There are a whole lot of people who are hillary supporters that dont have facebook accounts. We have engaged in a lot of ways to get folks involved. The Search Engine marketing, display advertising, we have used a lot of targeting strategies. I could bore people for a really long time. We have done list rentals with progressive groups. Facebook is just one piece of a larger puzzle. We also are active on mobile and have also done some constituency targeted campaigns that are fabulously successful, targeted to spanish speakers. Which we were able to capitalize on hillarys remarks on immigration and amplify that message, which was awesome for us to do. Cool. I think we are over time. Maybe we can take one last question. Really quick, you touched on it a little bit, how did you, for the online advocacy, how do you turn that into actually getting the actual data . If youre getting people on facebook, like, not going into your database. I was wondering how you do this. We have used facebook fan campaigns to expand our reach for advertising and our advertising is very much interactive. I need you to click on something and come to our page and then i have your information. One of the ways we do this is by asking people to sign a pledge or to say i want a free bumper sticker. We will send it to you. We are focused on making sure that information comes back to us and into our database. If we dont, we are obviously losing an opportunity to make sure that someone who is interested in hillary, that we can stay in touch with them. The facebook like, obviously we want to convert them into taking a higher bar ask. Even just an email address, we are trying to make sure we get their address so we have information on them. We can do that through the store bumper sticker, donations, and more. We are doing it on the ground. We are at the ready for hillary, a great deal of book signings. There we are with hillary supporters and we are able to capture their information by asking them to sign up directly. We bring all of that information to communicate with those folks so they know there is an organization out there on the ground making sure that we give her every advantage we can. Cool. Like i said, folks will be around afterwards to take any questions you may have been thanks to you guys for doing the panel. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ofamerican Institute CertifiedPublic Accountants holds a conference. At at 2 50 p. M. , a look Financial Management issues with white house budget officials. You could watch both panels live here on cspan. Tomorrow night, retired professor and noted activists debates conservative author and filmmaker. The topic whats so great about america . You started out as a well younary and started off a little bit in that the modern vote. You try to bomb the pentagon and u. S. Capitol. You sounded totally different today. You have talked about teaching. You talked about being an educator. Have talked. What happened to the Old Revolutionary . Is he still alive . Or has he thrown in the towel . I feel that i am still a revolutionary is by revolutionary humane you mean having a fully worked out program by which we could imagine a different world and move forward, i dont mean that. But if you mean someone who is willing to dive in and make sense and five from her peace and justice and more balance and more sustainability and being willing to live with ambiguity and complexity and try to move forward, sure how i consider myself someone who sees the need for a fundamental change. Ill give you an example to me, the struggle against White Supremacy in which i invited everyone to join is a struggle that still goes on. It is not over. It hasnt ended. It is a struggle that still goes on. It takes different forms good it is not slavery and it is not jim crow. Today. White supremacy the debate is hosted by college. Coverage he could watch at 8 p. M. Eastern and 5 p. M. Pacific on cspan. You could watch it at a p. M. Eastern and 5 00 p. M. Pacific on cspan. Marks the 40th anniversary of the resignation of president nixon. Well hear from the story and Douglas Brinkley on his book the nixon tapes. Supporters his resignation. To carry through to the finish, whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the nation must always come before any personal considerations. From the discussions i have had with congressional and other leaders, i have concluded that because of the watergate matter, i might not have the support of the congress that i would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office and the way the interest of the nation would require. I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as president , i must put the interest of america first. America needs a fulltime president and a fulltime congress, particularly at this time, with problems we face at home and abroad. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the president and the congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice president ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office. Host and Doug Brinkley, that was president nixon the night before his last day in office, making that speech. Were a live at that point . Guest i was a little boy living in ohio, and i remember being riveted by it. We were all watching on tv in our house, like the whole country was. We didnt know whether it was a dark day for america, the president having to flee washington, d. C. , in disgrace, or was it a great day for america, show our system worked, that even somebody who was president of the United States wasnt above the law. Host was his, when you look back at history, was his resignation inevitable . Guest it became inevitable as the tapes show us. You cant be president and do obstruction of justice and abuse power and act with a degree of fluttery and expect not to reap the consequences of that. Some people forget, because everybody focuses on nixons dark side, but that period in the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of people were loose. The kennedys had issues dealing with mafia bosses. You had j. Edgar hoover with all sorts of wire tapping and taping, so theres kind of a culture of washington of abuse of power that was being generated, but nixon stepped right into it, and he did his own undoing by taping all the crimes and misdemeanors. Scommoip well get into the nixon tapes in just a minute, but as you mentioned, pat buchanan has a new book out also on president nixon, and heres his oped this morning in usa today, liberal elites toppled nixon, and it has some of the same themes you have. Was nixon blame unless watergate . Y no means, he writes guest it was a different climate, a different media climate. Nixon never did well with the press. He always wanted to get them, and they always wanted to you know, it goes back to the hiss case and the left and the media saw nixon as the enemy, even during the eisenhower years. A lot of democrats said, well, ike is ok, but we cant stand Vice President nixon. Hes the hardliner. Hes the rightwinger. And then, of course, john f. Kennedy beat nixon very closely by a hair in 1960. Everybody thought nixon was finished. He couldnt even win as governor of california. The fact that nixon staged a comeback in 1968, that he was able to go through the tumultuous year of riots in the streets and the depth of Martin Luther king and bobby kennedy, after that whole tumultuous year of nixon standing on top, it angered the left. They were always looking to get nixon, but he did well his first term. Our book documents what did he right in his first term, as well as what he did wrong. But watergate, by 1972, starting to ticktock and it destroyed him. At one point in this book, at the end of 1972, after winning over 60 of the electorate, nixon just months before he starts going into decline said somebody should write a book about this year, im one of the worlds greats. Im degal or churchill. Im the great cold war president. How the mighty falls am by the next year, it was just sledding straight downhill. Host doug brenk leave, this book covers 1971 to 1973. But you start off by saying that johnson, president johnson, advised president nixon to put in a taping system, and he declined. Guest very much so. Look, f. D. R. Did some limited taping. John f. Kennedy did taping, but selectively. Kennedy looks great in the tapes t. Shows him in command of the cuban missile crisis, for example. John f. Kennedy did taping, and it helped i mean, its helped l. B. J. s reputation because it shows his passion for the poor. It shows the Great Society in action, civil rights and the rest. But with nixon, he came in and said none of that taping for me. Johnsons trying to convince me its a good idea, im not going to do it. But by 1971, february of 1971, he couldnt help himself. He felt he was ending the vietnam war. He felt that he was on the verge of making a breakthrough soon with china. Neil armstrong had gone to the moon. He had created the voormental Protection Agency the environmental Protection Agency and was dealing with desegregation in the south and giving young people the trite vote at 18, and he thought he was going to need to document his own greatness, and it was his unundoing because it was voiceactivated. It wasnt selective for the phone. He bugged the whole white house. He bugged camp david. So one of the reasons this book is just coming out now, the National Archives has been processing tapes, and a big batch just came out in august of 2013, and in it, you can find so much just dynamite to destroy nixons presidency in his own words because hes constantly using kind of abusive language towards people, and really, its the bigotry and antisemitism thats whats doing the most damage to nixons reputation from the tapes. Host as regular viewers of cspan know, Doug Brinkley is a friend of the network in the sense that he participates in a lot of our programs. He has a lot of titles, and hes always willing to come over and take your calls, talking about different historical events. Today were talking about the 40th anniversary of the resignation of president nixon. Doug brinkley, president ial historian, professor of history at rice, and a James Baker Institute for Public Policy fellow. You have written several books on history. Youre a contributing editor all over the map. Jimmy carter, youre his official biographer, is that fair . Guest well, i wouldnt say official. President carter gave me access to diaries and papers. Scommoip what else are you currently working on . Guest a book on Franklin Roosevelt called rightful heritage. Its about how f. D. R. Attacked the dust bowl, the drought, how he got very concerned about forest fires. I todays usa today its the 70th anniversary of smoky the bear. There was a real fear that the japanese bombs were going burn American Forests during world war ii, and thats when smoky the bear was born, during the roosevelt administration. Im looking at how he saved places, like the everglades and big ben, kings canyon, the olympics, all over america. I once wrote a book on Theodore Roosevelt and conservation. This is a companion volume, looking at f. D. R. And the new deal and how it put so much effort into the land, where all of our top soil had blown away. I deal with a lot of agriculture and interior Department Issues in the 1930s and 1940s. Host who is your coeditor, luke nichter . Guest he worked at span spafpblet hes from my same home toufpble hes a professor at texas a m. I am one at rice. When i was doing a book dealing with john kerry and the vietnam war, luke helped me find some of these conversations, because hes running a nixon tapes project. Hes trying to crans scribe all this. And he pointed me in the right direction, and then i was doing some work on walter cronkite, and pointed me in the right direction of a conversation between nixon and chuck colson regarding con cry. As we got to know each other, become friends, the idea was, look, this stuff is just unbelievable. Luke has a better access to this material and understands it. He can actually hear the voices in the room. Its tough going for a lot of people. I talked to bob, my friend the other day, and he said, boy, i couldnt listen to the tapes long, so he just have to really strain, but luke has it down to an art form. We collaborated and tried to bring up whats the most important from the tapes, not watergaterelated, what else can we learn, particularly u. S. Foreign policy . Thats what nixon cared about the most. Host and this is nearly 800 pages of two years of tapes. One thing i noticed is president nixon interrupts a lot. Guest all the time. He never lets anybody finish a sentence. Nobody ever stands up to him. I mean, actually, Henry Kissinger is the one who comes out badly in this book, because, you know, nixon will Say Something halfbaked or crazy and theres kissinger, yep, boss, yes, youre absolutely right. The amount of this around nixon is staggering, and nobody wants to challenge him. And this is always this is a lesson. President s have to be surrounded by people that are going to challenge them. You just cant become this otherwise you become very isolated the way nixon was. He was really a loner, didnt have many friends. Haldeman worked for him. I think if there was somebody within the white house structure that nixon was close to, it was haldeman. He was actually fairly close to his speech writers, bat into kanaan being one. If nixon wanted to do a red meat speech, he turned to buchanan. He also turned to william safire. On domestic policy issues, hed turned to ray price. But, you know, there was he could not stand his own secretary of state, for example, william rogers. He wanted nothing really to do with the state department, nixon. He wanted to run Foreign Policy out of the white house with himself as the master puppeteer. Host june 13, 1971, Richard Nicks sandon Alexander Haig, nixon finds out about the pentagon papers. Guest yes, and nixon gets very worried. One thing about the pentagon papers, had nothing to do with nixon. They were all about lyndon johnson. You know, its an odd relationship he has with johnson. He cant stand the kennedys. It comes bursting through the book. I would always say theres gemousy towards the kennedys. At one point, nixon said they say he had courage and he was well read, that he was a beat man, and that he had, you know, was a philosopher. This is bunk. I knew jack kennedy. Hes none of these things. But then he pivots and says itself to know known for guts and courage. Kissinger says, well, sir, i know youre known for competence. He said i want guts, cant we get one thing across to the American People . Guts but he liked lyndon johnson, and he very much worried that these pentagon papers were going to tell secrets of our state, they were going to tell secrets of whats going on in vietnam, and it was going to enrage the Antiwar Movement, which was already hot under the collar. So he tried to sequester the pentagon papers, of course, loses those battles, but Nixon Administration does very many usual things, like trying to break into a psychiatrists office to get his files. It shows nixon anticipates outrage of leaks. I think nixon hated the leaks ore. The combo is when you get nixon at his worst. Host and in your note prior to the transcript of the tape, and you mr. Nichter write, another occasion, this could have been a chance to score a political victory. However, nixons department of justice launched a vigorous yet ultimately successful defense of government secrecy and the records documenting private war deliberations that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The event played a direct role in creating the white house plumbers, the group tasked with preventing leaks to the press whose existence became popularly known during the nvestigation into watergate. Guest nixon was Vice President for eisenhower for eight years. He knew when ike ran in 1952 for president , the korean war was raging. Eisenhower said, elect me and gill to korea. That meant that if and i will go to korea. That meant that if you left me, the commander, ill find a way out of the war that turned unpopular, and sure enough, eisenhower is elected six months later were out of korea. Nixon had that opportunity in 1969 or 1970 or 1971 to just get out of there. He did not think the vietnam war was winnable, yet he so in the pentagon papers, it was showing the malfeasance of mcnamara and johnson. Second said, look, these guys were a mess, this war was a mess, blame it on kennedy and johnson, blame it on the democrats, grabbed the high ground and moved policy in a different direction. Instead, he got more and more mired in trying to control the Southeast Asia situation and famously expanding the war into cambodia and laos. Host Doug Brinkley is our guest. Topic, the 40th anniversary of the resignation of president nixon. In new york, democrats line. Ralph, youre on the air. Caller what an honor and pleasure to talk to douglas brink lee. Im a proud worker from upstate new york, and i just have a question, the focus for the bluecollar, workingclass worker, did Doug Brinkley find anything in the tapes to for nixon to vote for nixon, if we focus on the bluecollar, workingclass worker, to get the worker to think of their Cultural Values over their material needs, nor to break them away from the new deal coalition, and i thank you very much, bye. Guest good question. Yes, what you have with nixon is hes appealing directly to bluecollar workers, to the point where he embraces people like johnny cash and merle haggard, country sirnings, because he thought they represented the bluecollar worker. He wanted to help destroy unions to a degree, or at least limit their power in politics, and he made appeals to the flag, to patriotism, that were not going to cut and run from vietnam. Nixon had a pretty good read of middle class america, although he didnt hang out with them a lot. He was a loner, as i said. But remember, his idea of the silent majority, that nixon was saying that most americans want to win in vietnam. They want a peace with honor, and that they care about american values, main street values, rotary clubs, kiwanis clubs, on and on, and that this Antiwar Movement and media liberal elite, based out of new york and washington, were skewing what was really going on, meaning most college kids in america were just going to college. It took five antiwar protesters to burn a flag, there would be the camera, and ts on the nightly news. He showed a majority of americans winning the vietnam war, and so he constantly listened and looked to polls and found ways to create a new coalition. Some people will say quite cynically on issues of race that hes trying to appeal to, you know, to what becomes known S George Wallace voters, segregation in some ways, yet pair docks i canly, nixon is fighting for desegregation and for even affirmative action. Figure, ry paradoxical but he thought, like reagan, today win over some of the bluecollar labor workers and go group by group. For example, the teamsters were more apt to vote republican than, say, the united nine workers were. Host robby calling in from florida, independent line. Hi, robby. Caller hi there. Can you hear me . Host were listening, maam. Caller i just wanted to thank mr. Brinkley on his hard work, and i just wanted to say one thing, that nixon was the beginning of party against party. According to George Washington in his farewell address as he was leaving office, our founder said that the spirit of our nature is rooted in the strongest passions of the human mind, but the alternate domination of one faction over another sharpened by the spirit of revenge had perpetrated the and without looking forward to an extremity of his time, what should never be entirely out of sight, the spirit of party are sufficient to make the interest and duty f a wise people. Agitate the Community Host all right, robby, knowing we got the point. President nixon was the source of partytoparty conflict. Guest oh, weve had partytoparty conflict since 1800 when Thomas Jefferson and john adams ripped at each other. I think one of the important things, particularly looking at watergate, is to always remind us that modern times arent as uniquely oppressive as we think. I mean, look at the civil war in this country, where we fought, lost over 600,000 people dead, lincoln getting stuck in washington, d. C. , and the battle of bull run right outside of d. C. , the confederates wifpble i mean, you look at an event like that, and then watergate starts looking quite small. And also, he didnt invent the ugliness of party fighting. It is true, in 1968, he was very worried about Hubert Humphrey becoming president , and five days before the election, johnson started doing a bombing halt in vietnam, and theres some evidence that nixon wanted to not have the south vietnamese come to make any deal, all with, you know, with lyndon johnson, because vietnam was the albatross around humphreys neck. He was Vice President. And in 1972, you know, its definitely, you see nixon hammering george mcgovern, and, you know, being for amnesty and abortion and thats what he represented and ran a touchend Derby Campaign in 1972. But i will tell you, there have been tough and drty campaigns throughout american history. Nixon maybe did take things to a paranoid level unseen before, where he wanted to break in, or his henchmen broke into the watergate and the whole dirty trick squad. And it is true that after nixon, people started feeling a cynicism about politics more than ever before, and nixon contributed to that, largely. Host it was june 17, 1972, five burglars arrested at the Democratic National headquarters in the Watergate Complex near washington, and nixon tapes, june 20, 1972, 11 26 a. M. , Richard Nixon and haldeman discuss watergate on the taping system for the first time. It goes on to say that an earlier portion of this conversation includes the 18 1 2minute gap, anee ray sure that his personal secretary contributed to, but is still not fully explained. The way that nixon starts the conversation, you and nicth write, suggests that perhaps the erased portion included a discussion of wire tap. Guest yes, and that is the beginning of watergate, and we include it in this book. Now, watergate, a scholar named Stanley Cutler did a book called abuse of power. Hes from the university of wisconsin. Hes the one who really got the tapes going. If you want to read about watergate, read cutler, but also john dean has recently brought out a book. Luke and i put in some in 1972. There wasnt a lot of watergate in 1972 on the tapes. It explodes in 1973. Our book really is about 1971 and 1972. So youre getting the early conversations, by 1973 its dominating the white house. Were hoping to do a second volume dealing with Foreign Policy in 1973, but also with the watergate as a primary focus. Theres still new material to come out on watergate that arent in cutler and deans book. That 18 missing minutes, we just dont have it. Nobody has it. We dont know where it is. If anybody has it, please call me. Because that would be a big breaking news story. Host a little bit. Guest yeah, some people think rosemary woods could not have been the one to erase it, that nixon did it himself. Its a mystery, but nevertheless, it doesnt matter a whole lot, because nixon did enough things on the record that we have a lot of people are making noise out of the book, a university of virginia professor, spent a lot of time with the tapes, and hes talking about nixon saying get into the brookings institute, and i dont care what you blow up, get documents out of there, you know, using words like theyvery and things. Theres enough on the tapes without the 18 1 2 minutes to indict nixon on certainly the coverup of watergate, not ordering the breakin itself. Host you write that various attempts to recover the erased portion have been unsuccessful. Doug brenk leave mentioned john dean and his new book, the nixon defense. John dean this weekend on book tv sits down with the washington posts bob would say ward. They spent an hour discussing the nixon defense, an hour discussing watergate. You can see that on book tv on cspan2 this weekend. Dan, bridgewater, new jersey, republican line. Youre on with Doug Brinkley. Caller hi, i definitely would l buy this book, and i will read it carefully, as i did all of mr. Brinkleys books. Im really afraid of the phenomenon where, if if you have a hope, your brain fills it in with what it thinks should be there, and im afraid that the tapes, after such superficial readings, that history is now painting a picture of nixon thats dwoud of this. Having dealt with him, having known him, i think its a big mistake to say that haldeman was his friend. The fact is he had ideas in policies, and he trusted no one within or outside of his camp. There may have been a lot of things wrong with him, but he did have a multitude of policies and ideas that i would say really looked to the betterment of this country. Unfortunately, as you pointed so long as they have the dynamite quotes and the connections, so that in the end, the depth of nixon and part of it may have been his madness, so it would have to be very deep, unless thats there, and these tapes do not represent that. They represent the sliding over the ice on to which a very deep pool. Host dan, thank you. Guest you make a number of very important points. Henry kissinger has famously said dont trust the tapes, its a sideshow. Because what you get in the tapes is often just nixon. Nixon is the only one in the room ultimately for most of these conversations and knows whats going on. Ehrlichman didnt know he was being taped. Kissinger didnt know he was being taped. Its oneside baseball. You know youre being taped and others dont. Kissinger also said, use the tapes assist a source, compare it to memorandum and notes and things, and youll get a bit of a fuller reading. I agree with all of that. I also think that when somebody does a crime, you focus on the crime f. Somebody goes to jail for a crime, it doesnt mean their whole life they didnt do a lot of good things. They may have raised a family well, been a good samaritan. They get busted for something they did wrong. Theres much about nixon that people can like and admire. I mentioned earlier in the program about conservation, and nixon was a reluctant environmentalist, but he create the environmental Protection Agency, clean air and water, and working on oceans. It has to rank as one of the top five voormental precedents. It shocks people that thats nixon, but there it is. With all that said, look, if we cant as scholars care about a fly on the wall in history of everything thats taking place in the oval office being able to listen to the transcripts, being inside the sausage factory, what can we trust . A lot of memos are about covering ones self. The tapes are, i think, more raw and more real and more valuable, and yet, youre right. They are whats going to destroy nicks sandon history, because people will find quotes that are very damaging, and they live on. It is an i gotch aculture, and nixon provided the source for everybody. Its almost suicidal that he did not burn these tapes. In a points out to a kind of madness in the man. At one point he tells Henry Kissinger, let the chinese think im a crazy man, i want them to think that, why not . Because he wanted them to know who knows what nixon is going to do. Hes capable of doing anything. Its a lot of grand strategy in this book ark lot dealing with china and how he orchestrated , so famous 1972 trip theres a lot of high policy in this book. Its not just the i gotch a, so i hope you get a chance to read it, and you might be impressed with the way nixon dealt with diplomacy at various times. Host any proof that president s postRichard Nixon have used taping systems in the white house . Guest no, youd be a fool to use them, even the limited ones. I dont think they help. Im sure when youre dealing with a duel putin it might be taped because they might want to dissect every word, so im sure theres that kind of taping, but the idea of casually capturing every kind of word, its gone the way of the dodo bird, you know . Its a form of extinction now. I did Ronald Reagans diaries, and he did the right way. He would write every day what he wanted to write, had the discipline to never miss a day, keep the diaries going, and you have a sane document. Bill clinton made tapes with historian taylor branch, where it was sort of an historian coming in and talking to him. Thats all very different than doing this sort of voiceactivated, pick up everything in the room. Why did nixon do this . He did not think he was a petty politician. He didnt think he was a mcgovern or a humphrey or mccarthy. He thought he was a worldclass leader, and he read greatly in world history, and he thought he could truly be seen as one of the giants of Foreign Affairs of the 20th century. And that when he left office, he would go back to san clemente and maybe do a five or sixvolume memoir. En had are you kissinger certainly has made a career out of writing books like that, and nixon would have used the tapes ads the grist, given memory, he could actually quote what somebody said to him and it would have been accurate. His downfall is he never thought anybody could take these tape as way from him. They belonged to him. So imagine his surprise when the Supreme Court votes unanimously that you dont own those take place, thats the moment nixon realized that his presidency is sunk. Host when did he stop taping . Guest he stopped taping in july of 1973, when Alexander Haig said its over, stop the insanity. From became a brief moment, people use the tapes burnt tapes, but dewey race them . What do we do that . Just like that, 18 1 2 missing moments, people, even liberal iconnell son rockefeller, a man of great integrity by all accounts, he was telling nixon get rid of the take place, and nixon just wouldnt do it. It was his golden egg. He was not a rich man. He thought that this was going to be what he had with his wife pat, what he would have as a record for his time in government. His ego was very large. The narcissism of nixon, all president realize narcissistic. You dont want to climb to the top of the mountain, say im the best person to be president without a healthy hell owe. But nixons goes in odd directions. Theres something not psychologically right about him. Host one tweet says, you going to ask him about china or just spend the morning trashing nixon . Guest well, i just mentioned china a minute ago. Maybe the caller wasnt listening. I just said much of the book is dealing with china and the china opening. The big deal about that was, it was a threeway deal, soviet union, chain ark and the United States. What he was trying to do is wedge china away from the soviets. So much so that he thought that if you bomb a lot in vietnam and North Vietnam it would impress the chinese about your toughness, and so it had a deer it incident quality to it, that it would deter the adventurism by beijing into, lets say, hong kong, taiwan, or japan. And then yet, at the same time, he would back pakistan. Nixon was a huge admirer of the country of pakistan, and that was a proxy state of china, and they were fighting india, and nixon could not stand the country of india, because they were close to the soviets. Nixon hates russia, not china, and he wants to outfox the soviets every step of the way. He says very many ugly things about the russians in the book, you know, that unlike the chinese, they slobber over celebrities and that theyre basically a mob and you cant do business with them. The chinese, he felt, were honorable people that he could do business with. He was surprised he never felt the chinese broke a promise hat they were making with him. Today hes very loved in china f. Youre a businessperson doing business in china, theyll give you a nixon walking tour and show you the sights he saw in 1972. Here in the United States, nixon ranked, because of watergate, at the very bottom rung of american president s. Host jack in north providence, rhode island, thanks for holding on. Youre on with Doug Brinkley. Caller im a conservative democrats, and where nixon should get credit, it was a brilliant strategic move, because that was one of the beginnings of defeating the soviet union because he did, in fact, create that wedge. Secondly, one other point that the media is liberal, nixon had more intellectual firepower than all these other president s put together. The man was absolutely brilliant to the point where he did have some madness to him. He believed he was invincible. But you look at him, and you see the way he speaks and his mind is so calculating, so bright, brilliant lawyer, corporate lawyer in new york, and he wasnt for money a selfmade man, jack kennedy was a joke and a fraud, ok . He did serve in world war ii, but the greatest president was reagan, because reagan had strategic vision, ok . But the media hated reagan, too. When he we want out to the soviet union in the early 1980s, they all thought he was going to start world war ii. The soviet union even believed he was going to launch a bomb at them, ok . Host jack, bring this to a conclusion. Caller the conclusion this sth the media is super biased, and they just love they love obama, whos incompetent incident, ok . The man is competent. Host i think we got your point, jack, thank you very much. Guest you point out the intelligent of Richard Nixon, and one of the things that comes through in the tapes is that. Hes an exceedingly well read person in history. It will surprise people just how and refers to history in his thinking all the time. During the vietnam war, hes always getting angry at the air force. He thinks they should be taking it harder to the North Vietnamese, and hell say things like, look, i know what happened in the battle of the bulge. Hear what the weather conditions were, and we went on bombing raids, and now youre telling me because of fog we cant bomb . He was always bringing historical references into things. You know, character matters in a president , and youve got to, and also, its not smart to war with the press. All president s get frustrated, but the great ones, the ones people really respect, are ones that learn thousand manipulate the press without them realizing it. Peter roosevelt could do that. John kennedy knew how to do that, sandronled reagan knew how to do that. Those are the four president s that the public gets very captivated by and interested in. By having spiro ago new as Vice President go after spiro agnew as Vice President go after the big three, cbs, abc, and nbc, for their liberal bias, it was very badly done. It wasnt that the news is done, that the news is too liberal. Fair enough. But trying to go out and destroy the New York Times or e pentagon papers, cbs, it backfired. Anything that backfires on you means youre not so smart, theres subtleties. You dont always win by going right at peoples throat and trying to rip them out. You have to have a velvet fist. Nixon would just want to rip peoples hinges out, and he created a lot of enemies that way. He made his own enemies list on reporters, and he had the i. R. S. Look into peoples lives that were his enemies, and they didnt forget. The media went at nixon, and they got him. Host jake in tampa, florida. Before we take your call, im sure, if youre watching us right now, you probably saw the alert that the u. S. Has dropped a couple of bombs on some isis positions in iraq. Just want to make sure that everybodys aware of that. Doug brinkley, from a historians point of view, do you have any comment on the fact that targeted air strikes in iraq were authorized last night and a couple of bombs were dropped today . Guest president obama, because he won the Nobel Peace Prize and came in like eisenhower, hes been saying big policy has been getting out of iraq and get being out of afghanistan. Proving to be quite hard. But yet, no troops, were not putting u. S. Troops in, so were doing limited bombing. I think the president will find most of the public backing this action. Lindsey graham has been calling for this. I think its the right thing obama is doing, and i think hell find largely bipartisan support. They may say we told you you should have done this eastern, your iraq policy is a mess, but yes, at this moment in time, youve got to go forward, and weve got to do humanitarian d to help the iraqis in need right now. Join jake, tampa, please go ahead. Caller yeah, id like to talk vietnam war. My question is, why do all the democratic president s have no vision of Foreign Policy . Whats going on today with whats going on in ukraine and iraq and all over e world, and it seems like they seem to have the policy. World war i was wilson. Orld war ii was f. D. R. He was the only man to use a mass indiscretion, two of them. Host all right, jake, i think we understand where youre eaded with this. Guest look, the cold war, if was won, was won by republicans. Even president s like gerald ford and jimmy carter contributed to it. Carter by demanding that soviets being release and had pushing for human rights and freedom of religion in the soviet union. Gerald ford, the helsinki accords, but reagan gets across of credit because of the tough policy and the way he very astutely handled Foreign Policy. But to make a broadbrush statement that democrats arent very good at it, harry truman was the father of nato. He felt with the berlin lockade of 1948. He created the joint chiefs of staff, the c. I. A. , the Department Air force, the whole pentagon apparatus, on and on, and jack kennedy guiding us through the cuban missile crisis. Most scholars feel did he an excellent job with that, creating the peace corps, which has been a huge success, out foxing the soviets over berlin. , so you know, jimmy carter, whos considered by many a failure during the camp david peace accord, which still is on the books as the great event in middle east history in the last, really, 100 years probably, or at least since the creation of israel. Meaning its not a rightleft issue. If youre frustrated with obamas Foreign Policy, you may have been frustrated with bill clintons, i do think that people think that republicans are more hawkish, which isnt always true. John f. Kennedy was much more of a cold war hawk than say Richard Nixon was in some ways. That cold war presidency, it was both bipartisan, this antisoviet deal, and lets win the cold war, its just that the wall came down when 41 bush was president , and it was the result of reagans ratcheted up rhetoric and policies. Host may 19, 12 55 p. M. , Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon talking about vietnam in the Person Service and the defense department. Nixon, it is not just the Foreign Policy, the pentagon is as bad. A bunch of spineless bastards. Kissinger, well, i just gave hell to john mccain, admirable john mccain. He goes on nixon goes on to say, i twoish god, what did mccain say . Well, he said hed have to check into it, i said id never seen the president so angry. He is, and he wants to stay on the job, nixon said i want him to stay on, but damn, not this way. Hes going to start taking his orders from here or else. Now im not going to have this crap anymore. Guest its a little bit what i was mentioning earlier, nixon war ago lot with the military. You should hear the conversations with the air force. Its just brutal. He thinks the military is not wanting to win vietnam, that a malaise or fatigue has set in. Thats a president ial order, and starts, well, fire them at the pentagon, get rid of them. Theyre not hearing me, and hes constantly telling kissinger, get the message across. Now, once those military guys get on the phone with him or show up. Hes much more much kinder in front of them. He doesnt talk like that. But behind their backs, hes feeling that the pentagon is spineless. Host tony, louisiana, youre on with Doug Brinkley. Caller i have a nixon what if question. Would he have been as paranoid, and would he have been a much better president had he been victorious in 1960, and would he have taken us into vietnam . Guest well, what an interesting question. The problem with what ifs is its just speculation, but i think he would have been a better president if elected in 1960 than 1968 because he would have had less of a chip on his shoulder. The chip very very big in the 1960 because he really felt he won, that j. F. K. , due to mayor dalys grey yard vote, turned the votes to to kennedy and thatter have been president and a bitterness ensued when he said he wont have nixon to kick around anymore, and then he got bad press when he ran for governor of california. He sees, he gets angryier and angryier, particularly towards the media by 1968. He may not have been quite as bitter if he was elected in 1960. However, with vietnam, i dont know. I mean, we dont even know now whether kennedy would have put the troops in, and i always call vietnam Lyndon Johnsons war. Its johnson who commits the massive amount of troops. Now, its true its nixons war too because he increases it. You could call it johnson and nixons war, but the original crime, in my vureks wasnt kennedy sending advisors to vietnam or nixon continuing it, it was johnson getting us mired over there in the first place. Host Doug Brinkley, what what are you doing in town . Why are you in washington . Guest i came here with my wife and three kids, and were still on washington. Were going to see the sights of washington. Yesterday we were in old alexandria. We went out to mount vernon. That was the first time i took my kids there and spent time there. Weve been doing the monuments and memorials, the National Portrait gallery. Were excited to go to the zoo and dealing with the pandas and nixon, one tape to try to deal with mating habits of pandas, which is a tim cal moment in the tapes, but then we went about to the zoo, see the pandas, and just trying to en jew our summer for a while or so. Host gary from florida. Guest pleasure to talk to you, mr. Brinkley. I admire your work, been a great admirer for many years. I wanted to reflect on the fact that the rape congress has now sued president obama. Its come up on the anniversary of the time when the United States congress has sued Richard Nixon. Would you do a comparison, and whats the net involved with this . Ill take my comments off the air, thanks. I find the lawsuit against obama frive russ, its just a politically show to show that this is a one that is doing wrong. Continuing of the disdain of obamacare, major legislation, the great legacy piece for obamas presidency, that no republican voted for it. So theres just frustration at obama, and its coming out with this lawsuit to the point that it gets people talking about it. The same thing with impeachment. There were threats to impeach bill clinton and threats to impeach george w. Bush. I think particularly in second term, fatigue comes in, and it just takes a couple of people to start using the i word, the impeachment word. None of this is compared to what was going with with nixon. With nixon, youre dealing with real true criminal abuse of power, and youre dealing with a president that was just drven out of the whourt. Congress beached net, and there are only about 16 republican senators that would have backed nixon. Nixon knew he was doomed. He left 40 years ago because theres no party turned on him. Barry goldwater turned on nixon and said get out of here. Thats not what conservatism is about. Were not about break the laws. So the conservative movement isnt shed. Theres a new book out where hes talking about the fall of nixon and the rise of reagan, when nixon nixon used to say, at least in the tapes, people, the liberals hate me, dont understand. They lose me, its all rightwing conservatism on the other side, that im the liberal moderate of the republican party. And instead of wanting to do business with me and liking me, theyre trashing me, and they lose me, theyre going to get to t f