[inaudible] and barbara were always very welcoming to me. They always said whens your next book . Youre on. [laughter] and it was lovely. And as david said, brad and lissa have carried on the wondrous tradition, the ingenuity and made it keep going, and the fact that all of you have come tonight is a testimony to the job they do and the reverence for books that we all share. Richard nixons a hard man to let go of. [laughter] i first i remember as a child on black and white fuzzy television seeing this odd man. He was on the ticket with general eisenhower, and there was some problem of his taking money from a secret fund. He was talking about his daughters dog, and i thought, hmm, hes interesting. Well, he never stopped being interesting. Richard nixon was never boring. And as david mentioned, he was probably as interesting in his after presidency as he was during his presidency. I chronicle in the book the beginning with spiro agnew, remember him being in some trouble. And i had said t
This had never been done before. There was one prior impeachment proceeding against andrew johnson, and it failed. It was an emotional issue for most people trying to define what an Impeachable Offense was. The phrase is high crimes and misdemeanors. It means you had to have a criminal act. Does that mean you could have a political judgment . How to define it and what was the burden of proof . Preponderance of the evidence . We had all those issues to deal with at a time when the country was quite split. It was an emotional time because there were things going on. There was a potential war in the middle east. There were things taking place in the world in which president nixon was regarded a serious figure in the world, especially in foreign affairs. For us to be questioning whether he should be removed or recommending he be removed from office, there were tensions certainly in this city. There were bomb threats. I remember one night there was a bomb threat before our committee started
Committee. After a month of meetings in the articles of and infusion and were about to be introduced. What was happening . Gathering. Ans were i assume the democrats were doing the same thing. There was very little discussion among the members. I did not have a discussion until the night before we actually went public. It was the day before. I met with tom railsback. He invited a number of people to drop by for coffee and it was at that meeting that i first saw what group might be willing, or inclined to vote against impeachment, who might come that morning. I met jim mann and talked to him for the first time. Walter flowers and talked to him for the first time. And Caldwell Butler and we met at that point and said is there anything here that we really all of us could agree on. That would constitute either an abuse of process, abuse of power, i should say, and we went through all of the evidence that we felt was pretty convincing and i think at that point i knew who was voting for and
Executives, and debate the question of National Security versus freedom of information. This 90 minute event was hosted by the new America Foundation. The Gilder Lehrman institute of American History. And dickinson college. Ok, good morning and welcome to the new America Foundation. We are here for the third and in our panel series of president s at war. This is a series for the understanding lincoln course , brought to you by the Gilder Lehrman institute for American History and dickinson college. So we are engaged in a discussion of Abraham Lincoln and his role in his legacy in American Society but were also thinking about how the issues he confronted as a commander in chief, as a president had he president have evolved in the modern day and where they might be headed in the future. This panel is about the role of the press. This is the wartime press and Civil Liberties during war. It is one of the most controversial aspects of lincolns legacy. It remains one of the most controversia
Democratic party for the presidency through espionage and sabotage that would be the weakest opponent of Richard Nixon. When we wrote that story, we thought, ah, now it makes sense. Now after 40 years it all makes much more sense about this huge criminal enterprise. And, ken, you have probably we were talking about this earlier. We have probably spent more hours listening to more president ial tapes than any human being in america. Youve been immersed in not just nixon tapes but lbj takes. Whats your take, leaving aside your 10yearold self, on what we knew now, what we know now about nixon that we didnt understand at the moment of his resignation . First off, i just want to talk about how honored and what a surreal experience it is for my former 10yearold self to be sitting here between woodward and bernstein talking about watergate with all of you. But that said, in between then and now, i have listened to an awful lot of tapes. And i think the biggest thing that ive learned about wat