Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On One Man Against The World 20150913

Things. When we get to the qanda part of the session. But we ask if you have a question first put it in the form of a question in the second, make your way to the microphone because we are videoing both for our own page and cspan tv is here this evening as well, and they would like to be able to hear your question. And at the end before you come up to get the book signed the stuff was appreciated. The presidency was profiled in a new book by tim weiner thats receiving a lot of attention. Hes quite familiar to many in washington and he lived and reported here for 15 years in the previous books. He got it into the newspaper business after earning a masters degree in journalism at columbia 30 sixes ago and by the early 1980s he had landed at the Philadelphia Inquirer where he worked for a decade. They were right up ready to put the budget to sponsor the Defense Research and that led to the first book. They joined the New York Times in the mid1990s covering National Security issues that he once described as nukes, spooks and kooks. Later he served as the Foreign Correspondent and traveled on the assignment to the range of other garden spots and as afghanistan, pakistan, kenya, sudan and a number of other places. The book legacy of ashes came out and won the National Book award for nonfiction. Not long after that he one and left the newspaper. He is now hes now the director of the Residency Program at the institute of new york which is about to open. And he will also be at princeton this fall teaching the course of the cia. And of course he continues to turn out books on there a challenging subjects. Three years ago in the book enemies come he tackled the history of the secret intelligence operations. And in his new book one man against the world, the tragedy of Richard Nixon the team revisits the spectacular fall of one of the most controversial and complicated president s. Drawing on the documents declassified over the past few years he looks back at the vietnam war and at the the watergate scandal but most of all the torment of complex figure that was central in those tumultuous years. One review was anyone that reads this incisive book will be nostalgic for an xml matter how disastrous the successors. [laughter] i did learn a moment ago tim and his family have a personal connection to the knicks in years. When he was a teenager and the company was down here to march on washington, and when they got back to their car they noticed somebody taking of the license plate number. And they worried that they would get a ticket. They did get audited for the next three years. Ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming tim weiner. [applause] thank you everybody that works on politics and prose whether they are selling books, buying books or reading books but this is one of the greatest books in the United States and i think Everybody Knows that. [applause] speaking of the successors in my years as a reporter i had a chance to interview president ford who succeeded and then prompted Richard Nixon and jimmy carter was elected after the short and accidental presidency. And a couple years later during the years, senator bob dole sought the state event carter, ford and nixon all gathered together and he says there they are. Speak no evil, hear no evil. [laughter] and on that note i would like to go back about 45 years and i think that many of you will remember this passage in our history. Richard nixon had been president for 14 months. The war in via vietnam wasnt ending during the campaign and he decided to take some extremely drastic measures which led to a series of disasters unlike any that our country had experienced since the civil war. Its the spring of 1970. Mixing was sleepless. I dont think that he ever slept, the General Committee is military aide recalled. He dealt with at night by drinking. President by day fell into a deep state talking with the chief of chief of staff for the past presidency started planning the precise details of his own funeral. He had predicted 1970 with the the worst year of the first term. He proved pressing it. The president s popularity plummeted 11 points of march. The endless war was the cause. It was taking but only in the military caskets caskets that the wounds of the mind. An increasing number of veterans were shellshocked or heroine addicted. When they returned they found the war had come home with them. A body politic and all the while americans were still dying in combat of thousand of month. March 191970 Henry Kissinger told a colleague about a brutal toll from conversation he just had with the president. He told nixon that there wasnt very much that we could do militarily to force vietnam to surrender. Kissinger said he demanded a new set of plans and a hard option and he wanted it on his desk that day. He became frantic and the written notes convened march 23 of the conundrum. Mr. Helms the director of the cia said something might be achieved and he asked how this message could be conveyed to the vietnam. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said it would be clear if we did some bombing. Then out of nowhere the rightwing military junta took power in cambodia and the forces started moving towards the capital 200 miles northwest of American Military headquarters in saigon. Mixing and graced the leader at the cambodian coup the general that no one would forget. President nixon asked me to draft several personal telegrams containing extravagant expressions of friendship and support recalled the marshall. They were treated to the messages in the degree of the u. S. Military support and commitment that exceeded what the government could deliver on given the congressional attitudes in particular. Also regarding them as lacking any qualities needed to leave the country out of its mess. Does any of this ring a bell . Beard ordering the cia into the fight, i want helms to develop a plan where the maximum assistance to the elements in cambodia were instructed. The director promised to support the military effort against the vietcong with untraceable money and can. This proved difficult. Cambodia had no american ambassador, no station chief, no cia or military Intelligence Officers on the ground. This terror incognito. They called the officer with plenty of military experience in africa but none in indochina. They reported back to the white house shortly thereafter and got straight to the point. Nobody knew what was going on. The regime had come to the conclusion that someone had to help them and that someone with the United States. It was an ak47. There were assault rifles and on to become untraceable down payment on the far greater commitments to come. The same week the post had a deadly siege by the communist soldiers. If it fell, they could collapse under the communist control. The crisis demanded immediate action but offered no solution. Kissinger had to plea for the attention. No one will Pay Attention to his war, and it looks like lots of installing. March 14 to center met for three hours with nixon, helms and the key members of the National Security council. The president , kissinger noted wasnt going to let him go down the drain. They had to ask the rightwing military to widen the covert war without congress. He said apologizing for my already i told the president s i realized this decision. But unlike all the factors that seem desirable, nixon commented that it had been necessary to do a number of unpleasant things recently and this was one more that could be taken on as well. There is going to be no announcement, the president said. We are just going to do it. We dont have to explain. The political situation at home was no better than the situation abroad. The secretary of defense had warned him on tuesday march 31 senate was prepared to cut the funds for the strikes in cambodia and nixon responded i will fight such a limitation. In the senate the senate also rejected the nomination of the judge the second of the conservatives attorney general John Mitchell had selected to elevate to the Supreme Court of the ranking republican in the Senate Judiciary Committee Said there were a lot of mediocre people into judges and lawyers entitled to representation. Not on the Supreme Court. Nixon claimed the attorney general for the politically tone deaf nominations. The attorney generals prior selection of the judge was rejected for the record of racism. There were multiple problems bearing in. Set up a political attack and he commanded. We have to declare war. The president ordered the new York City Police officers overseen by John Ehrlichman to conduct undercover investigations. There were four prominent democrats who fought nixons policies as part of nixon called an allout job on the Democratic Leaders including those of the Internal Revenue service to investigate their finances. The cops that were hired for members of were members of the staff with special assignments come and he had paid off the books with the secret Campaign Cash filled out. Nixons personal lawyer and political for nearly two years the department of 30 tricks was on the case. By april 19, they were 20 miles from the cambodian border. President nixon returning from the nearly fatal move in the mission briefed by the admiral john mccain commanderinchief for the pacific. The admiral whose son was still a prisoner of war captivated mix in with a hairraising report. The president ordered him to return with him to san clemente on april 20 and meet with kissinger. The briefing was graham if the communists took them to South Vietnam would be next and the war would be lost. Mccain emphasized the need for speed in a precarious situation he felt the United States should send every weapon that could to South Vietnam across the cambodian border and squadrons of the b52 to bombard the communists. The joint chiefs of staff quickly assembled weapons for the cambodian army. That was the easy part. Now the president needed a plan for the invasion of cambodia. There was the office for the South Vietnam. American war planners envisioned it as a communist nerve center of bamboo pentagon construct beneath the canopy. They thought if you could blow up the cause of you could cripple the enemys capacity to command and control attacks on the forces in South Vietnam into the admiral said the United States should these troy if and when the war but they never understood that it wasnt a place. It couldnt be bombed. It has no fixed address. It was a small mobile group of communist officers that could be located only by their radio signals transmitted. But the location could only be fixed by the antenna that be used for transmission that would be many miles away from the men that were on the air. And the enemy only seemed to know where the b52s were coming. The north vietnams into the tent is far better than american intelligence on the enemy. Mixing different states more than an hour april 21. Before dawn he dictated a disturbing note to kissinger i think we made a bold move in cambodia. I do not believe they will survive. There is a chance that they might. In any event, we must do something. Nixon immediately ordered large crossborder attacks by the South Vietnam and cambodia with support from american artillery and fighter jets. He hadnt gotten to the question of the american Ground Forces that attacked cambodia. The war councils were split three ways. The secretary defense beltran and secretary of state bill rogers wanted the invasion when it hit. Kissinger favored the attack on the cambodian sanctuaries across the border but without american ground troops. The military wanted a full assault on cambodia and the headquarters of americas voters leading the charge. So did the Vice President spirit wagner whose personal qualities included. Nixon resented the implication that he wasnt being tough enough. The remark provoked nixon to go for an allout attack with american Ground Forces. The joint chiefs of staff never drew up the formal plan for the cambodian operation. There wasnt any time. Nixon is still split plus and summoned kissinger, the admiral, the joint chiefs of staff and the director in the white house and in a fury the president said that the secretary of state rogers and the defense were sabotaging plans for the invasion. Haldeman noted in the diary president is moving rationally without thinking through the consequences. Kissinger called him to ask what he thought of the decision. The cia director replied it seemed to me that it was prepared for the fallout. He obviously was. Helms said he hoped so. The secretary of state continued to object to the invasion of cambodia on april 28 of the president ordered them into the oval office. The attorney general John Mitchell laid down the law. There would be no arguments. There would be no dissent. In the silence they were dismissed from the oval office. Mitchell wrote the president stated the purpose of the meeting was to advise those present in the decisions they had reached. There was no discussion. On thursday april 30 after another night with one hour of sleep the president addressed the nation in a nationally televised speech announcing the invasion of cambodia. This is not an invasion of cambodia. Nixons head of a classic contradiction. I see tonight all of the offers and and a and to purchase me to previously remain on the conference table whenever ready but if the enemy response to the most were the peaceful negotiation continues to increase, we shall react accordingly. My fellow americans, we live in an age of anarchy both abroad and at home. We see mindless attacks on the institutions that have been created by the civilizations in the last 500 years. Even here in the United States the great universities are being systematically destroyed. Small nations find themselves attacked from within. If when the chips are down the worlds most powerful worlds most powerful nation, the United States of america acts like a pitiful helpless giant the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten the recommendations and institutions throughout the world. The secretary of state was in his Hideaway Office on the seventh floor of the state department that it might as nixon night as nixon concluded his remarks about the u. S. Appearing to be a pitiful helpless giant, the secretary of state said the kids are going to retch. The morning after the speech was made, the storm started on the college campuses. College newspapers called for a strike ended in march and a new march on washington was set for the coming week. After suffering another insomniac night extended to the pentagon where they should map the detailing the cleanest forces occupied cambodia. They showed the major sanctuaries far beyond the target of the invasion. Quote, i made it a very on the spot decision. Nixon recorded. I said i want to take out all the sanctuaries. Make whatever plans are necessary, knock them all out so it cant be used against us after. Within the briefing combines are recovered to some of the offers and the pentagon the president seemed to. He conquered he was really beat him he wrote in the diary diary a few hours later we need some good rest. Leaving the briefing trailed in the lobby of the pentagon by a few reporters with tape recorders mix and compared american soldiers are the greatest of american students, they are blowing up the campuses. The statements that he later realized only added fuel to the fire of dissent. Monday may 4, he went to the executive Office Building hideout with some bad news. Something came over the wire about the demonstration at penn state. He said National Guard opened fire into some students were shot. Are they bad, they asked, im afraid so. To have been killed and four in four had been injured in the campus. They recorded the president s reaction. He is very disturbed. Really sad to see this added to the worry about the war. He. Hes out on a tough limit and he knows it. This makes it a lot worse. He has to take the heat for having caused it and he obviously realizes that will not admit the remark was very harmful. In the telephone call with nixon to start hard as a rock, he said. The countries begin to be run by children, god help us. Kissinger played the tough guy. Haldeman recorded. Kissinger just wants to let the students go for a couple of weeks and then move in and clobber them. They could be hit with anything harder than the bullets of the National Guard wasnt the question. He was very concerned we havent given in any way. They could really call for them if we wait for the cambodian success. And now a quote from a National Security Agency History the invasion of cambodia declassified a year and a half ago. The incursion was a medicated disaster. The most famous of the attempt they were always on the move always able to get out of the way in the stripes, which as we know were predicted with great accuracy from the intelligence and repeated strikes over the years never did any damage. Kissingers inhouse expert remembered vividly when he heard the reports that nixon was going after. By the time i stopped laughing i almost felt like crying, he said he then wondered who had briefed the president on this and it turned out to be kissinger. There was no way that he would be altogether captured. What do you think it was about anyway, it was mostly those that have moved in hours. At the press got hold of the story within two weeks. It became Common Knowledge the pressure from the white house and the pentagon became evident that the military system was unable to evade every strike in every ground maneuver. The report concludes this is from the National Security agency. American bombs tore up the troops in the quagmire of the cambodian pursuit. He had never caught up with headquarters that would safely to cambodia ahead of the advancing allies. Protests against the invasion are up nationwide not only students but University President s, not only scraggly leftists but wall street lawyers. Not the handful of staffers at the hands do the state Department Officers protested. They openly opposed the conduct of the war. A national day of protest loomed in a week and next in it he had to mobilize the Political Support from his political allies. The 38yearold lawyer signed on as a white House Counsel eight months before as a liaison and in the unions and other special interests. The strength for the jugular is the ability to get things done and made him a lightning rod for my own frustrations, he reported. When i complained i thought confident something will be done and i was rarely disappointed. His job as was attack and counterattack and in that role he said he will do anything and i mean anything. He had received his first assignment is the point manager of the warfare. He joined the meeting convened at the white house and taking action in the spirit of kissingers encouragement to really clobber the president s political enemies. He telephoned a contact at the new york City Construction Union Council by peter brennan. Friday may 8 hundreds of hard hats attacked the war protesters in the fraud on wall street cracking heads and breaking bones. More than 70 people were injured into the hard hats off an invitation to the white house and brendan became the labor secretary. As footage of the evening news contents of thousands of protesters were gathering in washington from across the country. The trucks were transporting soldiers to the executive Office Building for the night come and the buses picketed the white house. He mumbled on and on. As far as sentence structure, there was none. Somebody would ask him to speak up and that would jolt him out of wherever he was. He would would look up and shake his head and go back to wherever he started and then he would look at his feet and he was gone again. There was no train of thought. He said things that were coherent. At at first i thought that change right away. As he kept talking it went to disappointment and disillusionment. He was so pathetic. Then just plain fear to think he was the president running the country. Nixon was drawn and exhausted. I saw him the most psychologically exposed, raw day of his presidency. Nixon went to the capital at 530. He wanted to show his chambers in his valet who had never been inside. They corralled him at 6 15 a. M. The president demanded a plate of corned beef and he got it. He rattled about the white house all day without purpose. There was a peaceful protest that swirled around him. He wrote in his journal that day , weirdest day so far. Very weird. President completely beat and rambling on but too tired to go to sleep. I am concerned about his condition. He has had very little sleep for a long time. He added that he demanded the president take a five day weekend but that proved futile. More of the same he just keeps grinding away. He wont admit it, but he is letting himself slip back into the old ways and that meant hitting the bottle. Nixon, desperate for respite was drinking heavily night after night after night. I think will stop there. [applause]. Thank you very much. Fire away. In a book like this you do a lot of research before you start writing. Yes i do. Nixon has a lot of men around him. Yes he did. My question is, what role did pat nixon, if any, and any other people that were women play in his life . Pat nixon, of course course and Richard Nixon had been married for almost 40 years at this point. Nixon spent far more time with his chief of staff than he did with his wife. There was a relationship that had begun with a twoyear futile courtship of Richard Nixon by pat ryan who consented to take his hand. There was no love. Can you imagine what this man could have been if someone would have loved him . Those are famous words. I was interested in the quote you gave from the halderman diary which i know nothing about but he appeared from what you said different from the hardnosed people you think of surrounding nixon. Im wondering, wondering, just generally, what you think of halderman and what his role really was. Anybody who remembers halderman knows he had a military cut and looked tough as nails. He wrote and recorded a diary every day. He spent sometimes five or six hours a day with the president. His diary and recordings have nearly 1 million words. About one quarter of them were considered topsecret until last year. He was very funny. He was very smart. Like many of the men who served Richard Nixon, he was loyal to the point of zealotry. He was blindly loyal and for his loyalty, he went to prison. His diaries make amazing readings. They are smart and funny and vivid and heartbreaking. I never thought id say this but you mightve given me the only reason about donald trump. Id love love to see her book. [laughter] youre on. I saw you on a very good discussion with evans book. I would like to read your book. They are very different. You took the words out of my mouth. I dont know how much of a stretch this is but he really seems to reach some positive things, the lighter side of Richard Nixon. I appreciate your comment on this, the dramatic desegregation of schools under nixon, that was initiated by johnston and initiated by the Supreme Court. None of it nonetheless it was a dramatic move. It was some change. Thomas says its dramatic, i dont know. We are still working on race issues in this country. As nick said would say, let me say this about that. Richard nixon signed the Environmental Protection act because congress had passed it by majority and the American People marched, many of them on earth they in april 1970. He said, the environment is not an issue condemned to us. They want to use it to screw corporate america. He signed it nonetheless. Nonetheless. He had no choice. As far as desegregation goes, the Supreme Court had, by this time, issued, issued 15 years of decisions in the United States had been moved, human member brown versus board of education, 15 years later they were moving very slowly. You will remember president eisenhower, when nixon was Vice President , sent federal troops to arkansas to desegregate the schools. This is only 12 years later. It is true that there was desegregation under nixon. There was also fantastic resistance to doing this in the white house. Nixon tried to have it both ways he said, himself, i cant talk to black people and lost their uncle toms. The only black official that ever served under him said nixon believed in nothing. He did whatever was politically expedient. Thats whats on the record. Let let me ask one question. You obviously researched on nixon. Could i ask you to say five positive personal traits. No man could father to brilliant beautiful daughters, julie and patricia, and be all bad. That is two. Nixon genuinely believed that he could be a world figure that could change history. Thats where the title of my book comes from, one man against the world. He genuinely believed he could end the war by going to china, going to moscow, clinking glasses moscow, clinking glasses with the tyrants and somehow change the world. He had a grand strategy. It didnt work, but you can credit him for having a huge dynamic vision. Hopefully hopefully all president s have that same aspiration. Not all of them. Fourth he had the good grace to realize that it was in the interest of the United States to not put us through the agony of an impeachment and conviction in the senate. That that took personal courage and humility. No president had ever stepped down willingly from office. Can you imagine what we would have gone through as our bicentennial approached if there had been an impeachment in congress and there wouldve been a conviction in the senate . Thats four. [laughter] well he did get rid of agnew, thats true but only after they rose taxes so lets call that foreign a half. Only in the key of g. He could play anything but in the key of g. Thats the best i can do off the top of my head. Thank you. In your book, 11 of the most interesting people was Henry Kissinger. Could you comment on your experience as his role of an enabler and what was real about him because i had a very confused feel about him. He is a very confusing person especially if you read his memoirs. Let me try to explain. I have interviewed kissinger, and in fact, my mother was born 11 months after Henry Kissinger in the same town. Result . I know where he came from, i know what he went through in nazi germany, i know that he had a deep sense that history was a tragedy. He thought human beings were fatally flawed. Nixon was the strategists. Nixons grand strategy is something to be met admired in the end even though he failed. Kissinger is probably tied for first place for the reasons nixon started taping himself in the white house. This is hard to understand, but its true. Nixon installed the taping system and it wasnt just the white house. The white house and executive Office Building, it was camp david and all the telephones for two reasons. One, he thought no one would ever find out about them until after he left office and he can write a multimillion dollar memoir and it would be a defense against the memoirs of Henry Kissinger. No washington memoir ever makes himself come out to be anything less than a brilliant man. Kissinger was interested in power. Through proximity to power and through proximity to the president , and unflagging work, he rose german refugee to become a secretary of state under nixon. For better or for worse. I have a followup question for your previous response. I understand why nixon made the case, what ive never understood is why he kept the tapes. And i can tell you, please. On tape nixon said he sure to destroy the tapes. That was after their existence was revealed. Why didnt he do it . He . He never believe the Supreme Court would ever rule that he had to turn them over. He couldnt even conceive of it. Second of all, this was the dilemma, this is also recorded on tape, only nixon could have destroyed the tapes claiming that they were his executive property and by executive privilege he could destroy them, release them or make confetti out of them. But he didnt. The question became, no one knew what was on these tapes. He did. Well he did but sometimes he forgot the tapes were rollings. Then the question began after the tapes were discovered, what are we going to do with them . President s, lawyers and advisors meet in the white house. They say are we going to have a bonfire on the white house lawn and erase 4000 hours of tape . Whos . Whos going to strike the matchn anyone who is not the president who struck the match would be in indicted for obstruction of justice. Some of these tapes were under subpoena as soon as their existence was known. Do you have anything on the sabotaging of the peace negotiation of the vietnamese . Hell yes. To me this makes it look like childs play. It does, Chapter Three of the book of youre interested. The gentleman is referring to, in the weeks before the 1968 election, resident johnson was trying to negotiate a ceasefire and he called a bombing halt in vietnam. Nixon, from the summer onward, had been in contact with the embassy in South Vietnam through his Campaign Manager sending word through the South Vietnamese embassy here in washington to the president in saigon, dont dont make a deal with the democrats or with hubert humphrey, nixons opponent in the 1968 election, wait for us. We will get we will get you a better deal. Lyndon johnson knew about this because the fbi had it wired and the nsa had the embassy in saigon wired. They were hearing both ends of the conversation. The. The South Vietnamese ambassadors getting medications from the president of South Vietnam and they are talking back and forth in the ambassador said listen, nixon said wait. You. You can get a better deal on this. They say absolutely, i totally agree and on the eve of the president ial election, this close to a deal in paris, the South Vietnamese walk. Lyndon johnson who recorded his telephone calls says, five days before the election, and i quote, this is treason. It is definitely against the law. Its called the logan act passed in 1798 for private citizen to conduct diplomacy on behalf of the United States. If this had come out, it would have swung the election. The poles were going like this. In the end nixon won by seven tenths of a percent of the vote the evidence was too secret to reveal on the eve of a president ial election. It had been gathered by the nsa. No one knew who the nsa was. There were known as no such agency. To know that they were tapping the South Vietnamese dash they all say, we cant do this. It. It will blow the country up. It had already been a pretty bad year in 1968. Kennedy had been murdered and Martin Luther king have been murdered. The country is going to be torn apart even worse than it is, which was hard to read imagine. Its all down a black and white. Its all recorded. Its a pretty terrifying story. Did humphrey know before the election . After. I thought it was before. And lbj junior. And he was righteously mad. It was obvious to many people in the white house that nixon was unhinged, seriously unhinged. Im wondering if there is anything in the constitution to remove someone who is so seriously mentally disturbed aside from this impeachment. Isnt there a white house no. He took a lot of sleeping pills. On top of the insomnia, on top of the alcohol. The constitution says that the president can only be removed if he is literally noncompost mentors and on his hospital bed dying. If. If you know your history, youll know that Woodrow Wilson spent a year and a half unable to speak because of the stroke right after world war i. Nobody knew about it. The 25th amendment says the president can be replaced if he is essentially unable to carry out his duties because of physical illnesses. It doesnt say anything about if the president is not. Its time for an amendment . Good luck getting that path because you have to be nuts to run for president nowadays. Thank you. Sure. With respect to your thing that will the four and a half positive things that nixon did, one of the things was to step down from impeachment, did ford know he was going to pardon him before he stepped down . The question had been broached a week before nixon left office. By his new chief of staff. He is the only one who went from general to fourstar. Its ambiguous. The evie and evidence is ambiguous. Pres. Ford denied that there was any deal cut. Heres the dilemma he faced. If ford hadnt pardoned it nixon, there isnt any question that nixon would have been indicted for obstruction of justice among other crimes. That would have been a pretty ugly process as our bicentennial anniversary approach. There is no precedent for that in american history. The. The criminal conduct eviction of a president. Ford was trying to put a bind on his wounds. Lets lets put this behind us. He thought he was doing the right thing. He guaranteed he would not be collected in his own right a few years later. I actually asked jerry ford this question facetoface in 1982, and im almost repeating verbatim what he said, as i recall it. He said, the country had been so much pain, why prolong the suffering. Thats the best we know. One of the questions ive thought about from time to time is whether nixons behavior could perhaps have been explained by thorough analysis and unbiased analysis of his behavior years before. I wonder if he had some role in the pumpkin papers, i dont know. Yet a big role in it. Were they real is what im asking. Well one man was guilty, but again, the evidence was too secret to reveal in court. He was convicted of perjury at a second trial by denying he was ever a member of that party. He he was convicted of espionage. He wrote a book which was unreadable. The evidence was declassified when the cold war was over. There is no question that he worked for the soviet underground from 1932 to 1936. However for a lot of americans, did anybody here remember the 1930s . Put up your hands . Put up your hands. There was a real question whether or not hitler or stalin was going to run the world, right. Some. Some people picked sides it was kind of a terrible choice anywhere you look at it. I was trying to raise the question of nixons role in the pumpkin papers. It was crucial. He became tied for first place and he had been in congress for four years and he became Vice President. That was a pretty rapid rise from nowhere. It. It made him famous. Thank you. Youre welcome. Anybody else . Any questions . Step right up. Hello, so my dear uncle tim, the cats out of the bag im about 200 pages into the book and i was telling my friends and family that i was surprised by the scope of the narrative that youve chosen. By page 200, vietnam has dominated the narrative. Even events like going to china have very little coverage. It says todays the day that watergate was broken into. It makes it pretty particular scope in my opinion. To even call it a biography biography might be too broad. We all know now, at what point or what was your reasoning behind the decision to ultimately focus on the two most devastating aspects of the presidency . I will tell you. When you look at the newly declassified records which are 40 and 50 years old in some cases, and finally understand or at least i finally understood and ive been trying to understand nixon for quite some time now, how the vietnam war turned into watergate. Nixon was fighting two wars at once. In vietnam his weapons were the b52 bombers. At home he was fighting his political enemies. Anybody who opposed the war were voted against him. He was only elected by 42. 7 of the vote in 1968. Anybody who was against him was an enemy and he used different weapons. He couldnt use b52 bombers at home. He couldnt use b52 bombers at home. He used bugs, burglaries, breakins, black bag jobs, political sabotage to destroy his enemies. In the end, that is what brought him down, trying to fight the war at home. Thats what i really learned from the material. I didnt set that up. Sir . We have time for one more. Okay make it a doozy. The tapes demonstrate this really unsavory strain of antisemitism in nixon and yet a number of his closest advisers were jews. Kissinger, and a number of others. And then when israel is in deep trouble in 73, nixon pulled israel out of the fire. How do you reconcile this . I think you are talking about two different strains in the mans character and the mans action. Nixon was a hater. Its all on paper. He hated blacks, blacks, he hated jews, he hated liberals and once you are on his you know what list, his enemy list, you were there for life. On the other hand, the United States had supported the creation of the state of israel the year nixon came to congress. The United States had never wavered in that support. In those days the egyptians and syrians were supported by the soviets. There is a terrible moment during the 1973 war when indeed, after a number number of staff lose, the soviet are detected by american intelligence sensors shipping Nuclear Warheads into the mediterranean. The National Security council, kissinger, the cia director meet the attorney general and assistant attorney general quit that week because nixon ordered them to fire the investigators of watergate. So while this is happening nixon is upstairs drunk and six unelected officials put the United States on a Nuclear Alert one step short of eminent nuclear war. There was some decisionmaking that was part of American Foreign policy. One country to its own biases against what he called the establishment that he didnt like people who went to harvard, people who were intellectuals. He told kissinger told kissinger several times to his face about his dislike. He said write this on the blackboard 100 times. The professors are the enemy. The establishment is is the enemy. Never forget it. Thats the true nick Richard Nixon on tape. [applause]. Thank you very much for coming. Please line up to the right of the table. Remember to fulled up your tent chairs. Thank you. Ill be right there. Hold on just a second. [inaudible conversation] a signature feature of tv is our allday coverage of book fairs and festivals from across country with top nonfiction authors. Heres our schedule. Near the end of september, we are in new york for the brooklyn book festival celebrating its tenth year. In october, the southern festival of books in nashville. There weekend after that we are live from austin for the texas book festival. Near the end of the month we will be covering two book festivals on the same weekend from our nations heartland, its the nations heartland, its the wisconsin book festival in madison. Back on the east coast, the Boston Boston book festival. In november we will be in Portland Oregon for word stock. Followed by the national word awards in new york city. At the end of november we are live for the 18th year in a row from florida for the Miami Book Fair international. Thats a few of the fairs and festivals this fall on cspan2 tv. The device was never so deep and cap im like as on the issue of iran. This goes back to the