Transcripts For CSPAN Q A 20240622

Youve laid out your position. You have laid out your youve taken your steps, and you put the interesting thing, you know we havent heard a the only cabinet member who has called, and this is 50 minutes after the thing is over, is cap weinburger, bless his soul. Hmm. Fmr. Pres. Nixon all the rest of them are waiting to see what the polls show. God damn strong cabinet, isnt it . Brian all right, what are you hearing . Evan well, he has had a couple of drinks. Actually, nixons alcohol capacity was low, so maybe it was just one drink. He could sound drunk on one drink. The other thing thats pathetic about this, hes just fired him on national tv. You could tell he was upset that no one was calling. In the old days, haldeman wouldve arranged for people to call. He asked if haldeman could get people to call again like in the old days. And haldeman says, i dont think i can do that, mr. President. And nixon hears himself and says all right bob, i love you. It is poignant, it is heartfelt. He actually does love the guy he has just fired on national tv. Your heart breaks listening to this. You can tell he is going down. He is going to be in office for another 15 months, so it will take a while. But he is finished as of april 30, 1973, and you can hear it in his voice. Brian these are not chronological recordings, just a way to see what Richard Nixon was like sometimes offcamera. This is from 1982, it was on cnn crossfire. Pat buchanan, who worked for him, was interviewing him and this is when they were in commercial. Evan i love this. [video clip] pat buchanan i think maybe we can get through lbj in that period. Fmr. Pres. Nixon oh yes, i think i can do this. You know, there is this terrible book out on him. Buchanan did you read it . Fmr. Pres. Nixon it has gotten some rave reviews. Bookofthemonth. Unbelievable. It makes him appear like a goddamn animal. Of course, he was. [laughter] director offstage quiet fmr. Pres. Nixon he was a man. Brian i dont how you get things like this, but we got it. Evan isnt that great . That is one of my favorite clips. That is the full nixon because he actually admired lbj and felt a kinship. Both were destroyed by vietnam. Both were politicians with capital p and both understood power with a capital p. Even though johnson had called nixon a traitor 1968, when nixon fiddled in the campaign and kept the north vietnamese government from going to paris and disprupted these peace negotiations arguably disrupted those peace negotiations to win the presidency, it is a murky and not good chapter in nixons history. Johnson called nixon a traitor for having done that. And yet there is still kind of an affinity. Nixon also you can see nixon also admires what a man lbj was. He was a man. Poor nixon wanted to be a man. He got himself in more trouble on those tapes by trying to appear macho. All that swearing and profanity, nixon wasnt even good at it. He was bad at it. It wasnt natural to him. It was natural to lbj. You could hear lbj swear, he was good at it. Nixon was trying to be something he was not. He was not like lbj, a crude macho guy. Nixon was a shy, intellectual, thoughtful. He couldnt let himself be that. He had to be something he was not. I think that is one of the reasons he destroyed himself. Brian how in the world can you be shy in the presidency . Evan that is one of the reasons why i wrote the book. How one of the most introverted politicians ever became one of the most successful politicians in the 20th century. He was on five national tickets, he won the presidency twice. The last time by one of the largest landslides in history. His record is equaled only by fdr. And yet he could barely make small talk. If he was here talking to you, there is a chance he would not have been able to talk to at all. Sometimes he would just spin his hands. He was a terrible blurter. He would just blurt things out. He just couldnt do small talk. He runs into Jackie Kennedy at Martin Luther king juniors funeral and he says to mrs. Kennedy, this must bring back terrible memories for you. This is cringemaking, and nixon would do that kind of thing all the time. We all do. I do this at cocktail parties. You just blurt things out because youre uncomfortable. But nixon would do this all the time. He was terrible at small talk, he liked to be alone. People used to say that he was always writing on yellow pads. His yellow pad was his best friend. He didnt have any best friends. Bebe rebozo, maybe. But when they were together, they would not talk. The secret service would sit on the boat with them and listen in florida, no conversation. Brian do you remember how he met bebe rebozo . Evan he was down in the dumps in 1951 or so, depressed he was subject to depression and this highliving senator, george smathers, a friend of jack kennedy from florida, a democrat, to cheer him up, brought him to florida to cheer him up and have a guys weekend out on the boat. Drinking and girlchasing out on the boat. Nixon was really not good at either of those things. At first, rebozo thought who is this guy, hes no fun, but a kinship was established. There was a vulnerability and a sincerity there that the public never saw. But rebozo saw it. He understood that what nixon needed was companionship without talk. That was the basis of their friendship that went on for years and years. Brian he was here in 1992 for his book, seize the moment. This is not too far away from when he died. We have some clips from that just to get you to reflect on what you see in this. Here is one where he talks about how he sizes up people. Fmr. Pres. Nixon yes, i am not one of those who believes in the psychiatric examination of people. I believe that most of these people, these psychohistorians should be on couches themselves rather than psychoanalyzing people that have never met. On the other hand, when i meet people, i dont judge them in terms of whether they have a Firm Handshake or make eye contact. All these are things that are learned. Things that you do. Things that come naturally. Or you do them, even though they come unnaturally. But what i try to do when i meet people is to listen to what they say. You dont learn a thing when you are talking, you learn a great deal when they are talking. Brian he is talking about you there. Evan one of the many tragedies of Richard Nixon was that he was not very selfaware. There are endless ironies here. He did have a psychiatrist. He was an internist. Not technically a psychiatrist. The doctor later said he was careful not to let nixon think he was analyzing them. So it wasnt but nixon went to him because he had psychosomatic illnesses in the 50s and he gave him some mild therapy. His head hurt and his neck hurt, he couldnt sleep. Even though he went to one, he hated psychiatrists and was always denouncing them. He was afraid in a way of looking at himself in a realistic way. He said i dont carry grudges. Hello . Richard nixon was one of the greatest grudge carriers of all time. He could be very unself reflect ive. This lashing out at enemies is what hurr hurt him. His last words were something along the lines of dont hate your enemies. Because if you do, you it will destroy you. Too late. It is selfawareness, but it is way too late. He is about to get into a helicopter and fly away. Brian lets go back to the book because you do spend a lot of time talking about his mother hannah, his brother frank. What did you learn about that . Evan his father was a bully and his mom was a saint, but kind of a passiveaggressive saint. There are some oral histories that suggest that she was very withholding and it was hard to win her love. He was desperately trying to win her love. The older brother, who was quite charming, died of tb and one of his younger brothers, who was very sweet, died. His mother said that he tried to be both of those boys, and he couldnt be. It was something he could never do. So he was never very comfortable. He was very forlorn. Very clean little boy. He wore a clean white shirt and went around barefoot, but he carried his shoes around in a bag. He never wanted to be picked up and held. He was a lonely forlorn boy trying to please his parents in a way that im not sure he ever succeeded even becoming president. Brian his brother had tuberculosis and his mother went off to a different part of the country and moved away from them. Evan nixon was accepted to harvard out of high school but couldnt go because the money had all been used to take care of the older brother. Mom had gone out into the desert in arizona and rented a place in those days, tb sufferers would go to dry places because it was preantibiotics. Nixon loses his mother to go take care of his dying older brother as a teenager. I think that was tough for him. Brian talking about the unusual nature of his personality. Michael korda, who was his editor from time to time at simon and schuster has told a couple of stories about him. Here is a story from when we did our indepth. [video clip] Michael Korda the only one of my authors, the only person ive ever dealt with who always spoke about himself in the third person. If you had dinner with him, he would say, nixon will have another glass of wine. Or if you suggested a change in a manuscript, he would think about it seriously. Almost as if he were pantomiming deep thought, furrowing a brow. He was a great actor in his own way. And he would say, oh, nixon would not like that. It was remarkable. You got to accept the fact that he thought of himself as a separate creature altogether and referred to nixon in the thirdperson. Even at home, he would say nixon will have more coffee, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to say. Evan can you imagine what would be like for mrs. Nixon . He would write letters from the president to mrs. Nixon. Thats a minor thing. Henry kissinger told me a very affecting story. He was asked to go to dinner at the residence with mrs. Nixon. As he was walking over, nixon asked him to tell mrs. Nixon the about some of his foreignpolicy accomplishments. Nixon goes to the restroom and kissinger dutifully starts in telling about his Foreign Policy achievements, and mrs. Nixon says, henry, you dont have to. You know, i mean, she understood about her husband, how awkward he was, even with his wife. I actually think the marriage was much closer than we think. We have all seen these photographs of her looking pained and unhappy. I think late in watergate, it was pretty bad. Nixon even said in his memoirs that he doesnt tell his own wife he is resigning. He tells his secretary, rosmary woods, to tell mrs. Nixon. You wonder how close they were in august 1974. But before that, in the early years, there are very touching love letters. She was the prettiest girl. If you look at old photographs of her, she was gorgeous. She became gaunt later but when she was 20 pounds heavier, she was a knockout. She helped him a lot in the early years. She stood by him and when he thought about quitting and she said, richard,you cant quit. She did that four or five times at key moments. It was a good marriage in some ways but i think in the white house, his natural aloneness and the terrible pressure he was under although, i have to say, the marriage resumed and after he left the white house, when she died in 1992 i think it was he is just bawling. Hes not just crying, he is convulsed with tears. Brian heres some more from the time he was here for his booknotes interview. [videotape] brian what period of your life did you enjoy the most . Fmr. Pres. Nixon i dont like to psychoanalyze myself, but let me attempt to answer that objectively. I liked all periods. I went through college in the depression and it was rough. We did not even think of it as a depression. We had to scratch around to make a living. To have anything. I can remember when getting a steak was considered to be something that was so unusual that we just thought this is the ultimate, as far as fine food and so forth is concerned. All that has changed. Evan he was a poor boy. His father made some money running a gas station, so it got better. And relative to the other poor boys at whittier college, he probably wasnt that poor. He used his shyness to understand outsiders. At his college, there was a cool guys fraternity called the franklins. Nixon started a fraternity for uncool guys, knowing there were more uncool guys than cool guys. This was the beginning of the silent majority. Nixon was elected president of this class by getting all the outs to run against the ins. He did that 30 or 40 years later as a politician. He understood what it was like to be on the outside. He empathized with those people. He shared their hopes and their resentments, and he knew how to exploit them. Brian so, how did you approach the research on this . Evan i needed to find people that were around and physically close to him. They were young men. So, Dwight Chapin, his body guy. Dwight brennan, his military aide; ray price, his speechwriter. Larry higbee who worked for hr halderman. There were a lot of people who were kind of in the office with him and who were around him. Years later, they are a little defensive around the press and around me. Im an east coast establishment. I work for the Washington Post company. But what the heck, a lot of years have passed and they were pretty generous with me. Steve bowl talked to me about what it was like. They were sympathetic. I think that they wanted to yes, nixon was a weird guy. No doubt about it. But he was a considerate boss, a thoughtful boss. He tried to buck up his troops. I think they wanted to get that side of him across, so they talked to me. A lot of his aides he was always a good talent scout for young talent. Brent scowcroft, Later National security advisor, Henry Kissinger talked to me. Because he is interested in his version of history. But also a thoughtful, receptive critic of nixon. Donald rumsfeld was a young aide who worked for nixon. He talked to me. George schultz was a young cabinet secretary. He talked to me. A lot of these names became more famous later, but got their start with Richard Nixon because he had a good eye for talent. Someone i wish i had talked to was roger ailes, head of fox news. Roger ailes was a fairly obscure daytime tv producer in 1968 when Richard Nixon discovered him and put him in charge of his media team. He plucked him out of the crowd. He had an eye for talent. Ailes had a lot of talent. He did that kind of thing all the time. For all the craziness of watergate, nixon had a good staff. Brian you mentioned Dwight Chapin, who spent a lot of time around nixon and he also went to prison for six months or so for perjury in that whole thing. Lets listen to Dwight Chapin on an oral history from the nixon library. Dwight chapin its very late at night, we went and got on the plane. He had one or two of those small bottles of scotch. And, he was exhausted. And the next thing i knew, he was crying. And, what brought this about this emotional uprising, is that he was talking with ray who i think was drafting some stuff for the speech in miami. They were starting to work on his acceptance speech and how that might work. This was the one in 1968. He started talking about his mother and dad and his brother and this brother that he lost to tuberculosis. I mean, it it was really bringing up stuff in him. It really this guy is a human being. Hes running for president and so forth, but he is just not that different from us. Evan but of course, he was different from us. We dont have his ambition, his dreams. I mean, people who become president , really, are not like us. I think what Dwight Chapin was trying to say was, as much as nixon tried to wear a mask, the mask fell off from timetotime. Nixon liked to say, real men dont cry, i dont cry. But nixon cried all the time. I have five or six cases of him in there weeping when his emotions, which were roiling within him, would well up. He was very human. Thats one reason why it is such a great story. Brian did you ask Dwight Chapin how he felt after he fell on his sword for nixon today and all that . How did his life work out . Evan one detail i remember is that when chapin was being fired, because he was caught chapin had run don segretti. Segretti was a dirty trickster that bernstein or woodward had exposed. Chapin was tasked with running segretti, so he had to take the fall for this. When chapin heard about it chapin wept. He could not believe it that his boss was cutting him loose like this. It was early in watergate, when things were turning sour, and i think chapin just couldnt believe it that after all this loyalty, he was being cut loose. But there is no bitterness in chapin. I dont think you heard it in that tape. When i talked to him, i didnt hear it at all. Chapin is realistic about nixon, but loyal, and i think, after all these years, despite jail time, devoted to him. Brian did you watch many of those interviews . How many hours do you think you did of research . Hours . Days . Weeks . Evan years. I mean, i have a pretty normal this is my ninth book and i usually spend three or four years. You know, you have help. People like Dwight Chapin can help. Scholars helped me. A guy named erwin gelman, the one nixon scholar who has actually read all of the documents. He was incredibly generous with me. Pointing me to this and that. Nell small is a great nixon scholar out in the midwest. You know, im a journalist more than i am a scholar, so i go to scholars and i ask them. And they help me. Archivists help me. My researcher, mike hill, has helped me over the years. A little bit less on this particular project, but he has been in an incredible help to me over the years. Brian hes the same one that David Mccullough uses. Evan yes. Mike and i were at the library i spent a couple months out at the library listening to tapes and the archivist there helped me. There is a mountain of material. The one thing that scholars, or rather journalists, need to know, is that if you walk cold into a president ial library, forget it. You cannot even read the finding aid. You need to spend a couple of years reading the secondary stuff and talking to people before you even darken the door of a president ial library. But then, if you befriend the archivist, they will point you in the right direction. Brian which book that you read did you find the most useful . Evan the haldeman diaries are quite useful. Those are 40 to maybe half of the actual diaries. The actual diaries you can get on a cd. The haldeman diaries are great. He is a great observer of the p as they called him. The president was known as the p. He was gentle and tender about nixon in a way. He can also make fun of him a little bit. William safire, one of the speechwriters, observed nixon up close, and was full of psychological insight. So, i thought that was a particularly perceptive book. It is sort of wheels within wheels, which is the way safire thinks. Very useful. Here is the surprise one. Julie nixon, the daughter, wrote a memoir of her mother. Its a very perceptive book. Nobody uses the book because they figure it has to be a puff piece because it is his daughter. No. It is a really smart book about mom, but also about dad. Brian here is a 1986 interview we did in pennsylvania where she is talking about the happiest moment in her fathers life. But if i were to choose the one moment in the political years, i think the happiest is the election of 1968. Because it was such a comeback. My father had lost the governorship of california in a veryhumiliating loss in 1962 on the heels of losing in 1960, and a lot of people thought he was a loser. It was the loser image had to overcome in 1968. And so, he entered every primary and the family campaigned with him, and it was this great big adventure. And he proved he could win. And he had this new idea about peace. And thats what he did in the next four years. That moment in 1968 i think was a joyful moment. Even though we knew the secret service was there for good and all those horrible things, you just knew, at that moment, that this was the supreme moment for him to achieve that goal. Evan not that joyful the night of the election. Nixon typically in one room, and the family was like on a different floor. Nixon with his yellow pad, all alone. They heard that the votes were being held back in chicago. Now, this brings terrible memories. Because in 1960, you may recall, mayor daley allegedly held back votes in chicago and stole the election for jack kennedy. And nixon always believed the election had been stolen. In 1968, they hear that the chicago votes were all coming in on razors edge, and mrs. Nixon hears this and her daughters can hear her vomiting in the bathroom. Shes so upset about this. Finally at about 7 00 in the morning, they find out they won, and nixon is happy. He goes home to his apartment on fifth avenue in his robe and he puts victory at sea on alone and opens the window, and he conducts victory at sea as it blasts out the windows. No family there. All alone. It is just dick. Brian before we see more of julie nixon eisenhower, you say in your book that nixon thought the georgetown set was out to get him. You say he was right. Evan today, the georgetown set does not exist. But back then, in the 1950s, and 1960s, very powerful. A group of cia, harvard and yale alumni, very charming, pleased with themselves. This is a world i know because i worked for the Washington Post company. Mrs. Graham was at the center of this world, and joe also. I used to i came in at the end at newsweek. I used to go to dinner and see them. They hated nixon. They said they were out to get him, mrs. Helms, Cynthia Helms wife of the cia director richard helms, said there was no mercy for nixon at these dinner parties. Henry kissinger was often the honored guest. Kissinger, who could be shamelessly flattering of nixon in the white house, would go out to dinner with the georgetown set, and make fun, gently, but make fun of his boss. Nixon knew this. He knew, he rationalized it. He said, henry needs this. He needs to be popular. But it hurt him. He would say, there goes henry. Talking to the georgetown crowd, those awful people in georgetown. The georgetown people, and the Washington Post, was out to get nixon. And you know what . They got him. Brian another clip of julie nixon eisenhower. [video clip] brian was your father unfairly treated by the media . Julie lets put it this way, there is a great book called it didnt start with watergate, by Victor Laskey which was published in 1976, which is really worth looking at. Because his thesis is, political scandals always happen in administrations. Political buggings, etc. Just the laundry list of mistakes and abuses of power that happen in modern presidencies. It is justthe question of whether you want to go after the issue and pursue it. I think my father was controversial because of the war. I think that he that those who opposed him probably pursued him very hard and it worked. Whereas, they may not have pursued another candidate or another issue might have come along that they didnt pursue. Certainly, he made mistakes with watergate. Evan the basic point is true. Nixon was hardly the first president to wiretap. One of the things that afflicted nixon is he was envious of the kennedys and johnson, he thought they were better at dirty tricks than he was. He was trying to catch up to them. He wasnt wrong. I wrote a kennedy biography, the kennedy machine was tough. Bobby kennedy did more wiretapping than nixon including Martin Luther king. It wasnt like the presidency was innocent and all of a sudden there came evil nixon. Executive power was concentrated, in the 50s and 60s, in the white house. The rules about wiretapping were blurry at best. The fbi was happy to be an instrument of the white house and spy on the president s enemies. J edgar hoover. Nixon was not the first guy. There are endless ironies about nixon, but one of the things that destroyed him was the fbi got out of the business of working for the president doing this bugging. Hoover said, we will not do it anymore. Hoover, smart guy who knew about his legacy, he could feel the lawsuits coming on. Hoover said, the fbi is not doing this. So what does that mean . He creates the plumbers. Inhouse capabilities to spy. Unfortunately, the people his aides hired, hunt and liddy, names that resonate in history, were not that competent. Hunts reputation in the cia was pretty bad. He was one of the chief plumbers. G gordon liddy was a colorful figure and brave in some ways, but kind of a screwup. Those guys made lots of mistakes. They were not good at what they did. They were not competent at what they did. They got caught and nixon got caught with them. Brian one more interview clip maybe i have one more clip left. Lets try one more. He talks about his real friends. Fmr. Pres. Nixon we had difficult times in office, as Everybody Knows. Not speaking just of watergate but presiding as president over a war that was terribly divisive and not easy. The time since then has been, it has been an ordeal, but it has its compensations. Because in a period when you are down, you discover who your real friends are. I have some great friends out there. I hear from them by mail, some come to see me. When i think of people being for me at a time when most of your friends in the media were against me, which is not unusual, they always have been as i understand it. It is very reassuring. Evan poor nixon. After he left office in disgrace, he almost died. He had phlebitis. The nurse was slapping him richard, wake up. Richard he was near death. To his credit, he came back, he started playing golf with jack brennan. Not very good golf, but every day he built himself back up. He talked about his friends, he had a few. Bebe rebozo. Walt ammenberg invited him to his house. But he did not have a lot of friends. Nixon was so broke that tricia and ed cox had to give their money to him. It was a loan. An aide told me that there was literally a question of whether they could pay for their groceries. Evan going back to your comment about tricia and ed giving their father money, that is an anonymous quote. Evan it has to remain that way. The person who told me does not want me to reveal their identity. Brian why . Evan i cant say. It would give it away. Brian thats all in the same paragraph. Evan i have a single anonymous source. Everything else is brian only one . Evan maybe one or two. Brian speaking of friends, he had a friend named elmer. You have this in your book. You have to set it up a little bit. We have leonard talking about what happened, but how did they get into elmers house . Evan elmer was a pharmaceutical guy. He became buddies with nixon. He was a friend of nixons and was in florida with a fellow lawyer. In 1965, they are preparing to argue before the Supreme Court. They are down there, and nixon is supposed to spend a night in a development in florida. But nixon with his antenna nixon realizes the owners of the development are going to exploit him to promote the development. So, at the last minute, he says come on, leonard, lets go to elmers house. It is like 40 minutes away. They get to his vast estate and it is all dark and locked up. Nixon says, its over the wall we go. In their wingtips with their briefcases, they climb over the wall and they spend the night in the pool house. Apparently it was like summer camp. They laid awake here he is. Len garment later i found out in much greater, somber detail, he had trouble sleeping. He was an insomniac. The way he generally went to sleep, he would talk, maybe have a drink or a sleeping pill like most of us do in times of tension or illness. At any rate, he did quite a bit of talking, free association. I was in the other bed. It was like being in camp and having a friend talk about his life and problems. What did he talk about . Len he talked about his ambitions and his mother and her love of peace. And the troubles, his brothers. The kind of stuff Everybody Knows that so well. And he made it very clear that he was going to, if he couldnt, he would do anything to enhance his energy and his ability to maintain footing in public life with a view, doing the things he felt he was destined to do. His mothers image in his life in the world of in a world of foreign affairs, bringing about stability and hope for peace in the world. He wasnt kidding around that night. There was no point to it. He gradually became more personal, talked about his hopes and aspirations. Then he fell asleep and i fell asleep. Brian that was in 1965. Before he ran for president. Evan he lost for governor. People thought he was finished. But he wanted to come back. He said to garment and to others, if he didnt go back into public life, he would be mentally dead in two years and physically dead in four. He read a book by a psychiatrist called the will to live. The book suggested that people who are destined for greatness have got to be in public life or they are going to die. Nixon believed he was destined and this is a positive thing. We think of nixon as being a bit of a hack. As a young congressman, when everybody else was isolationist, he was an internationalist. He realized the United States has got to be confronting communism, saving europe. He was promarshall plan. His constituents thought it was wasting money. Nixon went against his constituency because he believed in American Power for good to save europe in that case and stand up against communists. He had a grand vision of himself as helping the United States fulfill its destiny as a great power. With nixon front and center. Brian when Monica Crawley was 21yearsold, she worked for him in college. She is now on fox news. She wrote two books. She wrote down everything he said when she was around him. Here is a story i want you to see and fill in the blanks. Monica Crowley Nixon always claimed he never watch television. Of course, he did. He liked to watch the news, he watched sports, he used to watch football and baseball avidly. He never admitted to watching sort of mindless entertainment. I was five minutes late for our meetings at the residence in the afternoon, so he expected me to be late. That day, i was five minutes early. I was walking up the stairs, and before i could clear the stairs to the third floor, i heard the television going. Then i heard canned laughter coming out of the television. I realized he was watching something meant to amuse. I was surprised by this. I looked at him, and he had his shoes off, and his feet were in stockings, on the ottoman. He had the Remote Control in his hand, and he was laughing. He was enjoying the show and the moment so much. I observed him for a couple moments, because i wanted him to have those few extra minutes when he didnt have to be on and he didnt have to be the serious Richard Nixon he presented to me most of the time. I enjoyed seeing that. But i cleared my voice, i cleared the top of the stairs, and he looked at me and he was horrified that he had been caught in the act of watching television. The Dick Van Dyke show, no less. He tried to shut the tv off with the Remote Control and jam his feet into his shoes. He dropped the remote and it was chaotic. But really he said, well, he was redfaced and said, well, you have caught me watching the tube. Brian this is when he lived in new jersey after the presidency. You also talk about his Television Habits in your book. Evan it is a charming story. I think nixon was half in love with her. You can see why. In a totally innocent way. He liked having her around. A pretty and smart young woman. He was sheepish and bashful. He got caught in the white house watching television, all in the family. He was embarrassed by that. He was a sports fan. He would yell at the tv watching sports. You can hear him on the white house tapes. He was a huge fan. He was a joyous, explosive fan. You think of nixon being all uptight. When he bowled, he bowled alone and with a necktie on. When he was watching a game, he could explode. I have a photograph in my book of him watching a ballgame leaning forward in his chair roaring out something. The inner nixon would pop out sometimes. I guess it was safe to do at a ballgame. He was friends with the coach of the washington redskins, george allen. He once allegedly called a play for the redskins that lost 15 yards. There is some dispute about how it played out. Nixon loved sports. He would call up Arnold Palmer just to chat with him. It was great that Monica Crowley just got just a glimpse. Nixon did not let down his mask easily. Monica was around him all the time and even she barely saw the kind of relaxed nixon. It was hard for him to unwind, even with his own family. Brian what was his story about running in place 300400 times . Evan nixon did not like exercise but before he gave a speech, he would jog in place 300400 times to get his wind up. He would have a little bit of wheat germ to get some protein. He was very ascetic in his way. He always had the same lunch. He would have a pineapple ring with cottage cheese for lunch, imported from california. He was proud of that. There is a huge debate about how much he drank. I cant resolve it. I mentioned earlier, he had a low capacity. I think towards the end, even julie in her memoir says both her mother and her father drank more than they should have. I dont think he was a crazy drunk that emerges in some of the literature. Although i have to say, there is a conversation between kissinger and another man where kissinger sort of casually says they cant put the president on the phone to the Prime Minister of britain because he was loaded. That is october 1973. Nixon is in the throes of watergate, it is getting ugly. Scowcroft told me that Henry Kissinger said cables were presented to nixon, and sometimes he would say, bomb them. He of course knew enough to ignore the order because nixon was not capable of giving the order. I was shocked that he told me that story. That is a pretty ugly story. I dont know the depth of this. This is late in the game, i dont think it represents his whole presidency. But towards the end, nixon was not terribly functional. Brian an attorney worked for gerald ford and negotiated the pardon with the nixon people, i found this on youtube. I highly recommend people to watch it. It is an hour and 39 minutes. A michigan channel did it. He tells the story about going out there with final negotiations for the pardon. He has gotten the signatures and he left the house and went to his car. Then, somebody runs out, and called him back. Here is Benton Becker telling that story. Benton whenever i tell that story, all of the imagery comes back to me very sharply. He was standing behind his desk and he said, before you left, i wanted to give you something. Because you have been a gentleman. I said, that is unnecessary, mr. President. He said, no, i want to give you something. Then, he made a gesture. A gesture, symbolically as if to say, look at this room. Look at this office. And he said, i dont have anything anymore. They took it all away. Look at this room. And then before i could respond, he said, but pat found these. He reached in his desk and brought out a small box. I want you to have them. There arent any more. She had to get this from my dresser drawers. He gave me a small white box which had the president ial cufflinks, the president ial seal and his name on the back. They are usually given at state dinners. It was a very poignant moment, it really was. Evan it was poignant. But nixon was poignant. When we think of him, he has become a cartoon version, a monster. He did some monstrous things. Listen to those tapes, antisemitism and all of that. It is terrible. But nixon, he wanted to be a better person. Late at night, he would take those yellow pads and he would write on them what he wanted to be. He would use words like joyful, inspired, confident, and serene. These are adjectives that did not describe him. That is not really who he was, but who he wanted to be. Brian did you see the pads . Evan yes, they are preserved in the nixon library. You can see those notes. When i first started doing this book, i was struck by this. It was such a contrast to the idea we have of nixon scheming. Rubbing his hands, doing anti semitic things. Both nixons are true, but you have to see the whole man to understand him. The good with the bad. It adds a kind of poignancy. I think becker saw that. Nixon is so awkward he needed these little gizmos to hand people, like cufflinks. He would get a pen and say, give this to your wife or girlfriend. We wont tell. Completely inappropriate, not funny, awkward lines. Because he was so uncomfortable with people. He needed props, trinkets, to deal with ordinary people. It is laughable, we can make fun of it and i do make fun of it, but it is also kind of touching that he is trying that hard to be affable, to be things he is not. Think of what a struggle it was to be him. Brian where do you put this book on the nine you have written . Evan the most fun. Because he is so endlessly fascinating. I didnt expect that. He is the Great American novel. You cant top Richard Nixon. You cant top his american story, a poor kid who climbs to the very top, and overcoming all obstacles, defeated many times, and then destroys himself. Brian in the last five minutes, i want to switch to evan thomas and run some video now. You may or may not have seen this. We will listen to about a minute, then i want you to talk about it. I want the audience to look closely at this person talking. [video] Norman Thomas eisenhowers great and very welldeserved reputation in europe was made by his extraordinary success in pulling together men of different nations and different points of view. And therefore, i expected from him at least a greater effort than we have had to pull together our allies and friends. The one fact you cant escape is that we have simply got to stay with the noncommunists asia and europe. Not just the british, not just the french, not just the indians, but the whole lot of them. I dont think they are always reasonable or right, but we are not Strong Enough to ignore this. But my understanding is Norman Thomas just let me finish this brian [chuckling] now, who is this . Evan that is my grandfather Norman Thomas, who was a socialist, who ran six times for president. He was not a very good father to my father, but a good grandfather to me because he had more time for me. Amazingly, the only time i ever met Richard Nixon when i was at newsweek and nixon came over to me and said, your grandfather was a great man. I said, what . I was caught by surprise. He was a good grandfather. Typical nixon, he did his homework. He had the guest list, someone told him that my grandfather was Norman Thomas. He made a beeline to me. And of course, it made me feel good. I was flattered that he knew who my grandfather was and that he had a view different from him. Brian your father was editor of kennedys book profiles in courage, and a lot of other books. Is it hard to live up to . Evan yes. I am still working on it. [laughter] i am 64yearsold. I am still working on it brian your father and grandfather went to princeton. You went to harvard. Then you went back to teach at princeton. Evan i taught there for eight years. I have a soft spot for princeton. I am the kind of person that dick nixon would have hated in a lot of ways because im an east coast establishment guy. But that made me more curious about him, and i was just touched, the one time i met him, that he was able to fight through he could have been, i was the grandson of a socialist, after all. Yet, he made the effort to be personable with me and be friendly. That gave me a bit of insight into how he became more successful than you would think. He could remember names, i wish i could do that. He studied. He was a great politician. He was bad at small talk, but he knew your name. He knew your dad and your mom. It helped, it made him more effective. He was, i think, a very, he was a very touching figure. I know my grandfather and father disapproved of Richard Nixon but i think if they had known him personally, the way i got to know him, they may have had a different opinion. Brian of all the people you wrote about in your book, if you could write another long treatise about it, who was the most interesting character . Evan he was surrounded by interesting people. Henry kissinger, you cant top him for shakespearean greatness and tragedy. Brian somebody who was surprising. Evan pat. We think of pat as being this kind of a sad figure with the long face. She was a good, loving wife. She stood by him. She is a big figure in my book. A poignant figure. I got from julies memoir, pat all alone at the top of the stairs after the state dinner, they are still dancing below. She is dancing alone, all alone dancing at the top of the stairs. That was to me a very moving image for me. Brian what is next for you . Evan i am thinking about writing a book about the decision to drop the atom bomb. Im interested in the idea, and the question, who controls technology . Does man control technology or does Technology Control man . When we dropped the atom bomb, that was a good case of Technology Controlling man. They used it to end a war. But their attempts to put the genie back in the bottle after the bomb was dropped. My characters would be hirohito and truman and stalin. Brian if there is a show like this 50 years from now and one of your children is talking about their father, what would you think they will be doing . Evan one of my oldest daughters is a writer. The other is a construction manager. Who knows . I hope somebody is still writing. I hope the written word lives on, because great as tv and film and the internet is, somebody still has to write books. Brian the name of the book is being nixon a man divided and our guest has been evan thomas. Thank you very much. Evan thanks, brian. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. Guest 015] 2015 [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] if you enjoyed this weeks q a interview with evan thomas here are some other programs you might like. Former director of the Richard Nixon president ial library, scott berg on his biography of Woodrow Wilson and talking about Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard taft in her book, the bully pulpit. You can watch these anytime at cspan. Org. Its actually to collect mosquitoes that has bitten people. And determine what kind of viruses might be around. What kind of diseases might be around through taking the blood samples of the mosquitoes and figuring out the genetic code of some of the constituents of their blood. Premise of this Research Project was around what well be able to do with data thats freely available in the environment today. One of the things weve noticed there are a lot of aircraft flying around in the United States that could be considered sensors. They have data on them, theyre providing information. Its relatively freely available. Its provided by the f. A. A. Theres Companies Like flight aware who use that information to provide information to the community about what airplanes are doing. We decided to take that information and see if we could use that to help us predict a more accurate forecast. What the wind is doing in terms of speed and direction at various altitudes. A visit to microsofts washington d. C. Office tonight at 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan 2. This morning Kaiser Health news correspondent Mary Agnes Carey on the Supreme Court ruling on Affordable Care act and what it means for the healthcare law going forward. Later Washington Post stamp writer Vanessa Williams talked about her recent article on whether diversity in the 2016 republican field can help attract minority voters. We take your call and you can join the conversation at facebook and twitter. Washington journal is next. Host good morning Everyone Welcome to washington journal. Its monday june, 29th. After announcing major decisions on same sex marriage and healthcare last week, the court today is expected to come to some decisions on lethal injection, epa regulations and congressional redistricting. Until then well begin here this morning with last week. Politico called a momentous moment for president obama. What are your thought