chose a place to live where they have the privacy and had no one around them in terms of standing there when theyre eating dinner or going out to a movie, or that kind of thing. So you do what you need to do to get through a period and they did it graciously and the white house, it wasnt what they chose to do for the long haul. Thats right. Wellsaid. Anita, some families, there have been families that have become kind of political dynasties but that wasnt the mold for the nixon family. No, of course not. I think for any family, whether theres multiple generations that are in politics, its still very hard to see any of them hurt or wounded or challenged and i do remember president bush 41 saying after all he had been through, all his campaigns and the very difficult way he left in 1993, still, what hurt him the most were the attacks on his son and george w. Bush would say everything he went through, what hurt him most were the challenges and the attacks on his dad. So i just think thats, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, family is family thats your sanctuary, thats what you depend on, its your back bone, your strength, no matter what your political life is, its your personal life that lives on. Not your politics. Well, we hope this has shown some new illumination on a very fascinating time in American History. Hard to believe its been 50 years. Please thank this remarkable plan ne e panel. [ applause ] the house and senate are expected to return for legislative business after the easter and passover holidays on monday april 20th but thats subject to change due to the coronavirus pandemic. Watch live coverage of the house on cspan and the senate on cspan2. Up next, we take you to the white house garden to learn how president s and first ladies developed and used their gardens during their time at the white house. This is part of a daylong symposium by the White House Television a sobriety iati association. Our final panel, the white house gardens today. Features speakers with lived experiences working in and around the gardens of the white housz. We will hear from in this order Deputy Director of science and Program Director for the u. S. Botanic garden. Jim adams, hortontuckericulture manager. And jim, white house board of directors and formerly park service. Like our Previous Panel well hear three short presentations and then a conversation will be moderated by dr. Pell. Well leave time at the end for