sometimes life is very strange. i was having breakfast this morning in the restaurant of the hamilton hotel thinking about this event and the anniversary which is today. and i looked up and said to my breakfast partner, that looks like carl bernstein and she said it is. and i said who's that guy next to him? it was bob woodward. so that is the way the day started out. i thought that was auspicious. i will get to questions. this is actually a very interesting great panel that we have. i will just mention that we do have an opportunity for audience questions. and that will happen at about a quarter to six. so that we wrap up by 6:00. and i would urge you -- there will be a microphone. if you raise your hand somebody will get you the mic and you can fire away. some of my colleagues from the washington post are here. so, i know that we will have some heavy-duty journalism happening. so, william golson of the working institution told my colleague dan both recently that we've been living for nearly half a century in the world that water make -- watergate made. as of today, the word watergate nearly goes away. it has been 50 years. so, with that, we want to understand just what that means. and i think you will forgive me if i have the first question go to linn downey. so land, -- with the benefit of hindsight, how much of what happened including nixon's ultimate resignation can be tied to investigative journalism in your view. >> it began with investigative journalism. it began with a break-in. a local story. it was with the -- we were assigned to. and we stayed on the washington post for the duration of the scandal. >> -- [inaudible] >> mary was brilliant. he was the third part of that team. he could tell them what they were telling him about what they were finding. he could give them an idea what that might mean. then that would push them onto the next story. he was very brilliant. when the movie came out -- he decided to write his own book and left the post. and the rest of the watergate coverage from then until the president's resignation -- to answer your question, investigative reporting had a lot to do with it because i don't think it would have had the attention that was eventually paid to it without their work. there are other people who deserve credit. who -- recorded and told him about the higher ups involved. until then, no one would believe it until the judge said so. obviously the watergate committee -- by the time the senate were gay committee was doing work there was less for bob and carl to do because i have many investigators doing a great job. but -- i just did not think we would have wound up without -- welled up where we wound up without bob and carl. -- other journalist didn't pick up on the story. our own political staff leg was not interested. david broder son told me afterwards we cover the stories between the lines like baseball. watergate was outside the line. we couldn't understand what was going on for a long time. eventually walter cronkite devoted the first 15 minutes of the show one night which was unheard of before then and probably since then to watergate to tell the american people the washington post is doing something you ought to know about. holding up diagrams of what happened. so that is what got it started. and then other people got involved for it was over. pretty much, 98 percent. right? >> that's a good pitcher. just kidding. i'm going to go down the road. to dwight. dry chapin, -- dwight chapin -- you are at president nixon side when he made his historic trip to china. you made note of that that in your memoir. a few years later, you were the first person to go on trial in the aftermath of the watergate and ultimately you did serve a prison term. >> yes. >> this past savvy -- past february -- i think was associated with your book being published you said there's no question i was heartbroken. there is no question i went help area -- i went through -- but so did president nixon. but now that you have five decades of perspective, do you have regrets about your own role or what you saw in countenance and were a part of in the white house? >> yes. thank you for having me here and for all of you being here. obviously, the bulk of audiences clicks you can pretty much feel it. i feel incredibly comfortable so thank you. >> in my book, the president's man, i make the point that serving president nixon and all of the privileges and everything else that came away -- it was an incredible experience. a wonderful experience that only problem was, there was a price tag called watergate. when that happened, and i went through it, it was traumatic for me. it was traumatic for my family. obviously, for the country. maybe most of all for president nixon. he was very proud man. he was a very good man. he had worked hard for the public. his whole life. for decades he had done public service. and he had to resign. and i say in my book, i think that is probably his own hello --hell and was probably as bad for me is going to prison. and i would make the point -- i think strategically you have to understand the atmosphere in which all of this happened. i agree with you. i think investigative reporting was key in this. i also look forward at the end of this meeting mr. broder son i too think he was on of the greatest reporters of all time. and i got to know him. but i want to make this point. nixon was writing so high. there was something about it and washington. i remember seeing the cover of newsweek magazine and it had michael beaver on the cover and a jack wire part of here on the other side of the capital with the capitol in the background. there was this thing on this great obvious and i was working in tokyo at the time and i called bryce harlow who is one of the great understand her's -- of wanting -- washington. i said brian what do you think of that cover on the magazine? and he says watch for the fall. and with nixon, we went to china. he came back. we went to russia. he came back. he goes to 10 -- the convention. and then he goes to that -- at a popularity level not to be believed. we had in this town and axis of democrats, the media, it turned out to be the prosecutors and to the degree due to initial -- the judicial system. that is what my friend is writing about. so, we, would weigh that against all the investigative reporting and everything else. we think this is a political event and it was. it had criminal aspects to it. no question. but richard nixon, at the end of his life, said he considered watergate his last campaign. and he lost. but, his definition of the last campaign is because he viewed this as a political event. >> ok. i have more questions for you about your views of mark phelps. we will get to that. we will get to that. so, dr., your 2016 book if i have a date right is titled the loneliness of the back -- black republican. i know in writing that he relied on the papers of senator edward. republican of massachusetts who had been -- a nixon supporter and who -- withdraw a support was so notable that it was the lead story in the new york times on november 5, 1973. almost exactly a year after the landslide reelection victory. so, give us some perspective on what you learned about brooke's involvement and his change of heart and what that has done to your overall thesis about black republicans. >> sure. thank you all for having me here today. part of this retrospective is actually wonderful and it is an honor to be on stage to talk to all of you. one of the things that defines him in the majority of his political career is he is known as a politician with integrity. he -- it seems like no small feat but is what makes of who he is. and is not for the people of massachusetts believe he longer has integrity and that he actually loses his reelection in 1978. there is data on that. you can find it. and it comes into his relationship with richard nixon. it was complicated relationship. nixon originally asked him to be a member of the cabinet. in 1968 when he was assembling the cabinet. there were no black members and that's because the two black people he had turned him down. of those people was broke. -- the election on the table was for attorney general. i think what is that look like if ever looks former senator edward brooks his attorney general as watergate is happening. but it doesn't happen. he remain the senate. he is part of a group that goes to -- that travels overseas and southeast asia to answer questions. and to bring back to nixon. he pulled in time and time again on race, economics, in particular, urban housing questions. questions of urban housing. he is constantly pulled in. he is very vocal and what he thinks nixon should be doing and what nixon is doing wrong. there is one point in the story that brooke tells in his paper where he is sitting on the plane with richard nixon and he says you can't run a complaint -- a campaign that's called law and order law and order law and order and people are going to see that as races. and he says it's races. i'm every time i go out i get called all of these things and as soon as the plane lands i'm going to quit. and nixon says how do i change this? a lot of cynical things go into that. and brooke said add justice to law order and justice. that changes the meaning of it. so i think as we think about this complicated relationship that is going on back and forth will looks says he can not feel but be honest with nixon. he also had a view of nixon that was very calculated and -- very how do i wrangle this person. watergate happened, brooks has to have his staff do you diligence around it. he is convinced the president has to step down. when the president remaining in office and as this mountain grows, he is doing a disservice not just to his country, but in fact he is damaging the promise of what the republican party can be. so he comes out and becomes the first republican to say mr. president to resign. it is a huge moment. and it is not -- i wouldn't necessarily say it is a huge moment for black america. because if you look at journalism, media surrounding black america in the moment, they say what took at brick so long? they already have a vision of richard nixon that is one in -- it's steven anti-blackness and corruption. it is complicated of course. but ebony magazine list the two predominant -- running pieces as early as watergate's -- saying the president is somehow involved. so when brooks steps out and says we have to do this, all these black newspapers, media, journalists, writers are saying finally. finally you are saying what needs to be said. and of course, it is a big moment. it is a big moment for white house staffers for talk about -- if he is going back to his condo in d.c.. but the president's secretary, but it is also a moment for brooks that reinforces the idea of him being a politician with integrity. and one that is also willing to step out against his party in a moment of crisis. it is also incredibly important as you are looking through the papers and you see the private correspondent from other politicians including other republicans. it's incredibly him for them to also take steps to say you know what mr. president you do need to resign. they are, when this group of politicians and senators and go to nixon they say now is the time. the polling data is there. you are going to be -- you if you stay in office he will be impeached. if this happens you will go to jail. they point to -- one of the things they point to and one of the things that shows up in brooks paper as they say they've been deeply influenced by brooke doing this first. and i think that matters. think it is part of a larger orbit of both what broke represents is a politician and then what it allows the rest of the party to do in a moment of crisis. >> thank you. so brick crossing. you've written a lot about richard nixon and about the trajectory of the republican party over time. in your great book. but i want to ask you about a short piece that you wrote in the washington post in 2017 which was debunking some of the myths of watergate. so, you're number one myth that you debunked was -- there wasn't a logical motive behind the burglary. and you say that is not true. can you talk to us about why that myth has been endured and what you see is the clear motive. and what business this brings up. i should have told you i was -- i should've told you guys what essay he has forgotten more about the subject than most know. directly to using there was a clear motive now as you look at it. >> obviously it depends on what you mean by clear motive. i would say the clearest part of the watergate break-in has to do with a break-in that was attempted on the same day that no one remembers because it was never accomplished. that was an attempt -- maybe a similar -- around the same time where lady was scouting out campaign headquarters. and around the same time, there was a burglary at one of the -- offices also in watergate. to understand the particular man on this particular day he would need to and have a whole conundrum of what -- the white house and what it was -- the white house horrors and what he was afraid would be revealed if watergate was investigated. one of the white house horrors conspicuously was the same guys that broke into watergate. they broke into a psychiatrist office to try to discredit a administrative enemy. so i need to thank you guys for having me here. i want to acknowledge one of my guests. my uncle and aunt who have their anniversary today. and until then i have a thing. a watergate panel. it is a romantic moment to enjoy. and seriously, uncle david was of a certain generation that sounds like a great way to spend a day. and i think what that speaks to is that for people who came of age watching these things unfold and watching the investigations unfold, watergate itself was a moment of high citizenship. it was something that was very profound and meaningful. we talk about the consequences of watergate and people losing trust in government. my argument is that that is not all a bad thing. the former senators said -- love their country like children with their mommy. uncritically. salute the flag. during this -- period in which elvis was being investigated liberals were establishing a new kind of patriotism where we love our country by trying to make it better. >> your mother tells you she loves you. check it out. >> check it out. we should all act like investigative journalist because we love our country not because we hate it or we are out against the event. if you look at the train of events that leads up to august 1974 we are talking about a president in his first year of office had a wiretapped reporter. the president in 1972 who came up with a hundred of fake communities to find his favorite candidate in an election. we are talking about -- having bombed the brooklyn institution yet. the people who went after him were not, as my friend said, out to get the president. in fact, the media establishment in washington was quite political. if you look at the cover of the inauguration. look at the fact when the door white came out with the first wrap of the president in 1972 he didn't even have a paragraph on watergate. he begged at the end of a court letter for an extension so he can add a chapter. then he added another whole book. because he realized he had fallen for this idea that trusting institutions of the country was too much. if you look at someone like sam hermon who was the leader of the senate investigation and drilled down to the absolute bedrock core of what was happening to our country. he was the democrat who voted was richard nixon the most in the senate. you cannot tell me there are good guys and bad guys on the bad guys were out to get this innocent man who wanted to serve his country. this is a guy much pain was caused to him, there were caused things that were present in his career, since the beginning and you can even argue, since his childhood. when he rode -- wrote a prize-winning essay, that the religious freedom does not mean you can practice religion that is damaging to society. this is not an authoritarian mindset. of we love our country -- if we love to bash if we try to rooted out. >> how was i going? -- how is that going? we will come back to that. i don't want to start any kind of physical fight here. it is a bit unfortunate that i have -- dwight how sat next to each other's because i want to ask -- given time. i want to ask about deep throat. i want ask about it. i know, do you think he was very wrong in what he did? you said that in interviews and i think written it. why don't you tell us what your objection is to the use of a source like that to get to the truth. >> let's not use -- let's look at it this way, i was raised in kansas and then california to respect the fbi i was respectful of the fbi. i never lied to the fbi. i told him the absolute truth from day one. my issue, as a grand jury, is to see which is different than the other. but when someone takes an of to uphold the laws of the constitution of the united states and they are the second ranking person in the fbi, is mark felt was, if it is true and i doubt seriously that it is only one person who is deep throat i think al haig is there too. i become more convinced every day that he was in there. but, mark felt by -- because of his own selfishness, you have to understand this is a political war, he wanted -- when hoover died, felt was furious he did not get that job and that it went to pat gray. he decides he's going to leak this information to bob woodward and that he is going to embarrass nixon and nixon is going to get pissed off and he's going to fire pat gray and he's going to take mark felt and make him fed -- head of the fbi. that is the strategy. i look at mark felt and i have nothing but contempt for that, as an american citizen. forget that i'm a republican, nixon person, to me that is just outrageous. >> how do you really feel though? [laughter] and i would like, len, if you would talk about the role of mar k felt. fair warning, because i do want to take audience questions. i'm going to do a lightning round in which ask everyone what, in your particular area of interest, what is the most lasting legacy of watergate? >> well, bob woodward, let mark felt it -- met mark in the white house when they both in the navy. they got to know each other well. they liked each other. bob contacted mark on a couple of other occasions for a couple of stories which he gave him. felt was reluctant to talk to him about watergate. the famous underground scene in the movie was accurate. back at the newspaper, we were concerned about making sure we knew who all of the sources were, except for that particular one. we want to know what their sources had told them and under what circumstances. . every time they conducted interviews with the source it was not named in the newspaper. to whom they gave confidentiality for, unless the source was released from that confidentiality. they had to write out all of their notes and they had to put the name of the source at the top of it. alexander was one of the names by the way. it went all the way to the top of the white house. many other parts of the government and politicians and someone. but, not mark felt. bob had promised him he would not tell anyone who he was. ben did not know who he was, i did not know who he was. catherine graham did not know who you was. as a result of that, we did not publish anything directly from mark felt, except in one small instance where it was adding onto something else. >> it was guidance. >> he would tell bob, when he was on the right track or the wrong track. he sometimes told bob things that turn out to be true which is why we did not publish anything that he said. we used him for guidance. so, quick anecdote. i was always wondering who mark -- who deep throat really was. it went on for decades. people wrote books about it and magazine articles about it. a couple of people guessed right but we never told them. so, because i didn't know. i decided i going have to guess because i knew call of the other people were, therefore they were not deep throat. my first guest was a former deputy attorney general. when he died, bob said, no it is not him. pat gray was my second guess. he was living so long, without saying -- with bob not sink what was, he is still alive but that's on him. i realized mark felt, number two in the fbi. i dealt with him a couple of times on stories as a reporter and manager. i wrote his name down on a piece of paper. the reason i thought it was him, i gave it to bob and i said, when he dies, i want to know if this is the right name. so as you may recall, mark felts family wanted him to be out and known as deep throat before he died. bob went to see him, took him out to lunch, barely knew who bob was. he was so far gone he cannot consent so we did not do it. the family to vanity fair, published it lay vanity fair. -- in vanity fair. i was in an editor's retreat. they all had to listen to me. everybody's phone goes off. we all turn it off except for dawn because he figured someone was calling him in the middle of this media must be important. he goes outside, there's a big picture. i see them out there and he goes -- [laughter] it was bob woodward on the phone. he told me about the vanity fair piece. he wanted me to identify him because he stilled and have his permission. i raced back to washington breaking many speed limits were not getting arrested. i told bob, it is over. so we did everything. bob had written a book about his relationship with him and that is why he was probably reluctant because he wanted his book the way was revealed. >> he never did that again? >> no. >> ok. what is the most enduring more important or significant legacy of watergate in your view? giving your particular area of expertise. >> i'm going to go with the idea, with the american public or the realization among the mark in public that preeminent or dominant american institutions can be corrupted. that, in fact, the idea of democracy is not static. democracy is something that is constantly having to be remade, something that has to be monitored and something that needs to be transparent and accountable. when we look at the reverberations around this, there's a marginalized class within american society that has been saying this for generations. upside the boundaries of democracy. they've never had faith in american institution. at the tail end of watergate, we see public trust decimated. we also see the long-lasting implications of that. so, i used to work for the harvard kennedy school. one of the things people don't realize is one of the core courses, every single person who passes to the doors of the school must take a class on morals and ethics for politicians and policy and politics. that is a direct result of watergate. is instituted to starting in late 1975 because everyone said, wait a second we're training these people. we are sending a future leaders and presidents, all of these people out into the world. we actually do not have a curriculum for morals and ethics. we do need to teach it if we want to uphold democracy and these american institutions. i also think, later on, we begin to see scandals emerge from the presidency. we can see the ghosts of watergate. you see it in the way that it is discovered. we see it in the way that certain staff members and officials play whistleblower roles. we see it in the way that as administrations come in and the audit work they do, i'm thinking very specifically in the transition from reagan to george h w bush, and jack kemp who instituted the audit of the reagan housing and urban development that discovered the china messe scandal and -- to norma scandal -- the scandal. i do think that kind of legacy of thinking about institutions as places and ideas that are driven by humans that can be corrupted is deeply important. >> great. thank you. rick. >> i'm going to say that is the largest consequence of watergate is fox news and the politics and attitude and represents. if you talk about fox news and the politics, you're talking about january 6, about the cover up, about the hearings, we are dealing with right now. one of the things i researched in my bridge which covers the years 1973 1976 with the public's response to watergate. one was the extraordinary upsurge of patriotic surge of -- following scandal. fox news says there are good glues and their real americans, there are -- they are good guys and the real americans are out to get the bad guys -- and the good -- and the bad is out to get the good guys. i'm going to read an excerpt. i forgot about most of the stuff that people remember. ronald reagan says the watergate burglars were not criminals at heart or you say something like the republican party has traditionally been the victim of shenanigans worse than watergate. most of all, he saw it in a curious place. you did not see it on the news or newspapers you saw in edit -- letters to the editor. it is almost beneath the surface, counterculture. you see people saying the liberal media is a pack of howling moods -- wolves. nobody was murdered, nobody was maimed. then there was a bumper sticker, how many people died in watergate and they would have a picture of the candidate. someone would say it has been over 20 years since i heard a word about the lost 81 million that disappeared during the new fair deal years. those liberal politicians are the most indignant in the news media which is scream loud us about the watergate are the same ones yelling which and mccarthyism whenever their group is caught with her hands in the cookie jar. -- their hands in the cookie jar. wiretapping at the watergate was a childish prank compared to the massive fraud perpetrated by the american public in the election of john f. kennedy. >> it's a backlash. >> there was a famous article that came out in 1973 when the journalist went to a bar in queens and said what you guys think of watergate? someone said something like, they should've shot him in the head. while this is going on, people like chuck wilson are saying, where our tv networks? roger ailes who worked inside the white house as a consultant said, we have come up with our own communications network. gabriel sherman and. other people have written history. that comes directly out of watergate and the idea that we need a medium that can broadcast the idea that you, the ordinary american, are being put upon, by forces of -- that are maligned and people because you are a decent person. we now see the consequences of that. that comes straight out of what was going on in the white house and how the white house and some of its people -- when after the post and said the only reason they were going after him said because they were -- they hated nixon. that was institutionalized. now we see the consequences of that. >> ok, very interesting. i know you want to respond to every single thing that has been said. but actually wanted to ask you to answer the question, what is the most significant legacy of watergate in your view? >> i think it zero's in on what rick was talking about. i think one of the most consequential things that has happened it flies in the face of probably what a lot of people in this room think. that is, could not happen now. the reason it cannot happen now is the age of nbc, abc, the age of the new york times, the washington post and the los angeles times. the age of that media era that we were in in is gone. it has been fragmented. we have cable systems. we have the internet. we have conservative voices everywhere. if richard nixon was going through what he went through today, he would have never resigned, he would never been impeached in the country would have been locked, probably in this 50-50 situation that we have, which raises a whole other set of questions that we need to figure out how to get around, how to talk to one another, how to cooperate, and how to move this country ahead. but my view is that what we witness and what i went through and what the president went through cannot happen again. >> i agree. in fact, i think -- it ties in with what the media situation as well. len. >> i will be a bit more narrow and talk about journalism. before watergate, before the pentagon papers, watergate and vietnam, there was very little investigative reporting in the american media for decades. i was one of the few investigative journalist in the 1960's at the washington post and there were some other scattered around the country. we focus on local things. there was no investigative reporting on the national government or politics. not to mention, no investigative reporting on anything outside of government either, corporations, charities, schools, religion. as a result of watergate, as a result of the fame and the movie, investigative reporting took off throughout the american media. it remains today the most important thing the american media's doing, investigative reporting, what i call accountability journalism, holding every aspect of americans to the rest of us. sports, entertainment, what have you. good examples of that is the #metoo movement, which came directly at of investigatory reporting. the investigations of the catholic church's treatment of children. just a few days ago, the southern baptist convention had a deal with the sexual harassment in that particular religion as a result of investigative reporting. that is the most important legacy of watergate. >> very good. thank you. so, we need someone to break the ice and ask the first question. so, yes there is a hand up over there. please, everyone think of what you might like to ask. >> hello, just for full disclosure my name is will gray l patrick ray was my grandfather. i'm coming at this with a bit of bias. my family and i can probably understand a bit of what you talked about. i did want to ask, mr. downey, the answer to your first question when he talked about who was responsible -- when you talked about who was responsible for bringing down nixon and he was responsible for leading to the resignation from nixon, you did not reference the fbi at all. i was wondering if you could speak to that, given that mr. felt was part of that investigation at the fbi and was guiding your own investigation. >> sure. the fbi was supposed to be investigating watergate. once it became clear it wasn't just a local burglary, that it had other implications, that it reached into the white house, the fbi had to be investigating. the local prosecutor and u.s. attorneys were investigating the burglars and a couple of the people that worked with them out of the white house. but, that is what they were supposed to be doing. i think mark felt was frustrated because it appeared that somebody, either in the fbi or prosecutor's office or in the white house office, was putting a lid on it. the investigation was going this high and higher up in the white house they were not interested in going. that was -- besides the fact that i agree with him, who is interested in his own ambition and bitterness about running the fbi, he felt it was necessary to get somebody to looking at what was going on. >> one thing that i found in my book, we found in fbi report that was done after watergate in july of 1974 he called john dean the master manipulator of watergate. they talk about how dean influenced the fbi in these reports and so forth within the white house structure, which was just outrageous. john dean came clean. it was a bit absurd. [laughter] >> all right. yes. ok, great. >> i would like to address this question with the other panel members. watergate did not exist in a vacuum. i wonder if you would talk back to july 13, 1971 and the publication of the pentagon papers and how the new york times and the washington post backed each other and the unprecedented fashions. then, also, could you please most importantly address how the washington metro, the strength of the washington metro coverage influenced how the story unfolded. was it true that mr. woodward and mr. bernstein had pretty much locked up the critical sources before the other national publications really became interested. there was a lot of things going on in the environment, there was unprecedented spying by the government against vietnam war protesters and there was the growth of executive privilege. i don't want to get too broad with these questions but watergate did not totally come out of the blue. >> while the story is you probably will want to add more to this. i will briefly say that it was clear that the president reacted with great horror to the pentagon papers, he tried to stop their publication he went to the supreme court, that played a role at the beginning of the stone running down the hill. in terms of robin carl, they did not lock up any sources they went around knocking on doors and making phone calls and doing things that no other reporter were doing because they did not see anything there. the national post was hostile to our reporting for a long time because they thought it would get the paper in trouble and cost catherine graham the washington post because they do not believe it. the national letter actually tried to take the story away from us because they thought we were doing a bad job. ben bradlee stopped him and harry wilson put me in charge of the coverage. >> it's important to remember that on the pentagon papers with nixon and kissinger what they were doing, really it had nothing to do with the nixon administration in terms of the vietnam war. those are papers about johnson and kennedy on that. another thing is i had dinner last night with a very interesting man that knows all of this stuff, he told me that the 29th -- between 1932 and 1972, there were anything -- anywhere from 125 to 300 lakh back operations a year. -- black back operations a year. they're in the church report, this black back operation. the only reason i mentioned it, it surely isn't a defense but, when you look at nixon living through his senate years, going to the vice president years and what he knew about how things operated in the cii -- cia and so forth, he and richard helms were together on many things including caracas which i had not known, until i read this book about the cia and richard nixon. it's an insightful book because it shows the linkages of what was going on with the cia and the executive branch of our government. nixon reaps all of this anger and hatred and all of these wrongdoings and everything. there's a lot more to the story. i would say, another legacy of everything that we are witnessing, especially at this building, the library of congress, there are two books i am aware of that are being done on the relationship of the watergate and the cia. we are uncovering stuff. we are still uncovering stuff, it is unbelievable. there is going to be additional volumes put into this library someday that are going to help explain this even more. >> rick, you look like you want to say something. >> there's a bit of confusion there. there are procedures within the law for what are called lakh back jobs. >> -- which is basically entering and finding information , search warrant's for example. the point about nixon's operation of fame was that in a famous memo written by one of his staffers in 1970, he said the fbi's not doing the stuff, we have to do it ourselves and it is clearly illegal. nixon says, it's a great idea. and he says well, you know what, i have second thoughts. what happens in the basement of the white house is largely the same thing. >> i want to move to another question. >> for example. in his book he says things that there are memos that directly contradict what he says in his book. >> i'm going to go to an audience question. this can be continued at the cocktail hour. [laughter] >> i am jim jones. i wanted to ask a question. after the 1968 campaign election, lyndon johnson who i worked for called me in and said he wanted to have a transition that would educate the entire nixon at cabinet, etc. so that every one of them when it's office on genuine 20th would be fully versed on what the government is doing -- january 20 would be fully versed on what the government would be doing. we had a meeting. >> i don't think you identified yourself. >> jim jones. president nixon and all of the candidate people were there. after that, president johnson outlined what he wanted us to do. offering to the nixon people. after the meeting, i went up to president elect nixon and said, if i need to reach you, do have a phone where i can get you? he said if you can't get me, call john mitchell. he is the only one who thinks for me, speaks for me. after that i was shocked at that. lyndon b. johnson never went have allowed that. i thought, this had no reason -- i had no reason to suspect what nixon would do or not do. i thought, this is the kind of thing that johnson would never do. what was i thought? >> --parted me? >> how did the nixon white house a deal with that? >> while nixon was not in the white house, you're talking about the transition. nixon's office was right next to mitchell's. john mitchell became the campaign manager. i happen to be one of the people that is condensed, that mitchell would never be elected president had he not been brought in. with kennedy. the criticism was that nixon tried to self manage his campaign and that he needed to delegate that information he delegated it to mitchell now >> ok, so, i need to wrap this up soon, but i need to turn this over. i'm sure you can react spontaneously. because we are in the midst of these jan. 6 hearings, and there is so much discussion about the current republican party, which is certainly an interest of yours as a historian, what do you see as the present and future of the party? there are books that can be written about this. but where do you see the party going from here? >> the party is there. it's gone. the republican party that the majority of the country has known in their lifetime has completely morphed into the saying that it used to play footsie with under the table. [laughter] one of the remarkable things that i always come back to when i talk about the evolution of the modern republican party is that the two major political parties, after major losses, usually undergo a lot of soul-searching. they do a lot of work around identity. who are we, what do we represent? for we not bringing in? the republican party does this. in 2012, they have a part two that comes out in 2013. they do everything the opposite of what they say they should do in that report. and it works. and that's a lesson. i think it's a powerful lesson. particularly because of the distance between what republican leaders and elites believe and what they have been doing for a very long time, as opposed to the base. we know that the base has believed several things are out of touch with republican leaders and republican elites for a very long time. social security is a great example, right? the war in iraq is another good example. immigration and immigration reform is another example. so when donald trump descends into the party -- and a lot of people focus on trump -- personally i am sick of focusing on trump -- but what he does is give voice to something that has already existed. and he helps move that from the margins into the mainstream. when january 6 happens, and delete up, including the attempt -- delete up, including -- the lead upm including the attempt on governor witmer's life, the george floyd process throughout the summer of 2020, one january 6 happened, it should have been a signal to all of us that something is radically off here, something has changed. so the republican reaction, the immediate reaction was reflective of the old republican party. one of republican elites. republicans saying, this cannot stand. the part where we should be concerned was one, one month later -- when, one month later, the very same people saying this cannot stand, this must be prosecuted, are shifting to saying, we must move on, this is not important, there are more important things. i'm not quite so sure what's more important than democracy in this country. and so, this is where the party is. i will say one thing -- i do think there are people -- and this is a flashback i think to what is historically happens within the republican party -- there are people who exist within the party who don't want to see? in the direction that it is. and they are in a crisis. -- don't want to see it go in the direction that it is. and they are in a crisis. it is a moment for truth telling. it is a moment for standing up. oh, soundtrack. i like that. patriotic music. save the country. but it's a moment to stand up and to be bold. i think as long as there is no obvious reward, in the way that politics work, as long as there is no obvious reward for coming up and truth telling and trying to move -- trying to really wrestle with the direction of where the party has gone, that we will not see a lot of people trying to move that. >> good. thank you very much. think it's of this great panel -- thank you to this great panel. and thanks for coming. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [indistinct chatter]
Related Keywords
New York , United States , Caracas , Distrito Federal , Venezuela , Tokyo , Japan , Iraq , Brooklyn , Washington , Massachusetts , China , Vietnam , Republic Of , California , Whitehouse , District Of Columbia , Russia , Kennedy School , Americans , America , American , Lyndon B Johnson , Dwight Chapin , Bryce Harlow , Ben Bradlee , Linn Downey , Patrick Ray , Lyndon Johnson , Jack Kemp , Robin Carl , George Floyd , Ronald Reagan , John Mitchell , Catherine Graham , Chuck Wilson , Bob Woodward , Al Haig , Jim Jones , David Broder , Gabriel Sherman , Richard Nixon , Carl Bernstein , William Golson , John F Kennedy ,
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.