Transcripts For CSPAN2 Richard Nixon 20170528

Grandmother its my Great Fortune to welcome you to this panel, this wonderful discussion well have about the presidency of Richard Nixon and the lessons thin, and im also happy to invite you to a conversation. Well be able to have on that same theme and that same question. Before we get started in ernest, though, it is fitting that we take a moment to remember the space that were in, and who founds it. Tonight we are gathered in at the First Amendment center here at vanderbilt yard which is founded by john seigenthaler. You may not be aware of his legacy, he served for 43 years as an awardwinning journalist for the tennessean, and his retirement he was editor, publisher, and ceo. And in 1982 he became the founding editorial director of usa today and served in that position for a decade. Seigenthaler left journalism to serve in the u. S. Justice department as Administrative Assistant to attorney general robert f. Kennedy. His work in the field of civil rights let to center field as chief negotiator with the governor of alabama. And he was attacked bay mob of chancesmen klans men and was hoppized. He housed the with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment rights and values. One of the First Amendment rights we enjoy is the opportunity to look critically at our open past as citizens and mens of the us democracy, and so tonight to lead us in that discussion we are fortunate to have john farrell, author over the book by Richard Nixon the life. Hot off the presses, literally, and available in the back of the room. John farrell is the author of three biographs, first Clarence Darrow which won the los angeles become pride for the best biography of the year. Second of speaker tip oanyone which won the loin didnt johnson award for the best book in cronk, and third, Richard Nixon, the book well be discussing tonight, which will be published on march 28th. Somehow we already have downs. He came to biography after a long career as a newspaperman for the boston globe the denver post. And as a youngster, david maraniss, could peteed as reporters while covering the Maryland Legislature for rival newspapers. Mr. Farrell recalls he did not fare especially well in that competition. To mr. Farrells right is david mar maraniss. He wrote a become, once in a great city, detroit story, winner of the robert f. Kennedy book prize. Also a recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes and was a pulitzer finalist three other teams for his books in journalism. This semester for the first time, were so happy to welcome him back to vanderbilt as a distinguished visiting professor. He is teaching classes in political buying a biography. He and his woman have been spending time in washington, dc, madison and wisconsin and here in nashville. He is known here mostly for being the father of andrew maraniss, the author of strong inside the become about vanderbilt athlete and alum is in, per perry wallace, the fresh momentum book reading for the secretary straight year. Our other conversational partner is professor thomas swartz, professor of history and Political Science at vanderbilt university. He is the author of the books americas germany, john y. Public cloy and the federal republic of germany and Lyndon Johnson and europe. The strained alliance. He has received fellowships from the german historical institution, the norwegian noble institute. The Woodrow Wilson center and the social science researcher in. He served on the department of state and was the president of the society of historians of American Foreign relations. He is currently finishing a biographical study of former secretary of state Henry Kissinger so im sure youll join me in welcoming our distinguished conversational partners. You will be invited to be a conversational partner but with no further adieu lets get started discussing lessons from a failed presidency. [applause] thank you vanessa, and id also like to thank steven for helping to sponsor this event along with the Political Science department and the History Department and the provost office, and thank you to the audience. In frontow we have my great colleague, political scientist and three of our students, jude, frank, and julie who will be part of this. There are four parts. The making of the book, professor swartz and i will talk to you about the substance of the back and then have questions from these four in the front row, and then open it up to the audience. As they used to say about Richard Nixon or tricky dick, hes back. And but never knew he would be so relevant. So i will save jack the trouble of on campus today, sort of when he was writing the book he realized he was writing it for the students of today. When nixon like the teapot dome scandal of our generation, that far back. So even the students parents were just kids when Richard Nixon was president in some degree. So im going to save him the trouble of a couple of bare facts for anybody who didnt know. Richard nixon was born in 1913, died in 1994 at age 81. He was a congressman from california, served on the house unamerican activities committee, elected the senate the same year jfk was, briefly in the senate and then was Vice President for eight years under dwight eisenhower. Ran for president in 1960, was defeated. Two years later lost in running for governor of california and said you wasnt have dick nixon to kick around anymore and then came back and was elected in not 68, lasted five years and then resigned after facing articles of impeachment for the watergate scandal. I know that as an author myself, all authors most face the question, why . Why another or why im not going to ask that. I dont want to ask it. ll ask how. Same question but a different way. How did you come to there is book and how did you conceive of it . Okay. There has been a tide of new nixon material since the turn of the center. All the tapes are not all of the taped but all the tapes ready for public consumption hayes been released. Hundreds of thousands of documents, transcripts Henry Kissingers telephone calls. 450 oral histories of nixons childhood friends and family, all came out in the last ten, 15 years, and the last major biographer to take shot at tis was back in the early 90s when nixon was still alive and had no use for the tapes whatsoever. So double day, my publisher, throughout there was room for a new up to date singing volume nixon biography and asked me if i wanted to do it. It took me that long to say yes because this guy had been such a fascinating political leader and such a major part of my life in my late teens and early 20s. But you ask how and i went into it feeling that i couldnt do one more hatchet job on Richard Nixon. Nobody would want that. I had to try to write a straight down the middle biography and i found he was much more than the kerrick to caricature. You could have emthe for and i enjoyed talking to your students and finding that came through in the writing of the book. How did you research it . Thats a sad story because live outside washington, dc, and all of nixons documents and tapes were seized by the federal government and they were mutt in the National Archives about 15 minutes from my house, until three years before i got the contract for the book. They were moved to yorba linda california which is as far away from washington, dc as you can get. So i spent many hours in youre yorba linda staying at the quality inn and wently to the records. The easy part was so much was put on the internet i could do a lot of research at home and i predicted probably in the next 20 years probably experience it as well where somebody could write a major biography of a major public figure and never have to change out of their pajamas. Im always fascinatedded be the process of organizing such voluminous material. How do you decide what going into the single control and how did you organize it. The most important thing was to make it readable. The second most important thing was to aim it at the huge part of the American Population that is had not experienced nixon and twothirds and threequarters of the American Population either were not born or not living in the United States at the time. Nixon resigned in 1974. That was a big audience of people that didnt know anything about his first congressional race or his time as Vice President with eisenhower, and so i really if anything this book is weighted away from the presidency and temperatures his development as a man and as a political figure, as a husband, and the tradeoffs he made as he went through his career before he became the tricky dick we all know and loved. If you get to the technical par of research, biography is the easiest book length craft because the plot is written for you already. Its a persons life from birth to death, and chronology is your best friend. Just start making chronologies. I start off with decades and before too long the decade long chronology is to steps skiff and thin have to separate it into five, and then i have it in six month blocks of computer file, and in there i try to have a mix of nixon residents voice, which is very important nixons voice, which is very important, the voices of other people who knew him and can analyze them for us and the documentation to the for historians is very important to say, this is a good well thoughtout and thorough book. Is there something about nixon that you became obsess it with and wanted to solve . There were. I spent an inordinate mant of time disspelling conspiracy theoriesment many conspiracy their rid about watergate. Why the breakin was plotted and have some get toen very elaborate and i felt i needed to sit down with nixons spokesman from the Nixon Foundation and have them challenge me time and time again. It made it look like he was being clumsy and manipulating the election. Johnson faced a choice as president obama when he got word there had been contacts between the Trump Campaign and russia. Johnson made the same decision obama did which was not to go public because of the great shock this would be and because they didnt have the evidence to nail it down and tie it to the candidate. That is probably the very many comparisons that is the one that jumps out. It was watergate and then hashgz. What about the velocity . Nixon was cold you would not be a good president becauseioare not a good liar. They both have press secretary that have been called unmreefbable. They reached out with national strut and they then feel that the elites were not paying attention to them and nobody cared about them. So that came way you saw donald trump tap in the election, nixon was very in depth with that. He was more subtle because George Wallace was running as an independent canada saying everything blatantly. Nixon comes across as the candidate who obelieve said in a lot but didnt say it. They were both aimed at resentiment in voters. There is a wonderful quote in the book describing nixon as growing up with life being flawed. I wanted to take it back to where that sense of insecurity began. I had a hazy concept of nixons childhood and upbringing before i went into this. I knew he came from an inpoverished home. They were clouded by the house and senate race. Then of cous there was the famous checker speech when picked by eisenhower as the Vice President ial candidate and accused of lining his pockets with money from wall street donors. He talked about this family dog and reached out and said we are not giving up the dogs because the girls love it. It was an awful childhood. His father was brutal and his mom was closed, reserved, religious figure who would retreat into her closet to pray when he wasnt working the long hours her father required at the family store. Nixon confessed never in my life did my mother say she loved me and he would follow up saying that just wasnt the quicker way but it was a damning admission of what his emotional home life was like. He had two brothers die in his childhood. His younger brother stricken instantly and another caught tb and died over a sixyear period. That death, caring for that brother, ruined the familys finance. He always had a chip on his shoulder that an inferority complex. The whole experience left him in secu secure. He was never satisfied even with his greatest accomplishments. You can hear him belittle the strategic arms tragedy he struck up with the meeting. And Henry Kissenger once said imagine how great this man would be if anyone loved him. And another cabinet member said if anybody had loved him he would not have had that success because the drive and insecurity is what made him a formidable politician. I know the same thing is true of bill clinton just to negotiate is piece that called for a long with drawl and by doing it over a long period of time and maybe only nixon could have gotten up there january 20th 1969 and said we are going home and American People trust me because you know i am dick nixson and nobody hates the communists more than i do. That vision he showed in other areas and as you go through the war when we cant get a quick successful sending to it you see awful cynicism where he stretches it out and expands the war to cambodia. Many of the things individually can be argued as the right decision in time. The division he is sparking at home and the whole thing collapses and we lose the south vietnamese and the United States goes into a funk where our foreign depaul defense policy suffers as well. I dont think you can divide vietnam from watergate. Nixon calls himself the last cas casuality. Historians will say he bundled it, how much better would it be if he said lets go home. Can where can i get one more . Yes and no. The other aspect of nixon is the tapes reveal the man who often said anti simetic things. What do you see as his legacy there . The phrase and yet is used a lot in my book. Nixon has two sides. Allen greenspan and lynn garnet were jewish. Nixon, if you were on his side he was not as ugly. He reserved the real ugliness for the owners and editors of the New York Times or the judges that ruled against him Natasha Warikoo in the pentagon papers. Somebody said he is looking up at us to his great dismay. The tapes will forever collide through history. What was the second part of the question well in the middle east, nixon part of that was this was great power politics and the russians were trying to use the israeliegyptian war. He was alerted to this because he was a cold warrior. On the other hand, he thought the israelis and thought they were spunky. The israelis fit his image of underdogs who fought and the Defense Department came to him and said we can get these arms in there but we have to be careful to fly only at night because if the rest of the world sees we are arming the israelis and he said three flights a night . Fly everything you have. If we was truly anti semitic like a hitler he would never have done that. It was very ugly but a part of the Southern California outback where he grew up and probably a product of his fathers ignorance. In the kennedy relationships, they were buddies and making this powerful sense about loosing that election to jfk and evolving and being outdone by a lot of the dirty tricks. Instead of setting up all the disasters. Talk about that. They both came in 1936. They were put on the same committee. The chamber of commerce of key port, pennsylvania had them come up and debate a labor bill and they took a train back to the washington together. They were both in the navy in the South Pacific at the same time. They talked it over and thought they may have met. A friendship grew. Jfk respected nixon for beating jerry who was a new deal. The nixons were invited to jack and jackys weddings. They were Close Friends and in 1958 one of nixons former staffer went to run for secretary shulkin of state or another office and nixon said i cant go into the massachusetts because jack is running for reelection and people will ask you if i support his rival, the republican. And i will have to answer candiddly on behalf of the republican. With when the kennedys turned their charm on them and he believes they stole the election in illinois and texas, it sears not just as a bad loss but as a betrayal. This was somebody love is maybe too strong a word but maybe it isnt. He really admired and had great afection for jfk. Nixon was determine to never be outtricked again. There is a great scene from the 68 campaign where a secret Service Member is walking down the plane and there is nixon in his seat in the aircraft going got to be tougher, got to be tougher. And it was that that came out in the tapes and you see watergate and the tragedy. What professor is saying shlgs we are talking about lessons from a failed presidency and one of the hall marks of nixons presidency you can see today is the relationship with the press. I am wondering if there is anything nixon would have done to change the relationship with the press . And speaking more broadly if there is any long lasting implicati implications of the press and the executive branch that carries on today . I he grew up and entered politics from the conservative time. He came to believe the game was rigged. When he depot to washington, he expected the same thing so when critical articles were written about them he saw them as enemies for the other side. He never ran into them in california but here they were and against him. They didnt like him because he defeated liberal heroes to get to washington. They are a soviet spy and daring of the left. Right from the beginning there was this confrontation. Another man like jfk, more secure in his shell, may have been able to endure this not but nixon. Not adams he felt it would never last and he would never be happy. They are saying make connections. This is self de destructive behavior. At the end of the first term, when the peace negotiations with North Vietnam hit a bump he ordered a bombing. Kissenger comes in and all of a sudden nixon says the press is the media. Kissenger ignored it and heeds the press is the enemy of the American People which is a step higher. In nixons case of line, he had a basic respect for the special of the people that his lies. Trumps are blatant lies. I give you an example, when they came from china they lost the chop sticks. We want to preserve that for the Nixon Library and nixon said any pair of chap sticks. People never know. I ascended i attended a talk from nixons administration and he was saying there was a loyalty being torn in and he felt like he was swearing to nixon to pledge aliege allegiance to the country. How do you think nixon was able to establish that loyalty . George allen was famous it is a common contact and making the other team the bad guys. That was one thing nixon did. He had a much much longer honeymoon with the press and the public than trump is having. His money moon lasted six or seven months and was given leeway and people were patient and wanted to see what they could do about vietnam. He didnt turn paranoid until the fall of 69 when students got on the campus and began the protest the war. The protesters couldnt get in and burn the warehouse and they begin the paranoia and you hear it over and over. He had six or seven months. On that day, david kaut david was right. Thank you so far. I am wondering and speaking of lessons of a failed presidency in the hopes that now we will have a successful presidency. What lessons in terms of isolating groups nixon did in his involvement on the house and American Activities Community . I think donald trump has a chance to have a successful presidency. The question is he is not getting good advice. I have to tweet outrageous things meaning my crowd has to be the biggest. If he had the self discipline and control of somebody like reagan i think he could turn it around very quickly and you would have a democratic nightmare in that the effective republican president right now with the senate and house in republican hands and the Supreme Court going back to where it was, you know, you really could have great, great changes. But the greatest perspective. They could be trying basic pavlovian techniques to push trum over to better techniques jack, you do a nice job of discussing nixon and civil rights. If there is a new nixon running for president in 1968, there is also a new nixon on civil rights transformed from the nixon who in the Eisenhower Administration along with the attorney general are really pushing as hard as they can on eisenhower to take a stronger procivil right ban and helpful passage of the 57 sieve right act to nixon who to get the republican nomination in 68 and to win the election and allow the southern ability. Where does that fit in the analysis you did of nixon . I stopped the flow of the book twice to zero in on where we are in civil rights. I think it really illustrates his character. They are all expedeant to some degree. Nixon was almost totally expedient. In the 50s, in part, and yes, in part because he wanted to get the black vote in the cities in whoever he ran against in the 1960s. He reached out to Martin Luther king, jr and was a friend of jacky robinson. He was the First American Vice President to visit a family in their home. She was taken to the dining room and then writes a wonderful letter to a friend of his back in woodiersaying it affirms my face that the daughter of the shoe sign boy from whittier is graduating from Columbia High School and has a positive future ahead of her. There was a rumor in the family that the quakers worked the underground railroad. He joined clubs that admitted the and was color blind. In 1957 when the first civil right bill hit the floor of the senate, it is one of his mightiest champions. In the 1960 election, he loses the black vote because he falters at a key moment. Martin luther king, jr arrested and sent to a prison in rural georgia and they get in contact with the governor of georgia and called Martin Luther kings wife to comfort her and make a big impact for the population in america. The Nixon Campaign says no comment. If nixon is not totally colorbehind he is the most dangerous man in america because he was convinced nixon was big hearted and decides nixon is the most dangerous man in america because he was able to put on this show of sympathy and support but the first time it cost him votes he wasnt there when it counted. You move on to 1968 and reagan is running for the president and trying to get the conservative votes from the south and nixon makes a deal with therman and what was the southern strategy and promises the Nixon Administration is going to lay off that stuff and hesitate on thegration of schools in order to secure the southern delegations at the convention. Then in his presidency, he has civil right measures and yet, when the Supreme Court finally comes to him and says you have to integrate these schools he puts together an amazing effective plan with people like garnet and shorts and more black kids in southern schools got into integrated classrooms than any other president. It is complex and the only one guiding line is expedeancy. He did this, he said this is what i have to do at the moment. The great tragedy of his betrayal of the Civil Rights Movement was that kennedy and johnson had put the dignity of the white house behind the Civil Rights Movement. They had aligned the presidency which is something eisenhower and truman and fdr had never done. This is just as bad as the klan which is a horrible comparison but again it was he waw votes in the south. In the past year i read about vietnam and watergate, and obviously that is the defining moment of his political career. How did you pick and chose how to navigate that . Their coming from the sources who were released off the record guarantee or passed away. I spent what was supposed to be a 40 minutes interview and turned out to be a three hour discussion which was invaluable. I interviewed ben bradley before he passed away. Had a very good feel for their work and a great admiration for it. What they did was so important is they kept the story alive until i need to slow down. Many, many rumors spread about hidden nixon wealth after watergate. The only that bailed him out and 600,000 thousands and wrote books for the rest of his life to keep the wolf away from the door. Money was never a great motivating factor which is interesting considering he came from such a poor household. Can you talk a little bit about nixon and title 9 . If you go to the Nixon Library you will see a display that lists considerable domestic accomplishments of his administration including volunteer army, establishment of the epa, the clean air act. One thing that came up on the desk is the title 9 that had to be split. He had lots of fans who were coaches at alabama and oklahoma and elsewhere. You can hear this on the tapes. Nixon saying why are we doing this. But you know, it was flipped into an another bill that was more importantly he thought he had to sign. He signed it and if you go into the Nixon Library there is a display saying one of Richard Nixons great accomplishments of president was signing title 9 which is true but he had to be grabbed kicking and screaming to do. Giving the conservativeliberal dichotomy today. You mentioned he started the epa. Can you tell me what the motivation was for that back then . He was inaugurated on january 20, 1969 and a week later there was a Massive Oil Spill off the coast of santa barbara, california. Nixon was from Southern California himself. He flew out there and this ignited the Environmental Movement in the United States and the republicans and democrats got in a race for a competition as to who could do more from a the environment. If you poll organizations, they will say the number one republican was roosevelt and then Richard Nixon. It was clean air, coastal zone management, endangered species act. Almost all of this legislation was signed by Richard Nixon at the same. They were very devoted to the cause and nixon had a basic sympathy to the cause. He was from california, watching what was happening in california with smog and los angeles and this oil spill and and he had a business constiuency and got frustrated and there is a great tape filled with profanity so i cant recite it as i would like to right now. We are on cspan i think it is from 73 where he spouts i am not a liberal. I am an active and all i get is liber liberal crap over and over. Reorganizing the chaos a little better but all this environmental stuff is bull. I dont know why i am doing it. There was that side too. When the issue was hot, he was there. In part it was expedency. They put on the desk saying we have all this surplus land. The military is downsizing and we have military basis being closed and there were parks for urban family. And nixon remembering his childhood and a free park was one of the things they could afford put his heart behind it. Aul also, a fantastic president by native americans. He had a football coach in Whittier College who was a native american and nixon had this great empathy and it was a horrible simulation which his administration reversed. If you go on Tribal Councils out in the west there is still pi pictu pictures of nixon on the wall. And i asked a student from china and she said he is number two after washington for the second best president. Cspan has a survey of where american president s are and how they rank and nixon jumped up from the bottom and he is in the low 20s. And probably because of watergate. But you know, it is from the character. Professor wrote in the end the president is a job for an immoral man. Great powers of analysis, leadership, a little demagogue. Those dont add up to immo l immorality. I am not show sure total immorality is an asset. I think sometimes the leader has to Pay Attention but i think the vision and the effectiveness are, i think, a truly important. Where does nixon fall in there . It is hard to find much that nixon really, really truly believed in or wouldnt do it. There was an idea he wasnt idealogical and i think about that with trump. There is the idea someone is elected who doesnt have the ideology of the time. It gives him wonderful opportunities but incredible dangers. He he didnt have a firm letter like pat buchanan who wrote this saying we are neither fish or foul. Reagan came in and the conservatives took over the Republican Party and nixon is seen as a squish, as somebody who signed things like creating the epa. [inaudible question] i have heard and i am not sure this is reliable but i heard on his wall on the oval office he has a letter from Richard Nixon. Nixon met him when he was still the donald running around and being on the front page of the tabloid and road him a note saying don, you will go a long way and whether it is in the oval office or somewhere in the white house i think he kept that and they show it and talk about it a lot. I am just curious did you interview nixons daughters or have have a perspective on how being a father affected his outlook if it did. He was a very clumsy human being when it came to interactions with fellow human beings. They would communicate a lot with notes slipped under doors or left on pillows. I asked a question and only she could answer. There is still a lot of bitterness and resentiment resentment they have been treated by. It was a lost opportunity. I went in thinking that was my special brand of learning and i would be able to have this happen and it didnt. One of my greatest gifts is taking a subject we think we know well and making him or her more complex creating a sense of empathy and understanding. I want to thank you because even from tonights dugz is is clear that is what you did. I would invite you if you are interested into the book step out in the lobby where there is a sales table waiting for you. [inaudible conversations] here is a look at authors featured on booktv. Stawert taylor examines College Campus Sexual Assault cases. Elisabeth rosenthal reported on the current state of health care. And cooper explored the life of the president of liberian. In the coming weeks, Rachel Synder and jonathan war duck will report on how low and moderate income families manage money. Ben sas will argue americas youth are not presented for adulthood. Al franken will discuss his senate campaign. And msnbc host looks like racial in inequality in the United States. Huge flight is happening up to northern cities and the fight comes to northern cities where the fight is lost. You get the Fair Housing Act which is a High Water Mark but you have the busting fights and you get essentially a society that gives up on the project of desegeration as a social project through a million different municipal decisions, dozens of Court Decisions that wiggle away like parents involved which makes it almost impossible to create a desegregation scheme. Through the abandonment of fair housing legislation like the enforcement of it. So, what facilitates this is we have People Living near each other. We have given up on the project of desegeration so in place we will put in the project of corralling and controlling. And a big thing and i come to believe in writing this book is that [inaudible conversations] if you are ready we will go u head and get started this morning