You see future games being held . The smartass answer would be somewhere between we throw darts and it depends who was harassing me the most. The latter is closest to the truth. Actually, we look for to be opportunistic. We started in buffalo with the notion that maybe it would work. Once it did, we started looking for what would be the next place we could go to that can build upon it, and continue the growth of the winter classic and all Outdoor Games as an institution. As we got more and more comfortable building it as an event, as it got a bigger and bigger following, we decided we could try things that some people thought would be crazy. Last year, we did an outdoor game in los angeles and it was great. For us to come to the nations capital, there is a fan base here that ted has built through his organization and through his use of social media and his commitment to the community that made us comfortable that selling out the venue would be no problem. Secondly, we would have an impact on the community that we thought would not just be positive for d. C. , but would reflect well on the league. We thought the Critical Mass was there. Every city, every club wants one. Even in florida, arizona. Why cant we have one . Because it is 80 degrees at night in miami, does not work. So, what we do is we try to move it around. It is the same thing with the allstar game, the draft i told gary it is never hot and washington. He also promised me we would never have weather like we had this morning when we were dedicating the legacy rink. We thought what better place at this time in the genesis of the Outdoor Games than to be here and to bring in the blackhawks which is a great team and a great draw. We think theres no better way for us to start 2015. Full disclosure, we have a question from the representative from the new jersey advance. I need to know whether or not i will be canceling my subscription. We have already seen a winter classic at yankee stadium. When are we going to see one at the meadowlands . We have we played two Outdoor Games last winter in the new York New Jersey metropolitan area. The devils played in the game. We are going to be moving things around before we go back to the place we have been. We have been given many expressions of interest by Metlife Stadium and the devils but i think for the time being having played a round robin with the rangers, the islanders and the devils playing in new york and new jersey is a unique situation because of the three clubs. If we had only played one game the team that was excluded will say you are driving us out of business. So we had to play two games to make sure everybody was included but i have a lot of other teams that want the game before we can come back. Your success as commissioner is indicated in the fact that there seems to be a lot of interest in other cities that want an nhl team. So, i have a general question and a few specific questions that begins with specific cities that want a franchise. We expect you to announce it at the National Press club. What is your forecast on the prospect of future expansion and having an equal number of teams in the eastern and western conferences . I try not to be in the prognostication business. I dont like guessing about things. Yes, im charged with leadership and vision but prognostication is like being the weatherman. We know how often they are not right. We are probably stronger as a league. Our franchises are stronger as a group than ever before. The Ownership Group is the strongest it has ever been. As a result, we are getting expressions of interest from a number of places that dont have franchises. It is gratifying. It is also helping to make franchise values higher and higher almost on a daily basis. We are looking and listening but not doing anything about it. We are letting people look and we are listening to the expressions of interest. Yes, we have 16 teams in the east and 14 in the west. That was by virtue of a realignment we did a couple of years ago to try to fix what was wrong with our geography. Columbus and detroit columbus from their inception and detroit for more than 20 years were in the west. They are in the eastern time zone. It made it very difficult for their travel and for their fans when they went on the road and had to play games on television back because if they are on the west coast, it was late at night. We had minnesota in the northwest and wanted to be in the central. Dallas was in the pacific and wanted to be in the central. We realize and the only way we can do it and get everybody where they belong was to have 16 in the east and 14 in the west. We are scheduling around that. We dont think it is a problem. However, we do understand that there are some people who do. We are not going to expand just for symmetry. Somebodys notion of symmetry is not how you make an important business decision as to whether or not you bring in a new partner, a new city, but we will continue to look. If we were going to expand and somebody wanted a team in the east, it would make the evaluation a little more complicated to say the least because 17 18 in the east and 14 in the west exacerbates what some people perceive to be a problem. Since we are not in formal expansion mode right now, im not worrying about it. I dont expect you to give the pros and cons about the specific cities, but just to let you know, the request i had came from persons who wanted to know about the possibilities of an nhl franchise in seattle or portland or oklahoma or cleveland, ohio where i grew up watching the cleveland barons. Seattle has expressed an interest previously, before the nba went to oklahoma. Oklahoma city tried to get an nhl franchise. We are getting las vegas has given us solicitations of interest. We hear from quebec city. We are just listening. The canadian ambassador actually, i was waiting for the quebec city question. He actually was helpful and responsible for getting a team back in winnipeg after the jets left in the 1990s. We are pleased to have you. One or two more and then we will move over to your colleague. What are the challenges of playing with the Players Union and will fans be subjected to future nhl lockouts . Im going to ask ted a question about that. We dont like lockouts. The fact that i presided over three of them is not a matter of pride. The fact of the matter is we have had some fundamental problems that needed to be addressed. If you dont get the cooperation you need and collective bargaining from the union, we are prepared to do what needs to be done in order to get to a place where you think you can make the business of your game healthy. You sometimes have to go through those. We have had issues related to the union. After we took a year off, i think the union went through four or five executive directors. The last round of negotiations we had a brandnew executive director in the last round of negotiations. There are things that had to be changed. I get asked if it was worth it. It makes it sound like on some level that i was happy to go through it. The fact of the matter is we had no choice. We did what we had to do and the game for the last 10 years has never been healthier, never been bigger, never been more popular. The game on the ice has never been better. From an owners standpoint, how do you view work stoppages . By the way, if i did not have the support of ownership, we could not have gotten through it and achieve the objectives we set out to achieve. I think i have been an owner too long because while the commissioner was speaking, i noticed there is a light out up there. [laughter] if you owned a team, you would probably get about 30 emails from people saying you have a light out. [laughter] fans deserve the opportunity to have hope and dream and believe their team can be competitive. The system that the nhl has implemented now has proven out that every city enters the year thinking they can make the playoffs and compete for a stanley cup. We have seen in our league teams that just make it. They finish in the 16th spot and they end up winning the stanley cup that year. One of the great things about the system for the fans is that if you are a really big market you cant outspend somebody in a really small market. The competitiveness there you come to the sprint for the playoffs and your team is in it. We did not have a very good year last year and we did not make the playoffs. The first time in seven years and we missed the playoffs by three points. I look back you look at the schedule and say we lost in a shootout here, lost in overtime we should have made the playoffs. It is so healthy. The players all want to be on winning teams. I look at some other leagues that dont have a system like that. Usually, there are markets that spend 40 million on payroll and this other team is going to spend 200 million on payroll. As soon as my player who is young and i develop gets good, he is going to go to another market. What happens, the scar tissue builds up in the fan base because they feel disadvantaged. They dont want to fall in love with the young player. I believe firmly that the day the Washington Capitals took off was when Alex Ovechkin became this great player and an m. V. P. And he announced he wants to stay in washington, d. C. And we signed him to a 13year contract. [applause] i honestly believe the fan base said we can believe. We can trust he is not going to the first big market he can or a canadian team. It was like a verification to the community that this was a great place and we can have a great team. So, i like the system for the benefit of the fans. It starts to put an emphasis on how good you are as a leader and a manager and an owner because you cannot outspend everybody. You need to have a good ahl system, you have to draft and develop well, you have to make a few trades, manage the cap a lot a lot goes into it. It makes it more fun to manage. How painful are work stoppages from an owners standpoint . Like you cant believe. I didnt lay off a person. Right . I paid everybody during all the work stoppages. Financially, it is really painful. The bank didnt say you dont have to pay the mortgage on the building. Emotionally is where it hurts the most because that ebb and flow thats the great thing about sports teams. The other day, i was coming to a game with a very important person and we were a little late. He said, what time does the game start . I said, the game starts the same time every game. It is not like i am going to call over and say we are running late, can you wait to drop the puck . There is a trust embedded in that that you play this many home games and the season starts this week and it ends that week and the playoffs begin this week. When that gets taken away, it feels like death. Like a zombie, you walk around and there is nothing to do. You feel terrible for the fans for the workers, for the players. When you make that decision, it is a really difficult decision. You have to make sure that you come out of it as much stronger which we have proven. The league has never been stronger, the competitiveness has never been better, the play has never been better, the Revenue Growth has never been better. I think a lot of that comes from the core of the cba that all teams can be competitive. I will ask the questions now. Fix the lights. [laughter] we are going to switch the topic. You are involved in the effort to bring the olympics to washington, d. C. In 2024. What do you think the prospects are and how would the olympics change our region . Our country and our community is so in need of big missionbased projects we can rally around. I just came back from a week overseas and Many Organizations that people here represent are partially responsible for how the world sees us. We watched sky tv and bbc last week and the tv shows that gets shown, you would think everybody has ebola. Every city is closed down because of riots and that there is a race war going on in america. That is the imagery that is basically being delivered to the world. Every media outlet has headlines that talks about the dysfunction of washington, d. C. How broken america is and how dysfunctional the city is. We live here. This is the greatest city in the world. And, doing Something Like the olympics, our theme is unity. Russ ramsey, our chairman, is here. We have an opportunity, a once in a Generation Opportunity to accomplish a lot around a big mission. On a small level, we can reimagine the city. When i was in london last week i got goosebumps in seeing how the east end, which looked like the area around Verizon Center and now looks like ward seven and ward eight, were totally transformed for the olympic games. Some media write things and i go have you been to london . Have you seen . They made a profit on the games. They created a community where Public Transportation united a disconnected part of the city. They cleaned the river. They turned the Olympic Village into lowincome housing. The data centers and the fiber that was laid created silicon roundabout which is now their thriving number one job creator for their Venture Capital community and tech center. We can do that here. We can deal with the scar tissue and the birth defect we have in washington, d. C. We have not been able to embrace and go across the anacostia and make that community a part of ours. For the world, we are in desperate need to show a united front that we stand for something good. Nothing, honestly, nothing is more transformative and healing than the power of sport. Do you believe in miracles . Yes. [applause] that is representative. Let me ask you a followup question. Yes, i am passionate. [laughter] leading on from your comments, hockey is a rather expensive sport. With the cost of gear and ice time, how can the nhl and the Washington Capitals and other teams help kids get involved and afford hockey and further diversify the makeup of players in the nhl . Either or both. The commissioner should talk because the league has done a good job. A lot of times, this goes to the media reporting, it is not frontpage news to talk about the commissioners work with black colleges and scholarship funds. Why would you want to write about that . We just went to ward six in the rain and cold and im disappointed not a senior city official was there because it doesnt make big news. We built the playground and gave equipment and built the rink for kids that will have that for decades. We train kids. A hall of fame player was there. Sports teams, we really are in pursuit of a Double Bottom line. We have the iceplex and we give 1200 hours a year away to sled hockey and youth hockey and the like. I wont be disingenuous. It is the right thing to do but it is also good business. Introducing young people across all economic strata, making the tent as big as possible is smart business. They are the fans of tomorrow. They are the next great defenseman. The number one or number three pick in the draft a couple of years ago was the son of a basketball player who once played for the washington wizards. Popeye jones. He got traded to dallas. While he was in dallas, dallas had a really good hockey team. There was a boon of rinks that were being built. He started playing ice hockey and he could become the greatest defenseman in the league. It is how we will expand the game and the bigger the tent the better. We are very active. The fact is we spend millions of dollars in support of usa hockey which is the Grassroots Organization that manages hockey across the United States. We have programs, learn to play programs, try hockey programs. We have a number of clubs that support economically disadvantaged programs. Whether or not it is here or ice hockey in harlem or snyder hockey in philadelphia. The owner of the flyers has taken over from the city all the rinks that were dilapidated and were about to be shut down. For me this may not make an owner happy in terms of the bottom line but in teds case the broader objective is something i know he is supportive of hockey as a vehicle for disadvantaged children to learn life lessons. Be a good student, hard work team work, diligence, physical fitness, getting the education you need so you can do anything else. If we can get young people involved in life by using hockey, it will be great if they can become fans and itll be amazing if they become nhl players, but the last two objectives are not as important as giving back to the community by making kids to be in a position to go to college and do things with their lives they never would have had an opportunity to do. [applause] what is the last board of directors you joined . Thurgood marshall. Garys on the board of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship College fund. We are almost out of time. I just want to interject this format you two having a conversation, i think you deserve a special round of applause. [applause] before asking the last question and since you elected to receive during the first half, you will receive the last question which is a twoparter. First, id like to present you each with a traditional National Press club mug which we give to our distinguished guest of honor and you both deserve it. Thank you. [applause] this was not the cup i was expecting. [laughter] that was a very good line. Actually, im shortening my concluding remarks because before i ask the last question i will like to ask you one that you just referred to. The last time you spoke here the capitals were having success in its regular season and you predicted a stanley cup championship. I guess we had that on the record in our archives. So, why has that not happened . Because its hard. [laughter] there are 29 other clubs who want to make sure that does not happen. Its very humbling. Its very humbling to realize that ultimately there are 29 failures and one success. The great thing about sports is you get to try it again. You try new things and you keep making investments. My belief is that were hardworking enough, smart enough, energetic enough investment oriented enough. Keep at it and eventually we will get through it. Ok. Now, we are going to switch to the National Football league. As a successful owner of two professional sports teams, what advice can you offer the owner of the Washington Football Team and the second part should the Washington Redskins change their name . Why or why not . I get asked this question all the time and ive been very consistent with my answer. I have great empathy for how difficult it is to lead a team. I have done some things well and ive had miserable failures. I have done things that im not proud of and not executed well on. My plate is full. I would never appreciate another owner talking about the capitals or the wizards and our strategy. I dont think its appropriate for me to address anything there. [applause] we are out of time which often happens at sports events. I want to thank our two guests so much for being here today and sharing the podium together. We are adjourned. Thank you very much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] we think of them as their own institutions, their existence by themselves. When you pair them up and think of how they relate to each other, how they fought, how they cooperated, we thought this is the makings of a more interesting story, about a fraternity, a club. Where was the first moment you said i didnt know that . The first thing that started us, the relationship between harry hoover and harry truman and herbert hoover. They formed this alliance that neither of them would have anticipated. It ended up being enormously productive. Doors up from blair house. How did you learn about it . How did you to Work Together . We have been doing this a long time. I do not know how many stories we have written. We had a working pattern of handing things off back and forth were one of us would do the initial excavation and turn over what we found. At this point, were finishing each others sentences. You live in different cities. That is probably the reason why it works. Michael is reporting resources of the last five administrations, he focused more on the recent president. He was able to talk not just to their top adviser, but president bush and president carter were helpful to us. It is interesting listing to them talk about what they all meant to one another. By the way, George Walker bush . I interviewed an official who i did not see an interview with him. He is in there by email. How long did they spend with you . He does not do interviews anymore. That one was by email. He is a great and funny writer. If you have an experience, and knowing how to get him, he is wonderful and human and revealing purity is a good memory. Bill clinton was great. We spent an hour with him in harlem. That one was by email. Who do you think are the two president s that you covered back to what . The first one . We really start with truman. Which one of two president s together has a really deep friendship and the opposite . I would say the deepest friendship would be hoover and truman and bush and clinton. Ford and carter. Here are two men that i like the dickens and did have this bonding moment in 1981. Reagan sent into a funeral. They hit it off on the plane and spend the next 25 years doing about 25 projects together. They become such a good friends that ford and carter promised to give the eulogy of the other guy. This goes from being people we have a situation where two men who fought bitterly in 1976 promised to give the eulogy of the other. We see Rosalind Carter at gerald fords funeral. That is amazing. These men go through things and have scars that no one can understand except each other. That bonds them in ways that all of them are writing about politics and policy that few of us can experience. I want to ask nancy about the hoovertruman relationship. What did you find specific examples of where those two worked together . Initially it was a practical thing. Truman found himself president. Here he is facing a catastrophe. Literally hundreds of millions of people are at risk of starting. Starving. It was a mammoth undertaking to figure out how were going to get europe on its feet. No one knew more on how to do this than herbert hoover. He is a great problem solver. Against the wishes, truman reached out to hoover and asked him to come in and helped him how to figure out how to do european relief. They are suspicious of each other. They had not had a relationship before. As they got over their suspicions and were very much united in the urgency of what they were up against, a tremendous sense hoover 50,000 miles around the world meeting with others to negotiate moving food from countries that had it to those who needed it. It was so successful and dedicated that he and truman then worked together on one project after another on which only a former president had the standing and stature to accomplish what needed to be done. Truman found interesting ways to thank him. He hung a portrait of hoovers wife in the white house. Fdr had changed the name of the hoover dam to the great boulder dam. Truman signed an order renaming it the hoover dam. By the time theyre out of office and planning their libraries, there are letters where hoover that is an austere guy says you have no idea what role you played in my life. It is so powerful. Half these people left office against their will. When someone later on from a Different Party reaches out in rehabilitates them, which is something we see over and over they are grateful to the point of being unable to speak. One man need advice and another man need redemption. Go back to the 707 airplane. Isnt that the one in the Reagan Library . Yes. Who was on that plane . It is a time when Ronald Reagan asked ford, carter, and nixon to go to the funeral in 1991. They get on the plane. They are not sure who goes first. Carter goes first because he is the most recent. Just to make it interesting, Henry Kissinger and a host of other luminaries sit around and there are some concerns that carter should have the main state room. It was more of a closet. On this plane, there are these three men, all who do not particularly like each other. They have this astonishing encounter where they began to talk about what they shared and what separates them. That is the beginning of that friendship which would last for 25 years. He refused to give the bedroom because he said he was in charge. He was a senior official. Did you have any feedback from anybody . I talked to three or four people who were on that flight. All the reporters are still alive. I talked to all three of them. They had astonishing storage. They spent a lot of time talking about what was wrong with u. S. israel policy. This was an astonishingly taboo thing to do. Much less for two president s to do together. When it hit the city the next day, not only did the white house to stand back and say they do not speak for the government, i believe it was joe, the aging columnist who came from a different generation, said those are the kind of conversations that real reporters do not put on the record. Once they had done that, the club was reformed. Former president s knew when they spoke together, they had exceptional power. That continues today. It seems like through your book there are suggestions that people did not like hague. You have seen a lot of these different kinds of incidents in the book. How often did these personal affronts they are never forgotten are they . The people around the president are not thrilled to see the president reaching outside of the white house circle to former president s who are free agents. You cannot count them to stay on script or do what they are told. They have a power. The white house staff is not necessarily the biggest fans but they cannot do anything about it. I am sure they did not want him talking to hoover. Ford did not want him talking to nixon. Clintons people were suspicious of him talking to carter. Even in the Obama White House it was stop and go. You do say there is an agreement between the two of them that has never been done before because of hillary clinton. When obama was elected and hillary was made secretary of state, bill had to sign an eight or nine point memorandum of agreement between himself that made it harder for him to go to certain places. It made him difficult to raise money. He said he will do whatever it takes. This was a controversial thing. It was seriously negotiated by former clinton people, rahm emanuel. You have this strange a moment where obama aides who used to beat clinton aides put a fence around it. You say George Washington was the original member of the club. How did you two divide of the president s . I took the first set and michael took the second. Nixon is such a gigantic character. He appears in 1949. We shared nixon. Then michael focused on ford and the president after. Nixon first reaches out to reagan who was one of mine in 1947. He says i want to have you come to washington and testify in front of the house. Eisenhower, who was one of nancys, was involved in the 1968 republican convention. He was behind the scenes helping reagan get organized as a supporter of reagan and as a candidate. They positioned themselves for 1968. That suggested the club had relationships long before some of the members were in the white house. How did you write this together . How long did it take . We had been working on it for better than four years. We could easily spend another four years. The stories are so rich. In a way, it is hard to stop the research and trying to get these stories onto the page. We would both pushed each other to set deadlines. I would draft a chapter and send it to michael. What about your personal situation . We have day jobs. I am an editor at Time Magazine. One thing we found, at the risk of this sound like a rationalization, is everything we were reading we would hear these echoes in the stories that we were covering every day in a realtime. Now we are in an election year. This has been true. We kept on hearing these extraordinary echoes and challenges the past president s faced and how they handled them. It was a useful foundation for the realtime journalism that we were doing. We each drafted our own chapters and pass them back and forth. Those are very brutal processes. Cut out this entire section. You do not need this. I want more of this. You have something richer here. We treat each other like editors and writers. We do that sometimes three or four times and so we get a draft that we can read. Then we read it out loud. To each other . To each other or ourselves. I am sure we have read the entire thing on the phone to each other. Twice. You have families . I have three kids 21, 17 and 12. Where are you from . Columbus, ohio. I went to oberlin. I have been with Time Magazine for 27 years. I have known you those 27. Where is your hometown originally . I grew up in new york city. Manhattan. I went to yale as an undergrad and then to oxford. Marshall scholar. It means the British Government funds 30 American Students to come to a degree at a british university. It was a fantastic experience. I took politics and philosophy. I have two girls, 17 and 14 who are exceptionally patient with the many obsessions that this but gave rise to. At this point, are there any living former president s to have read it and gotten back to you . We know that two are reading it. I think they are still in process. Do we know who they are . I do not want to say yet. There are so many specifics i want to ask you about. I want to run a piece of audio tape from the Lyndon Johnson oval office conversation. This is october 1617 right before the election. George wallace, hubert humphrey, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson are talking about what . Vietnam. If wallace and humphrey and nixon, it is 1968. What i suspect is the reason johnson would call them is peace negotiations were at a sensitive stage. He thought it was important that the candidates both know what is going on and that everyone stay on the reservation. He did not want anyone to undermine the negotiations. Here is what it sounded like on tape. [audio tape] i know you do not want to play politics of your country. I am trying to tell you how not to pay politics with it. I know all of you want peace at the earliest possible moment. I would express the hope that you be awfully sure of what you are talking about before you get into the intricacies of these negotiations. Over. I will be glad to add any comment. No comment, mr. President. Thank you. This is consistent with my position all along. I will make no statement that would undercut negotiations. We hope this thing works out. Yes, mr. President. That is my position all along, too. It is the position you stated, yes sir. I agree with you that we should not play into politics. [end audio clip] didnt George Wallace get 13 of the vote . Very soon after that call johnson is alerts it through a number of sources. Some are very sensitive that people in nixons camp were actually, actively trying to sabotage the peace talks. He did not want to see johnson and humphrey have this triumphant moment right before an election. He was pretty confident that it would swing the whole thing. He was privately sending signals to the south vietnamese dont do anything and you will get a better deal when i am in the white house. This is through the dragon lady. How did they ever prove this . She later admitted. At the time she lived in the watergate. Her phones were tapped. She was followed. They also had surveillance on the south vietnamese ambassadors to the u. S. So you have the white house wiretapping allies and private citizens, which is a little touch and go. They had other sources that were telling them nixons team is actively trying to undermine what youre doing. Imagine youre Lyndon Johnson. You get this news. The election is five days away. Do you go public . In a year when we have seen Bobby Kennedy killed, Martin Luther king, blood in the streets, we have a society that is traumatized and terrified about the foundations on which the country rests, that is a very tough call. It is one of a number of occasions we saw in which president s are making decisions in which there is personal and Party Interest and Larger National interest on the table. Johnson says not to go public. Nixon is undermining him on the peace talks. Did the public know or not know about this call . Not in real time. At that time . No. They didnt even know they had talked. But what johnson was trying to do was simply get himself a little running your without the criticism and public on the campaign. He called them up and said stay. each has his own reason for not doing that. Not all stayed onboard. That is quickly overtaken by be evidence that nixon was the undermining him in private. As nixon faces his own investigation for watergate, nixon calls up his old colleague in the club and says now i know what you are hearing me, you were listening to me back in 1968. You need to call your democratic friends and say stop this investigation. Or nixon is going to say that i was tapping him in 1968. Johnson leaned into the phone and said if you say that, i will tell him what you said. You have the president in the former president by 1973 threatening to double blackmail each other. So the club has its moments of difficulty, strife, and very high drama. Johnson is dead five days later of a heart attack. 1973. Two days after nixons inauguration. Our stories divided themselves. As of january 22, 1973, there is no club. Nixon is the only living president s. Johnson died in january. Truman died. When were the most former president s . Bill clinton is inaugurated in 1993. He had five former president s alive. Which has never happened other than lincoln. Clintos five were nixon, ford, carter, reagan, and bush. They had all been turned out of office. Had you spent much time on them . None. We knew we could only write a book of so many pages and hoover was the place to start. Hoover goes up to truman on the dais of ikes swearing in says lets start a president s club. Truman says great. You be the president. I will be the secretary. They were joking, but that language, reagan uses it with carter. There are souvenirs. At one point, kennedy sends eisenhower a box of golf balls with the president ial seal and says i cannot use these because of my back and you are the only one that legitimately can. When reagan leaves office here are some rules you are going to need to follow. Youre going to have to say no most of the time. They will try to drag you into financial deals. You have to ignore this. People will try to take advantage of you. We will talk about this as it goes on. We will have to consult. There is a kind of real process. Even now, the chiefs of staffs to the president s talk quite a bit in email quite a bit. I want to ask about the eisenhower jfk beginning. I saw these letters between Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan before 1968. They came out in the west. No one ever looks at the start. No ones looked at these letters in real time next to each other. Certainly not the political context. They had not been laid out in 1966 when they are fighting for position. Both nixon and reagan were prolific letter writers. Reagan was an excellent letter writer. His newest are the letters between eisenhower and reagans friends. Did you see in the letters between nixon and reagan where Ronald Reagan kept saying i want to be the favorite son out of california . Did he think of running . He started his campaign for president in 1968, 12 days after he was elected governor. There were some things that happened in 1967 that undermines reagans ability to act on that idea. By 1968, hes promising nixon he wont be in primaries and then going out and entering them. This is a 625 page book. Did you write this part of it . You get the sense that jfk did not think much of eisenhower. Explain what you found. Eisenhower was still enormously popular. He is not crazy about this guy who he refers to as little boy blue. He viewed kennedy as having a rich dad. He did not appreciate kennedys entire the whole tone of his campaign is this new frontier. How old was eisenhower . That was when he was in his early 70s. He was the oldest president in the century. They were not crazy about each other. Kennedy felt like eisenhower to not understand the power of the office of the presidency. That he was too much of a soldier and a general. Kennedys idea is rather than a military structure of the white house, kennedy had the idea that it would be the spokes of the wheel. He would be at the center and everything would emanate. Eisenhower and his people tried to warn him after he won, that will not work. The decisions you make are too complex that you will not get the right information to be able to manage the kind of things you have to deal with if you blow up the National Security infrastructure that eisenhower had put in place. Lo and behold, four months into office, it goes fantastically wrong. Among the people that kennedy had to swallow hard and reach out to was eisenhower. What went wrong at the bay of pigs . Partly, this planning got bigger and bigger for an invasion that got more and more elaborate. It was less and less plausibly deniable for the United States being involved. The c. I. A. Assumed their planning was based on the fact that once the invasion initially failed, kennedy would have no choice but to send in troops and get the job done. They were counting on it failing so that kennedy would have to. When kennedy realized that the denial did not want active explicit involvement, they had not believed him. There were a million things that went wrong in the assumptions that were made in the meetings where the joint chiefs were challenged. Kennedy and eisenhower meet at camp david. It was the first time he went to camp david. It was named after eisenhowers grandson. There is the famous picture of these two president s of walking the paths and talking together. Kennedy needed that picture. He needed this reassurance that would come of being seen talking to eisenhower. Eisenhower wrote a long memorandum. Kennedy said this job is a lot more complex. Eisenhower was like, that is what i tried to tell you. Which president did do not really like or dislike . Which was the most fun to write about, to read about, to learn about . Nixon is the one who plays the most grandly and in a grandiose fashion. Leaves in 1974, and then he launches a 15, 20year campaign for rehabilitation. Under the guise of trying to help the men who followed, he tramples all over them in his quest to redeem himself. Gerald ford is shocked to discover that nixon was to go back to china. It is the worst possible thing when youre running against Ronald Reagan. Reagan comes into the office in 1980. Nixon tells him how to organize his first years. How do we know this . The letters from nixon to reagan are available in the nixon and the Reagan Library. Did you go to them . I did. Theyre wonderful places to visit, even if youre not researching. Nixon had an unexpectedly close friendship with bill clinton. In the very short time, they become latenight phone pals. Reach out to me. If you dont, i will go public with my criticism of you. Constantly good cop, bad cop. Clinton comes to rely on this hardheaded advice about china and russia and how to organize his day. Letters you say bill clinton still reads. In the last month of his life, theres a lot of turbulence in russia. He writes what is to be done in russia and how clinton should proceed. Clinton said it is one of the two things he reads every year. He gets it out and rereads it because it was such hardheaded advice. I think he does it also because it is peer to peer. It is something he can say he and i are in the same group. The other one he pulls out is another piece from club protocol is the note that George Herbert walker bush left for him. The 1992 campaign is horribly painful for president bush, to not be reelected. He writes clinton a note that says by the time you read this you will be our president. I will be rooting for you. That kind of message, which his son would also communicate to barack obama, that we want you to succeed, all of us understand that the Office Matters more than the occupant. Do they always act on it perfectly . Confidential. I thought those letters were confidential. Some are. Bushs senior wrote about his in the book of letters. His can be pieced together. Did he talk about the reagan letter to him . He did not. It was a very short note that said do not let the bastards get you down. That is the cleaned up version i think. They all have their little club here. When nixon goes to see ike, ike says i am yours to command. Those are the words nixon says to reagan. Nixon was not always as reliably commendable. Commandable. Heres some video. Bill clinton speaking at the nixon funeral. [video clip] he gave me his wise counsel especially in regard to russia. One thing in particular left its profound impression on me. Though this man was in his ninth decade, he had an incredibly sharp and vigorous and rigorous mind. As a public man, he always seemed to believe the great decision was remaining passive in the face of challenges. He never stopped living by that creed. [end video clip] 1994, by now, bill clinton is having his challenge about prosecutors about monica lewinsky. One of the reasons it has never been released is maybe nixon provided advice. I cannot find out any other reason. It is interesting how clinton closed with nixon. When he dies, the announcement comes not from the nixon family but from the white house. Nixon would have loved that. As they start to write the eulogy, clinton is determined to recast nixon as hes beginning to face this conservative republican attack machine. He wants to recast him as a republican from a different time, he had a tax policy that was balanced. He uses that eulogy as a way to move nixon back to the sensible center. I know im jumping all over. People can buy this book and get chronological. It is not Pure Friendship or pure enemies. One of the most amazing arcs is between truman and eisenhower. Eisenhower returns from europe the great global hero of the world, the parade in washington. It is an honor just to meet him. They proceed to work very closely. He makes Eisenhower Army chief of staff. As truman is trying to put together a postwar security structure, he absolutely needs eisenhower to help Sell Congress on the idea that stationing american troops in europe, he and Eisenhower Truman offers eisenhower to step aside if he wants to run. He said i will serve as your vice president. They have a cordial and cooperative relationship. When eisenhower does decide to run in 1952, truman wishes him the best until the moment when eisenhower had the chance in wisconsin to denounce joe mccarthy and defend his revered mentor, george marshall. Secretary of state marshall. Right. Eisenhower had in his speech where mccarthy would be present a defense of marshall and ended up dropping it from the speech. The New York Times had a copy. They revealed the fact that eisenhower at the last moment had chosen not to issue his defense of george marshall. Do you know why . He had been warned by other republicans that wisconsin was close and the balance of the senate could be in play. Some said you could incite a riot. A lot of people were waving him off. They said do not do it in his home state. Eisenhower for the rest of his life may have regretted the decision. He ends up not defending marshall. Truman is appalled. He gets very worked up about it. He calls eisenhower a moral coward. He says i thought i knew him. I trusted him. He has betrayed everything i thought he stood for. I do not think he is fit to be president. By the end of that campaign, as the friendship was over, truman did not set foot in the white house. There was a little bit of a thaw. The reconciliation comes at the burial of john f. Kennedy. All the former president s are in washington. Ike and truman ride home together from the burial. How old would they have been . Ike is mid70s. You get a big dose of mortality. Truman had survived an assassination attempt. As theyre riding home, chairman truman says do you want to come up to a drink . They go up. They get to talking. It goes on for quite a while. They talked about everything from their own funerals and what theyre planning to something of the arc of their relationship together. At one point, it is how no one understands what a president does and why they make the decisions they do. Ike says we know what we did. We asked bush when you get together, do you talk about politics and the hard calls . He said we do not have to. We know what we did. We know how difficult these moments get. They alone know that. Even their spouses and families do not know what it is left to be left alone in the room with the pen. That is their fate. That is what they will carry forever. They carry the scars of the decisions, the ones that go badly and the ones that go really badly. That is what they carry into this fraternity. They all say to the one next, youre only going to make hard decisions. The easy decisions will be made further down the line. Any decision on your desk is hard. Even if you make what ends up being the right decision, it always will come with a cost. There always be a cost to it. I think that informs all we saw in mid april. For the first time, George Walker bush having exited the stage. He said, i owe president obama my silence. He made his gentle criticism on tax policy and the keystone pipeline. He does not think our country should criticize the president. Clinton called it a general sympathy that those who have been there before support those who are there now. With a few exceptions, that has been the m. O. How often does George Walker bush and bill clinton go out together . It is a bit of a mystery. They do it. Theyre the first two members to be parttime business partners. They are often invited to go speak, sometimes overseas. Oftentimes at home. They sit and talk about this. Theyre getting pretty good at this. They can pull down easily six figures each. They got some questions. When its that number, you do not have to do it too often. They do it a couple times of year. The mechanics of getting this into the cover of Time Magazine. You are the managing editor. How does this happen . We have an inside track. Did you agree this would be the cover story . You never know until two hours for certain what will be on the cover. We always understood that. We thought the readers were very interested in the presidency. Many of them have lived with these characters as major figures in the news. We hoped it would be a story that readers would really like. We are a news magazine. As often as not, anything can happen that changes at the last minute. It is available if you want it. We talk to rick all the time. He knew that it was coming. We said we would produce it. We will have it ready for you. Itll be there. He was gracious enough to say lets get it going. We have incredible help. We found pictures we have not found for the book. Why the photo of barack obama and george w. Bush . This is my favorite picture of all. Not only is it relatively current, it had never been published before. Theres something about that picture that allows you to listen in. It is a very evocative image of the three men who everyone knows have differences. They come from very different experiences. Yet there they are together, 2010. Where they come together in a kind of partnership. That is rare. How far did you go in your research . How far did you travel . That is a good question. You had a number of trips to california, texas, and maine. We have been down to atlanta. There is a fair bit of travel involved. It is amazing. For aficionados of history there are incredible resources now that you do not have to leave your house for. They have put so many of these phone conversations online. The Kennedy Library has put all their documents online. It is magical for historians to be able to go as deep as they want. It was about 1 00 in the morning and i was listening on the internet to the phone call kennedy placed to eisenhower that he was going to announce the quarantine of cuba. I was getting to listen to these two president s talk to each other without leaving my home. It was an incredible thing. Were also helped by the library who knows things and those documents. Barbara klein used to work at the eisenhower library. When we came in and said now we are interested in lbj, you could see her circuits fire. She produced for us a file in which she found that johnson when he comes into office in 1963 and 1964 is so keen to bond with i that he has an aide do a researcher project on how many times hed talked to and traveled with the president so he could show them how close he felt to them. Johnson needed the legitimacy of the club. He knew he would need their help. Barbara was able to help us get access to that. It is an amazing insight into how johnson regarded the club. Any disappointment . We felt we could spend another three years doing research. There was so much more. I am disappointed we were proud because of the bipartisanship. There is a real loss to the mood of the country, particularly in the early years. Any disappointment . I think that really get at it. There were times where you would feel a kind of feel about look at the way people were able to Work Together to get things done. There are a bunch of president ial books coming out. Robert caro is coming out about johnsons oral history. You get to watch how all past president s get things done. A lot of the ability to get things done had to do with getting people to come together and compromise. Clinton said being president is doing deals with people who are trying to kill you. Our two guests are nancy gibbs and michael duffy. Thank you very much. Thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] for a dvd copy of this program call 18776627726. For free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at www. Qanda. Org. Q a programs are also available at cspan podcasts. This year is the 10th anniversary of the show. Each interview is Available Online at cspan. Org. Among the programs on the website, interviews with three historians. On teddy roosevelt, john f. Kennedy, and abraham lincoln. To watch these and any other programs, go to cspan. Org and search the video library. Van, maya angelou speaks at president clintons inauguration. Then ruby dee honors actors in the Civil Rights Movement. Tonight, we remember a few of the celebrities who died in 2014. We did get when and comedian robin williams, who died in august. In july of 20010, he did a comedy routine at a Democratic Party fundraiser. This is almost 20 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome mr. Robin williams. [cheering] thank you thank you very much bill opened up a can of whoopass yes, he did you saw he was yes sir. Sweet jesus al, you were possessed people pouring down the aisles, saying i believe so much for that charisma bullshit huh . Even stevie wonders backstage going, i hear good things. Things are going well. Mmhmm got everybody moving. Mmhmm thank god for that barbecue. Let it out. Works through you quick. Come on through, barbecue. Designed to turn your lower track into a fun slide. Folks down here had the pressure barbecue, farm raised chickens. Chicken stock their own life. People up there in d. C. , god bless you. Good luck to you. [cheering] here at mci. If you see people on headsets they are not on their mobile they are secret service. Mobile phones, you see them all over. Sometimes if you cant do that you think people are washington yeah, sure, oh, yeah even a homeless mind makes them look like they are out of their goddamned mind. Homeless guy going, that is my act pretty soon they will be implanting them internally. I am getting a fax ok. That is why we are here, mci. Mci, mci. When mobile phones go off they have symphonies. I want my that goes [fart noise] used to have the bullets here, kind of a rough name for a sporty. A sports team. Welcome to smith wesson stadium, it is kevlar night s, you are the wizards. No one has ever walked into a 7eleven saying, give me the money or this turns into a frog. To what has ever done that. But here in washington, there was a shooting at the washington zoo. Even the bears are going bu llshit, man, i thought i was safe next thing you have the dyslexic at the nra saying we have to arm bears the rights to arm bears what is Charles Heston going to do then . Guns dont kill people, eights with guns kill people apes with guns kill people the nra is opening a wonderful cafe in Downtown Manhattan in teractive firearm experience everyone else calls the driveby. But your waiter will be going get out here are our specials,. 38. 45 good luck and enjoy the meal. It comes down to the first amendment. Second amendment that allows you to say shit. It was written by guys who had muskets. This skill continued. I dont know how. How does that happen . At one point they were asking about sanctions and saying that armor piercing bullets are ok for hunting. Why . Is there some kickass bear in kevlar out there . Bring it on come on, pretty boy. They came up with the statement condoms kill, ok. What . Thats all right, we are here tonight. We are here tonight. Going to powwow. We have got to continue. I just want to say that Newt Gingrich is getting married and if you want to buy him a gift he is registered at krispy kreme. [laughter] dont be afraid. Get on down. I sent him a box of viagra and he just got taller. [laughter] i dont know what happened. Damn, this is a big place. This is huge. The type of place where Martha Stewart could do gladiator. Hail, maximus maximus, all day if you look closely in some of the scenes in the senate you can see the sermon. He is back there. Looking like a baby bird. I and going to talk to people. Every time i see jesse helms i feel like a little kid in the sixth sense. I dont know why. [cheering] i see dead people help me you have to be careful. They hang in there long time. Then you have got pat buchanan and the christian right. Old pat, i love d his book but i left in better in the original german. I guess the bottom line is we are here tonight because of the shrub. You know who i am talking about. George w. Bush, jr. The w stands for where the hell is it . Summoner born great, some achieve greatness in some get it as a graduation gift. [laughter] i just want to ask the secret service is it true that his codename is gilligan . Gilligan is on the move i hate to see him and keep asking if he could use his lifeline. No, you cant call your dad not the brightest bulb on the tree. Oh, frightening. I dont want to see him in charge of the economy. It is like giving oj a benihana. No no i am afraid. You know what im saying . It is a frightening combination. Of poor boy asked is to push have you ever done cocaine . Well, 15. No 25. 27 you will be in the white house im sorry all right. You have to realize that he is a frightening man. I just want somebody in charge of Foreign Policy who knows the country he is talking about. [cheering] that is basically it. Today was a big day. Passed a lot of heavyduty legislation. Also i want to tell the artist formerly known as the first lady i just want you to note dan quayle is running for the new york senate. He moved to new jersey. I dont know. He was hoping for the commuter vote. Dammit, boy. Every so often you like at those guys and go darwin was wrong work with me today, a big Foreign Policy day. They passed the chinese formulation bill. Very difficult. Pretty soon they will be active ready soon they will have a disneyland in shanghai. You will swim up the Yangtze River its a small world after all , gandhi once said Mahatma Gandhi once said what do you think of western civilization . I think it is a wonderful idea. From that, many years later india has detonated seven Nuclear Devices the cia found out by reading the paper and this is not a good sign. [laughter] dont piss off anybody, dont make me angry no more mr. Nighice gandhi one thing i dont worry about is jamaicas Atomic Energy program. I am not worried about them detonating an atomic bomb. The jamaicans would make of the atomic bong. Yes, maam. I tell you now. The atomic bong goes off and there is all sorts of devastation. They smoke everybody is hungry and then thursday. And then thirsty. But you will be safe because you have a president who doesnt inhale. Put it out that way we are going to get busy how much will you give me if i dive off the stage . Right into the apostate into the posh pit . They will be picking jewelry off before days. They are wearing those expensive boots, made from alligator foreskin. You got yourself some good eating. Be careful. Oh hello, there is a child in the front road we have learned some new words, havent we . Whoa i guess uncle robin wont be talking about the colonoscopy tonight. The careful, it is a very dangerous thing dont do it. Im 48 and they do that now. What is that . The hamburger you had a 1985 had in 1985. My photographer friend is down here how are you . Leaving . White, dont be afraid wait, dont be afraid oh, sorry. Secret service are not allowed to move. Initially i couldnt work it out in my schedule but when janet reno showed up i worked it out. [cheering] damn. It is amazing what happens when they kicked out your door. Ill dance for the man damn, this is one hugeass place. Woo. I know. Damn. This is like hang gliding in the grand canyon. Al do you actually have a palmpilot . Al gore still has his palmpilot. I invented the internet i did and i made the first phone the first phone message hi, this is Alexander Graham bell, i cant get to the phone right now because i am on the other end. You have to be careful the internet is out there. At 500,000, he is going fuck you, im out of here good night, take care oh my god, i pissed off Henry Kissinger i know where you live the palmpilot is an amazing thing. You will see people by the freeway going, we will work for websites. Some homeless guy going i got a palmpilot here it is. I got mail is an expandable file i know that is the shot they will use in the washington post. Every time i see the pope, i just want to put a few jingle balls in there with him. [laughter] what . Have i got more time . [cheering] thank you dear this is amazing. If you do get heckled it sounds like [gibberish] [chanting] welcome to the casino that cares well, i think you are ready to bring out missy. I have been a sorbet, i have cleaned their palette. Now you take care of the Martha Stewart stuff. Keep hanging out with puff daddy. Whoa. Thank you. Id like to bring out a woman who is going to carry on the tradition of this evening. We are having a damn good time. [cheering] yes, sir. She is raising cash. Uncle al, you have got to raise some cash. You have got to be to the shrub to beat the shrub. Al gore, you are going to move on ladies and gentlemen ms. Leeann rimes [cheering] our special programming continues with maya angelou the awardwinning author and civil rights activist who died this year. In 1993, she recited her poem on the pulse of the morning at an inauguration ceremony for president bill clinton. It was the first poetry recitation at an inauguration ceremonies and 1961. [applause] mr. President and mrs. Clinton, mr. Vice president and mrs. Gore, and americans everywhere. A rock, a river, a tree. Hosts to species long since departed, march the mastodon, the dinosaur, who left dry to tokens of their sojourn here on our planets floor. Any broad alarm of their hastening do is lost in the glue of dust and ages. But today, the rock cries out to us clearly forcefully, come. You may stand upon my back and face your distant destiny, but seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You created only a little lower than the angels have crouched too long in the bruising darkness have leaned into long face down in endurance. Your bounce spilling words armed force water. The rock cries out, you may stand up on me, but do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, a river sings a beautiful song. It says com rest here by my sidee, delicate and strangely made, proud yet rusting perpetually under siege your Armed Struggle for profit has left colors of waste upon my sure, currents of debris yet today, i call you to my riverside if you will study war no more. Come, clad in peace, and i will sing the songs the creator gave to me when i enter the tree and the rock were one, before cynicism was a bloody fear across your brow, and when you yet new you still knew nothing. The river things on. There is a true yearning to response to the Singing River and the isaac brock and the wife rock. But catholic the muslim, the french, the greek, the irish the rabbi, the priest, the sheikh, the preacher, the privileged, the homeless, the teacher they all hear the speaking of the tree. They hear the first and last of every tree. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside the river. Each of you, descendent of some past on traveler, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name. Poni, apache seneca, cherokee, who rested with me, then force on bloody feet to leave me to the employment of other seekers desperate for game, starving for gold. You, the turks, the arab, the swede, the german, the eskimo. The ashanti bought, sold, stolen arriving on the nightmare, praying for adrian. For a dream. Root yourself beside me. I, the rock. The river, the tree, i yours. Lift up your faces. You have a piercing need for this bright morning. History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unloaived, but need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon this day. Give birth again to the dream. Women, children, that, take it into the palms of your hand. Molded into the shape of your most private need. Sculpted into the image of your most public self. Lift up your heart. Each new hour holds new chances for new beginning. Do not wait forever. The horizon leans forward offering you space to place new steps of change, here on the pulse of this fine day, you may have the courage to look up and out and upon me, the rock, the river, the tree, your country. No less to you now than the mastodon. Here on the pulse of this new day, you may have the grace to look up and out and into your sisters eyes, and into your brothers space, your country and say simply with hope, good morning. [cheering] we conclude tonight with ruby dee, who died this year. She was best known for her roles in films like a raisin in the sun. In 2004, she and her husband spoke at the Democratic National convention paying tribute to civil rights pioneer. Ladies and gentlemen we now welcome back to the podium, ruby dee. [cheering] thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For our africanamericans and the south at midcentury, the injustices have become routine. If you are thirsty you had to go to a water fountain for colored people. You have to hope that the fountain was working. That it wasnt broken. If you needed a ride, you have to move to the back of the bus. And even if you could afford to travel by car you have to drive miles out of your way to find a hotel that would take you. Long miles down dark, country roads, patrolled by the local chapter of the ku klux klan. And you had to hope that this single lightbulb in your motel room hadnt burned out. And if you went to school, you had to get used to learning the same thing every year, because your district had only one teacher. These were some of the experiences of millions of black people including one woman named fannie lou hamer. [cheering] born to a sharecropping family in rural mississippi, she worked on a farm for the first 44 years of her life, toiling under the on justices the injustices of jim crow. But when the Civil Rights Movement came to her town, instead it stirred in her a desire for something better. From that point on,