i m the president ceo the richard nixon foundation. it s my pleasure to welcome you here this evening. we have a truly terrific evening in store for you, and let me beginning by welcoming special guests, for the richard nixon foundation, sandy quinn, former president of the nixon foundation. colonel jack brennan, a marine military aid to president nixon and chief of staff. judge jim rogin, and keeper being here, sir. jean rezendes, of the great city of thank you for being here, jeanne. i want to welcome dr. laurie the chair presidential studies at chapman university and her colleague dr. luke , the james h. kavanaugh chair in presidential studies, which is a new program at chapman university and we are joined by the dean of student, chalk doctor jerry price as well. the new program at chaplin that the foundation has helped put together. we are really excited about it. thank you all for being here. in addition i want to thank all of the presidential council members here
Federal government was taking over a private museum and library. I was asked to be the First Federal director. This was a library that was in place for 17 years. Roughly 100,000 people visited a year. In addition, 10,000 schoolchildren. It had a certain message when you run a private institution, you have a right to any message you want. When it becomes a National Institution it has to meet a different standard. I knew that one of my jobs was to change the newseum come up with in particular i was to change the watergate gallery. How do you do that . After a local community was accustomed to one particular description a museum might be a National Museum but it is also a local neighbor. This is in california. Yorba linda, california. I thought the best way i was a trained historian. I was not a nixon specialist was for the players, keep People Living from that era to tell the story themselves. I thought the best way to do this was to start a video and Oral History Program that involves n