Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The President And The Apprentice 20151011

Between president Dwight Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon. Herb is an author on for president tossed at Chapman University and now at franklin and Marshall College in pennsylvania. He authored a book called the contender and is currently working on a book called the Nixon Kennedy election. The most recent is the subject of the talk called the president and the apprentice eisenhower and nixon from 1952 to 1961. Its a monument of research by the endnotes and bibliography alone are 300 pages. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, before i start one of the things i would like to do is reintroduce through without her kindness and her generosity to my wife and myself, this book would never be written. She is as good as it gets and if you read the dedication that she has, this is her book and it is her book with my thanks and i appreciate it. In addition to that, what i appreciate is that beyond thankful for some of the people that i know are here and i havent seen in years. Could you do me a favor and standup . Could you stand up please. These are two of the best people that i know anywhere. They look at the same way way as my wife looks at at me and says i cant believe that you did that. Those of you are the epiphany of what is good in the county and the state and the folks that are good and gracious as can be, thank you so much for being here and for helping me out. What i would like to start off with if you dont find is a story not true but its a story. Like eisenhower didnt like one another. They may have hated one another. They may have gone even lower than that. They may have been in the ninth circle of hell but the story that is told is done for one reason and one reason only and its the proof that extend and eisenhower didnt get along for a reason and the reason was if they couldnt get along, the party couldnt get along and they themselves as representatives of the Republican Party couldnt get along. And the people that write this are democrats and its a story that is done purposely its not a story that is done because of some mistake. It is done because if you are a democrat and if you are as a liberal persuasion partisan, the story fits and it is a good story of where to start with the animosity within the Republican Party and what is the better place to start than in the Republican Party that i eisenhower and Richard Nixon. It may make sense to folks that dont do the work. But after the pages of documents interviewing as many people as i could, the story is just the opposite. So what i decided to do is to begin with one of the moments in Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower and it was called the crisis and adults with a speech. Its supposed to show how badly they got along and in addition to that how evil Richard Nixon was. You have to make Richard Nixon full before he was even born. There is a lady that wrote a book called Richard Nixon and onthefly jacket if thats and says even before he was born he was a liar. [laughter] that kind of stuff is crazy but thats the kind of thing that we are looking at so what i want to do is tell you what really happened during the crisis and take it and throw it as logically as i can without being a democrat or republican or a socialist or anarchists or anything but just getting the fact pattern the way that it occurred and see if where i am telling you makes sense. The first thing i want to say is the campaign started september 17, 1952 with richard chucking out of the los angeles train station and going up to the valleys in california and then up further. As he was going on there was a rumor hard to believe it was planned but that there was a rumor that Richard Nixon had a slush fund. How many times have we heard of somebody having a slush fund thats just terrible. And in his slush fund, secret rich mans trust fund keeps far beyond the salary. That is the headline. If any of you wish to read the article there is nothing in there about a secret fans trust fund and nothing about billionaires and there is nothing about Richard Nixon living beyond his style of life. But thats pretty bad stuff. Why in the world with people believe that and the answer is simple the democrats running at least events and against a five star general who is probably the singular best known name in the world Dwight Eisenhower. They could somehow debilitated 1952 campaign and debilitating the safety 52 campaign is simple if they have a secret fund and they are using it to live beyond the standard of living have him fired and again i hope this isnt shocking to you this was the champion of the dnc. Why not . If i was the chairman and i had something i thought was wonderful to walk over my opponent, i would use it and he certainly did. He called for Richard Nixon to be fired. Of course there was a couple of problems. Number two, there was nothing that said that Dwight Eisenhower could get rid of Richard Nixon. And like so many other problems when you have a ticket if you did get rid of Richard Nixon as Vice President , then you would have to start all over again, find another Vice President ial candidate that the people would be happy with and think about what you have to go through to do that. It would be virtually a war zone so they have a story out there on september 18 and the other thing that was a huge problem and im sure some of you have heard of cell phones. [laughter] there were no cell phones in 1952. You had two men running separate campaigns were separate trains that dont stop at the same time and they couldnt get in touch with each other at the same time. So here is Dwight Eisenhower moving along who doesnt even hear about the charge of the secret fund and heres Richard Nixon going along figuring so what this is the normal partisan stuff we have to deal with and nothing is going to happen. Well all of a sudden there are movements get rid of Richard Nixon for doing this evil thing. Richard nixon doesnt know what to do. How in the world do you respond to somebody wanting to get rid of you and again to go back and stay back. The fable is that Dwight Eisenhower wanted to remove Richard Nixon from the ticket and quietly behind the scenes. They never made one mention of Richard Nixon being removed from the ticket. Its never happened. The story is false and has no reality that most of the people write about it and as you will see a little bit, it really is not how much the makeup becomes fact when its really fiction so Richard Nixon up towards washington on the train having the secret fund and at the same time heres Dwight Eisenhower were traveling on the train in the midwest. They were democrats who were saying get rid of him. Where is the money . What are you doing and how are you living with this on your life . Now, for some reason during the story, at least events in who was running against Dwight Eisenhower doesnt say anything. People start to wonder why isnt at least events in attacking Richard Nixon for being this guy with a secret fund, and again this may surprise you. But at least events and had a fund. [laughter] he had a fund 12 times the size of Richard Nixon. Now, i read that the authorized biography where he talks about how he used this fund by qantas sons birthday parties. The band would be using href fund for his sons Birthday Party he could be willing to check on the fund. They could send invoices to david smith who was the trustee and david smith wrote a check. It may be somewhat surprising but one of them added to the salary. All of the things that were done under this fund. If you did wrong he went in. All the funds were accounted for somehow they have disappeared. So let them know where the records are for adlai stevenson. What happened with Richard Nixons fund the story is Richard Nixon had to make sure at that time that huge Accounting Firm went through the fund and said its clean theres nothing wrong with it and in addition a Big Los Angeles law firm was to go through the spending and say did nixon do anything wrong and this is as pure as the driven snow so all of a sudden there is no fun controversy. But its in spite of that Richard Nixon was forced but its not only as pure as the driven snow, hes pure in the driven snow and he has to give a speech and speech was called the checker speech. If you read about the checker speech in just about every book you will find out the word that is used most often is boggling and for those of you that dont know what this means it doesnt sound good and it isnt good. It is a bad speech. It really doesnt mean anything. Its just a whitewash and Richard Nixon gave the speech and because it was such an awful speech that its interpreted by various people you would think that most of the people that wrote about the speech and there were about 3 Million People that wrote about the speech goodness for the lady sitting over there come a 25,000 letters, over 25,000 letters a december negative. Eight were negative and yet the speech was a failure. Again i know that this probably wont surprise you. They would remain on the ticket so the speech was as bad as it was and nixon was as evil as he was telling the world did he survive . Nobody answers the question and the reason nobody answers the question is because it never happened. It sounded the way people wanted it to sound and the introduction of the book i shy to make as in partial as i could but people simply lie. Some of my friends that wrote for the various books simply were disingenuous. They simply didnt tell the story the way that it should have been told and that was that nixon had the largest tv audience up to that time for a political speech and it was gangbusters. Do any of you have moments that say thats really Something Wonderful . Looking at the documents you very seldom have a eureka moment and if i could find a way to use this, this is a letter from alan written in late november of 1956 you are all familiar with the term, and if you arent, it means giving somebody the background to an important event that is occurring and for those of you that cant read it, dear Vice President nixon this is a copy of the seven pages of notes that Dwight Eisenhower took as he watched your speech at the cleveland auditorium on september 23, 1952. They watched the speech in the managers room at the cleveland auditorium. He made notes. Now once more, the story as Dwight Eisenhower was watching the speech he was so angry that he took his pencil and stomped into what he was looking at and offered one of the things about Richard Nixon. It sounds really good, doesnt it . I found the document. The reason why nobody else did is it comes from a series at the library called the 320 series thats 847 boxes. Youll never guess who is was the only one to go through the page. I stumbled across this and i said i cant believe this. Do you know why nobody else ever saw that . Because what they did in the historical terms is what is called cherry picking. They looked at the documents that they thought would give nixon the worst possible position. So rather than go from box one to box 847, they went to box Sherman Adams so and so nixon and rockefeller. To show you how bad it was, i looked at the last 50. I dont know how many of you swim, but i wore swimming goggles and a face mask and eye a smock in front of me and something to clean them off because nobody had looked at the boxes. Nobody was in the room room because nobody could stand being in the room i was in because of all the dust. I had to leave every 30 minutes because i couldnt stand the smell. But think about it, the obligation that i have standing in front of you is to be the best that i can be into the only way i know to be the best i can be is doing work if you are going to have a preconceived notion of what goes on, why bother . Some of the people ive written about with regards to other things i hope that if you are upset or embarrassed or whatever, Stephen Ambrose wrote a big biography of Dwight Eisenhower. Stephen ambrose wrote a big biography of Richard Nixons three volumes and white eisenhower said in one meeting of legislative leaders telling bobby jones series of jokes. Thats pretty awful sitting in front of a hole series of people giving derogatory comments. I have a skill with this i was the dean and the university so i think im pretty sensitive to this kind of stuff and i said i looked all at all of those legislative leaders and i dont remember that. So i called up and i said well you do me a favor and scan those meetings you will never guess what came back. It never happened. So i decided to take the next step and said are you sure are there any kind of ancillary files to this and it came back no is that the end of the story . Maybe not. Its the series of Martin Luther king jr. But won the Pulitzer Prize and in it he takes the stories that never happened. He could even copy while. So thats the kind of thing that im dealing with on a regular basis and its sad. It doesnt make me happy to stand in front of you and say that some of my colleagues are not doing what they should. So to think that its one thing to criticize your brother for real things but for things that didnt happen but made it never happened thats insane. I dont know how they do it. The fact is eisenhower writes the speech after he sees nixon gave the speech on television. He goes and gives a speech in the cleveland auditorium and he says you know, i have seen some really fine man do some really wonderful things. But this is the man that i want to be my Vice President. It doesnt sound like he hates the guy does it . So eisenhower sends knicks in a letter and in the letter, eisenhower says i will meet you in west virginia. Congratulations on your speech. I cannot make a decision of whats going on. But i will to the best of my ability to you that i will remain on the ticket. Eisenhower beat nixon in west virginia. Nixons plane lands and eisenhower rushes off to the planes and walks in and says you are my boy as Richard Nixon breaks down and cries. I know that all of you are historians. I am not telling you anything you didnt know that eisenhower and Richard Nixon win the presidency in 1952 and the people that didnt like eisenhower as the president of Colombia University because he was a military guy not only were unhappy with eisenhower and columbia but were even more unhappy when they beat stevenson badly in 1952 and they not only were not happy with that but in 1956, eisenhower won by a landslide so what did they do it . Rewrote history books based on history and not what happened but the way that they wanted to happen. I read a manuscript by James Mcgregor who ran on the ticket in 1958 that said i wrote in the margin of the manuscript i said 9. 7 million votes is not barely. And also please dont publish this. Jimmy never talked to me again. But in the cold running a load she did put down a pleasant acknowledgment to me. That was the end of it. So when you dont tell the story based on what happened, you get this stuff. I wanted to end with one small little thing which gives additional stories. In the speech and the reaction is to buy eisenhower because he was responsible for millions of lives looked at something and once it was done it was over. When he writes about the speech in his memoirs bandaid for change he spends four or five pages on it and Richard Nixon spends a whole chapter and hes very upset at what happened. And the problem with much of the stuff thats written by both of these guys is they may cross in the night but they were never together. So what i try to do in the book is to put what stevenson was doing and what nixon was doing and what truman was doing and all the rest so you found out how the story interlocked into the nature of just the story of telling you is repeated time after time and i just want to do one last thing. During the vice presidency, arnold saw Richard Nixon eight times. Now for any of you in the audience that are either crazy or psychiatrists i may also be crazy, eight times i dont think makes for a psychotherapist. In addition to that, they went before congress in november of 1973 and was asked the same two questions in the house and the senate under the page of perjury and the questions were did you ever treat nixon for psychiatric problems the answer was no. Did you ever treat Richard Nixon for psychological problems. The answer was no. Maybe you can help me but it doesnt seem like he served as nixons psychiatrist. They are just foolish. So i hope that those of you that will read my book will get some kind of at least idea of what really happened according to the fact pattern. Thank you for listening and i hope that you enjoy the work and if you have any questions i would be happy to take them. You mentioned you are writing a new book regarding jfk and i was curious if you might be able to tell us advice or research you have between the two of them if you had any thoughts regarding that. We are already working on the next book nixon versus kennedy and they often set where am i as in the next volume and i said im in yorba linda giving a speech and they said i dont care. They did the private side of the ratings and advertising ratings and the Corporation One of the things im going to be stating about the debate is one of the debates where nixon lost the debate but they had a certain ability to draw all things being equal people closer together so the nature of what happened in the debate was not that one was better than the other but by kennedy being there on the same screen even in the contest somewhat because he had the same kind of media exposure. How active a policy role do they have been Eisenhower Administration . This is jonathan standing in the back has been very helpful and great. The real story to that is this. The problem is that eisenhower took the position that every person that made the ultimate decision is the president so what nixon and subduing his being a trusted lieutenant who has all kind of authorities giving them and i hope you dont repeat this because it is going to ruin the image and none of you want to see that happen. No one did more to end segregation everywhere and especially in Foreign Affairs because one of the mantra is if you cannot preach democracy at home by ending segregation you couldnt preach freedom in the developing countries because you have to treat all people equally and Richard Nixon is one of the great proponents in the 1950s of leveling the playing field. The better that he did from 1953 to 1954, etc. , the more authority to president gave them. The problem is that eisenhower was really difficult to read. He did get out there and say im getting this and so and so is responsible for that or im doing this and so and so is responsible for that. But he said. If anything happens good team is the team is responsible so you go and get Dwight Eisenhower giving praise. I will tell you this one of the things in the book when nixon comes back in the first foreignpolicy trip in 1953 is a handwritten letter in the white house stationery there may be four or five of these how does the relationship change the question was how they eisenhowers relationship with nixon change after the heart attack . I have a whole chapter on that. In addition to the whole chapter on that, not only did i have eisenhowers problems with nixon had problems because nixon was being treated with insomnia and tension and he was taking a bunch of burger for veterans to go [inaudible] i had them both singing doctor feel good. They were both precursors to oldest princely so i talked to two doctors to practice the 1956 and a pharmacist from 1956 and they both said this is a big deal the way they treated people in the 1950s. Question. They brought us here to the archive is a great experience is a 20 another 15 years before we get the next and when writing what would you say is that research versus actual writing in the paper . The first part i can answer pretty easy i had a great editor they had me publishing in 2018 and if you dont think i have scars on my back already to get the next book you are wrong. The other part of the question that you asked i write very strangely then when i see them in order i pulled that out of my head and then show it to my wife so i dont know if that is kind of strange but thats the way that i got. Thank you for doing this and as far as i know none of the books on Richard Nixon have ever been challenged for fact or accuracy so congratulations on that. You are one of a series of new books on Richard Nixon. What do you attribute this look is the world ready to look favorably and more positively after all these years . That is who started working for Richard Nixon in 1962 he walks around with a series of dogs and at one point in time i balked when i thought that he wanted me to to eat a bug that keep the bug that the answer to the question one of my friends is evan thomas and he has a book out that is partly i agree with him and part i dont agree with. They are doing the tapes and there is a pretty ugly book out called one man against the world. I think that nixon is becoming more and more acceptable from the standpoint that more and more people are understanding he was a complicated complex person with a whole series of positives and negatives but some people between us and cspan and 100 Million People, some people just hate this guy so the example in the book i normally dont tell anybody i am he has a section in their where he says he refused to work unless he promised they wouldnt drink. This is the first time he ever worked for Richard Nixon so i called up the general. But how often do they see nixon in 1960 election they say maybe five minutes. Now maybe you have a better idea of someone running for president than i do someone that sees you for five minutes and someone says that he is giving an ultimatum hes not going to work for him unless he stays sober by the way check the footnote, its never happened. Talking about the speech and the interaction between eisenhower and nixon i believe in 65 of the biography, nixon stated conversation with eisenhower when he felt that eisenhower hadnt made the decision and ignore research in your research is the specter fiction [inaudible] that is what you were very pleasantly saying. Eisenhower calls Richard Nixon to return from seattle back to los angeles to prepare the speech. And at one point in time, eisenhower said to nixon you are having a hard time and this is a problem and there are these problems etc. And your brother says to eisenhower sometimes you either have to shit or get off the pot. Thats the real story. Another question in the back row. Former governor, former chief justice i understand he ran in 48 and i understand there was an animosity between nixon and eisenhower over the 52 convention on the train to chicago can you speak to that . Sure i can. What happened was nixon went to the convention where they were giving the platform. He missed the train as it was coming in in september. They said its going to be a contest and the story is that nixon was trying to work them over for the nomination. Again i dont know how many more years i have in the audience or anything like that but the primary law in 1952 z. Until the favorite son releases the delegation, the delegation had to vote for the favorite girl warren and for your information, he never released the california delegation and there never was a unanimous vote for Dwight Eisenhower because he didnt let it happen. Thank you very much. Please give them a round of applause. [applause] please come back. Thank you very much. [applause]