Independent role as first lady. Nixon sent her to peru for the first time a first lady went on a humanitarian mission to help people in an earthquake there. She showed the first lady of peru how to get in the ruins and comfort people. In 1972 she win on her own trip to africa and the first first lady to represent a president and an official inauguration, the president of lie beer liberia. She discussed policy with heads of states. One of the tragedies of watergate is that pat nixon was emerging has a diplomat. Some could have been like Jean Kennedy Smith as an ambassador to the country had not the watergate crisis happened. Enough i want to talk about the end of their lives. Pat came down with lung cancer in the 1990s. Nixon was devastated. Monica crowley, Foreign Policy assistant, said he wasnt able to finish sentences. He walked along aimlessly in the corridors. He just couldnt seem to handle it. Finally, pat came close to death, and supposedly his last words to her, pat, as she was very fail, in a chair was, your family loves you, cower country loves you, and people all over the world love you. Shortly thereafter she went into a coma and died. If you have never seen the video of pat nixons funeral, its extraordinary. Richard nixon, man who never wanted to be vulnerable in public, was inconsolable. He couldnt stop his weeping. He took hand kerr consecutives to cover his mouth but a he was completely undone because she had been the only one for him. Several and after the funeral he went up to greet the reagans and he leaned on Nancy Reagans chest and went. Back in new jersey crowley found him, and he said, theres no one here. Theres silence. My god. And at the funeral, someone told leonard garment, one of his attorneys, Richard Nixon is not going to last a year. He died eight months after pat did. And one of the great moments of the funeral, a lot of you may remember, is that president clinton came and said, may the day of judging president nixon on less than his whole life be ended, and i would like to and of course, you may remember president clinton was a war protester and his wife was on the watergate committee, so for that for him to say that was extraordinary. So, from one watergate protester, vietnam protester to another, id like to join clinton in saying, may we know longer use Richard Nixons marriage against him. People can disagree with his policies, they can disagree with his politics, and they can disagree with the way he used or abused power in the white house. But leave his marriage alone. It was one of the great accomplishments of his life. And i think today we should celebrate the qualities in that marriage, the loyalty, the persistence, the sense of adventure and curiosity. And high purpose. And the willingness to forgive each other and to move through dark periods. The nixons always said that when they had difficult times, rather than fight, they moved apart for a while. And then they came back together. So, lets celebrate these qualities, and finally issue just want to say in closing, that the nixon marriage, with strengths and weaknesses, reinventing itself in crisis after crisis, endured in public life, for half a century. Their story is central to our story, and is emblematic of the american, story. Thank you very much. [applause] Chris Matthews is the host of hard ball. He recalls the working relationship between Ronald Reagan and tim oneill. He says despite the political differences between the speaker and president reagan they were able to work toward compromise. This is 45 minutes. Hi. The 30th annual Miami Book Fair internationals closing author is Chris Matthews of msnbcs hard ball and the Kris Matthews show. As jimmy carter once said thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny of all government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society. Click matthews has fully embraced this notion through his work in the media, political commentary, and several bestselling books. As a speech writer for president jimmy carter and then chief of staff for the speaker of the house of representatives, tip oneill, Chris Matthews has been on the front line of politics for several decades. His access provides an intimate glimpse into the personalities of some of the worlds most influential players. His book chronicles the spirit of cooperation with. Conflict that was the relationship of a tip opeel and Ronald Reagan. It is before 6 00, and as tip oneill famously advised Ronald Reagan, after 6 00, we can be friends, but before 6 00, its politics. So, without further adieu, ladies and gentlemen, lets talk politics and lets welcome Chris Matthews. [applause] [applause] mostly women. [laughter] who is frowning at me. One guy. Im looking around for the frowns. Its great to be down here. I love this place. I love the weather. Its not sweaty. Its nice. Reminds me when youre a kid, summers are warm and you when you get older theyre hot. Summer is always warm when youre a kid. I wanted to write a book about something i knew about. I had three books in my insides. This is the first of three im going to write. The other one is about the 60s and what it was really like. Everytime i meet a kid, they always want to know about the 60s. Theyre just exciting. They were you could hear the music right now. Im a walrus. Ooookachoo. Its great. Even if you werent into drugs or crazy stuff, it was great entertainment. Because it was always around you and there was always a show on campus and it was a free time. And so i want to write about nat and going into the peace corps in 1968 [applause] sure was. Peace corps, and i tell you, anybody hatt has been in the peace corp knows what it was like. Nothing compared to what it did to us. Nothing. Changed our lives. Absolutely. And i wanted to talk about that because i was at a motorcycle, bombing around, and the only white guy in miles, going into places white guys had never been, and telling people how to keep their books and run their businesses. I knew a little. I didnt know a whole lot. The other guys were mbas, i convince them a year of grad school in economics was equivalent to an mba. And i hitchhiked through africa. The whole part i want to catch, like the mamba snake that tried to jump on my window when i drove by, six foot long snake that gallops. They gallop vertically. And they attack your nervous system, and youre going, you got 15 minutes. They dont they keep coming at you. Until they get you, and so this want was up in my window, and in the valley of the doomed. It was really hot. You could see the heat waves coming off the dirt road. Thats hot. I want to talk about that. One guy said i never thought id be driving in a motorcycle in africa over a snake stoned. Never predicted that would happen in his life. The second one the other book i want to write, growing up anybody catholic here . Growing up in the early 50s and catholic. How extraordinary that was. Is was like growing up in dublin 200 years ago. The edges on them. I have two nuns. One said dont write the book, and she died. I can almost right that about the boys that had to be goodlooking and the girls after class that got to clap the erasers were goodlooking and in the nuns made the division, and the black bottles were black and white. Remember this stuff . And then in love with Regina Thomas in grade school and she never knew it. I have to write that without my wife getting mad. Kathy, it was long time ago, okay . You werent around in grade school. So, this one i wanted to write about was tip, and my toughest job i ever had. The funnest job, the funnest job i ever had. Besides what i do. Which obviously gets i get a kick out of a lot. Especially monday through wednesday, and then im exhausted by thursday, and by friday im a wreck. But i still love it. I love it. I do. Bill loves everything. Likes you, girl. Go, girl, go. Anyway, i the best job i had was writing speeches for a president. What a job. The greatest job in the world. Young in your early 30s and bopping around, and youre writing speeches on the se electric trick 2 and youre typing the notes for the next stop, and jody powell and those guys. Up believable. I write about that in the book, what it was like to lose. We got the word we lost on the plane to seattle after it was over, election day, and when we got the word, and the whole drama on the plane when carter goss the word. Lime a james bond opening, one great scene of like a boutique scene and then the rest is about something else. Sort of gets you into it. Even true lies was like that with a schwarzenegger, the opening scene. So i wanted to get the action going, and my old english teach e. Said great action writing. Herman mel veil, great action writer. So i rode i write about pt 109. I love that. Get revved up. And then i write about being with the toughest job i ever had which is working for tip oneill, and i lucked into the biggest job in politics for me. The top guy fighting reagan, the great communicator, and the great irony i grew up liking reagan. Reagan was on ge center. We all liked him. The gipper. He worry of the notre dame movie, and one thing in Catholic School when youre in third gray, they bring in the movie projector to show you knut rockne. Its all about the team. Always going to be the fighting irish, always. Somebody says that makes us look bad. Well, we do fight. I was going to call it, donny brooke, about reagan and tip fighting with each other, and i thought two irish guys fighting wasnt very newsy. Two guys in a fight of thats interesting. No, its not. Its boring. They always fight. But they did fight a lot. And i said that was the story when i was back there. The politics were rough. And then i realized when i began to study it and look back, they fought but always made a deal, which is different than today. Today they just fight. Its like they go down to Car Dealerships to haggle without any intent to buy a car. Imagine if you got up we got some time, lets go to a ford dealer and argue with the guy. You can knock off 500. Argue with no intention of having a checkbook or credit card. And go around and argue with them. I got a better deal with the ford guy. Account you do Something Better for me . Thats what its like in politics today. They just argue. They dont disagree because they disagree. They disagree because they fight. They used to fight because they disagreed. Now they dont even need a reason. They just the democrats pass the republican healthcare bill and the republicans attack them for it. This is foundation stuff. Individual mandates, selfreliance, good Republican Values but the wrong guy did it. Obama did it. So obamacare wasnt a smart move by the president. Dont put your name on it. Dont put a target on your back. Dont put your name this isnt product placement. Dont call in fact i told my parents to stop using the word obamacare on television. Its been hit so hard. Give the name a rest. Call it the president s healthcare bill, and i slip into it, too, once in a while, but better that way. So i wanted to write about this fight. The way i write a book everybody who has had an idea to write a book, i will now maybe change your life. When i try not to be sarcastic, it doesnt work. Im trying to be nice now. You can write if you decide that part of writing isnt writing. If you decide that what you want to do is give a thought across, a story across, a series of stories, a feeling, sentiment, you can do it the following ways. First of all, theres five steps to writing, and i follow this rule or i wouldnt be teaching it. The only time i break this rule is when i knock stuff out for tv every night. I write the opening for the show every night. Its called the opening. When i Say Something like, let me start with this. And then i write the end, let me finish with this. And i cant tell if i end or finish so if you watch me, you can tell about me that day. Something i think the word finish right or end is right. Im not sure why. I write that at 20 minutes after 4 00 every day. We do the show at 5 00. Put on the air at 7 00. I write fast. Just really write fast. Generally when im writing something for the ages, like a book, a newspaper article, i follow these four or five steps. The first step is simply collect your thoughts. Die it on scraps of paper when i wrote a newspaper column for all those years. Getting a pension from the San Francisco papers for writing those columns. Just put them on the table, little index cards with ideas. Collect them for the quotes, facts, thoughts, whatever, put them on the table. Thats 17, would add up to a column. And then i would arrange them. Called organization. So collect is the first step do nothing but collect. Dont start writing the first sentence. Dont try to write while youre collecting. Collect. And only collect. Your material. Then the second step, and only the step when youre doing it, dont do anything else, organize. Organizational stuff. Its logical. When you stick to the stage and dont move on to another stage. If youre just collecting, its easy. Just through throw the tough at night im thing of things and throw it on the table. Organization, you should be sober for. That part id be definitely clearheaded. But organization is fun, too. Its like stamp collecting. Figure it out, have fun with it. Fun. So far writing is fun. Then the third stage is, keep your heart light and your head lightheaded. Now its time to rough it. You have it organized. You start roughing it out on the typewriter. Play the music, knock it out, splash it out there. Regurgitate it. And then you get to the other fun part, put it away somewhere, watch a movie. And then come back and polish it. And as long as you stick to those four stages, collect, organize, rough, and polish, you will have something done. Youll have it done. Anybody out there going to thank me . It will be done. It wont be talked about. It wont be, i think i can write something. I thick i got an idea. And that can be a book. You can use that four stages for a book report and then youre locked in. You have a book report. So when i wrote this book about tip and the gipper, i basically had four tools. I had reagans diary, which is amazing. Reagan wrote im too busy to keep a diary. Hmm. Reagan was president of the United States and he would go home every night and write this very long diary entry. He would describe you go to the library, get the whole thing. And thanks to Douglas Brinkley and rice university, great historian, and and nancy reagan agreed. It has the complete weather, lite its farmers almanac. How its changing during the day. Its all there all his social life. His wifes friends, husbands, social life. Thats what men do, going out if the their wifes friends you. Dont pick your friends, your wife picks her friends and they have husbands. So he is hanging out with the bloombergs and cool guys, im sure. And he hangs out with the rich crowd. And when nancy bete bloomingdales husband. Hes a weird guy. So he also did his family. He would say family is not important but they ron showing up and patty showing up and michael showing up and mother rebound showing up, bringing their husband or spouse, and who was bringing who. And also in this diary was political news. What he thought of tip. What happened in the meetings, donny brookes, all this description. Tip can like you but knock your head off. Little descriptions of their strange relationship, the conflicting nate tower of it. Its all in here. So the other source was tip oneill every day had a press conference, and i was with him every morning. Every morning i got up when congress was in session and began the day reading papers, and sometimes i would be in there and i was scared i would Say Something wrong, and i still have the problem of saying things i wish i hadnt said. Its my life. And i get up and read the paper, and then rush in and try to write a statement that i think he ought to make that day sometimes, and then he would come in, talked to the press coming in outside. This big guy, showed up, and he would walk in and sit behind his desk, three of us, ari white, a genius, his wife is a professor, and donald a boston irish guy, and myself. And the three of us would brief him on the world, and tip would always have these questions that were always the same, like a big vacuum cleaner. What do you hear . Anything special . And we better damn well tell him everything. What is happening in the cloak room, who is up to something. He want us us to watch the news shows. What are the republicans up to. Whats reagan doing . I want to know it all. So our job was to make sure he did know everything. And then he would ask, where are we at, ari. He was 25 at the time. Graduated from yale when he was 19. Ari has a beard, very religious looking guy, and ari would just somehow know everything that was going on on the hill. All the committee and what they were going, and i knew everything that was going on in the media world, and so were all trying to figure it out. And then tip would Say Something to me like, what got something for me . I might have a statement for him that day. Or heed say, going to get something for me . I would latell lay race down to my literally race to my novembers near in the office for the press conferences and i would knock out a statement before he could get there, and i would put it on his desk as he sat done. I loved doing it. He would sit down and he would read and it that was tip oneills opinion that day. I knew what to write, and he knew. We clicked. After a while you learn what the guy wants to say. If he wanted to type it up, he would. I knew what he wanted to say. So i did that for six years, and absolutely required nothing go wrong, nobody every write anything against us, never say the wrong thing, the toughest job in my life, and up against the great communicator. Tip said he was the best there was. We watched the challenger speech, after the challenger went down, and he and i watched it together. He is crying, were all emotional about it. And then the next day i think i said i think peggy noonan wrote that speech. He called up peggy noonan at the white house and thanked already for the country. We had really good relationships with the reagan people. Jim baker and kenny and mike devery, and we work deals on the side. A homeless guy was on a Hunger Strike because they were going to name a wa