Transcripts For CSPAN3 In Depth Craig Shirley 20240707

challenge against gerald ford. where he narrowly, narrowly, lost. just by a few -- again 1976. the next book i did was rendezvous with destiny. that was about the 1980 campaign. that took four years to complete. i did another book called last act which is about reagan post election years. no one had ever done a book about his post election years. when he did, there was a lot of living going on between the 13 years from the time he left the presidency in the time passed way. he flew hot air balloons he went fly fishing he did a lot of things long before he contracted alzheimer's. finally i did another book on reagan, this was about reagan rising. that period from 1976 to 1980. it was very important time for the conservative movement and american politics. you have the panama canal treaty flight. you had as tr raising as an issue you have texaco raising is an issue. you have a whole host of issues. at the time conservatives had jimmy carter to push against he was advocating a certain view of government. these conservatives were pushing back and advocating a different view of government. it was a very interesting time for the american conservative movement, led mostly by ronald reagan. he definitely thought the panama canal treaty helped propel him to the 1980 nomination. now i am working on two more books on reagan. reagan and his true ideology. another one on reagan skills as a negotiator. he is underappreciated not regard. he was an skilled negotiator his whole life. as the head of the screen actors guild, with tipper gore and later with gorbachev. he was underappreciated in many regards. one of them is as a negotiator. it has been a fun ride. there are a number of good reagan historians, i am proud to be among their ranks. >> well craig shirley, what do you mean when you talk about his real ideology in the book you have coming up? >> that's a good question, peter. reagan was never a conservative asked conservatives wanted him to be. he was much more pragmatic, much more temperate on his outlook on the world and a lot of conservatives wanted him to be. here was the great cold war warrior who negotiated treaties with mikhail gorbachev of including the elimination of thousands of nuclear warheads in western europe. who would've thought when he ran on the missile camp in 1980, part of his campaign platform was we are way behind the soviets and we need to catch up. in order to get them to the negotiating table and to agree to reduce nuclear armaments it only took eight years really before we saw the winning of the cold war and the destruction of the soviet union. >> craig shirley, in your book last act to talk about the emerging legacy. what does that mean? >> the emerging legacy, yes. that is interesting because, in webster's dictionary there is not obama-ism, there is not bush-ism, there is not trumpism, but there is reagan-ism. reagan-ism, he would contend, a lot of scholars myself included would contend is a separate, distinct, individual ideology all of itself. a hybrid of libertarianism, conservativism, and other elements that go into it. it was his own philosophy. he enacted much of it when he was president. not all of it, to be sure, but he had a different view of the world and most of their politicians at the time then or do you have now. there is nobody who's shadow is cast more over the republican party than ronald reagan. he is the uber leader. he has a clipped even, in my opinion, abraham lincoln as the icon of the republican party. >> some would argue ronald reagan, newt gingrich, who you have also written about, and donald trump are the outsized figures of the modern republican party. would you agree with that? >> i absolutely agree with that. they certainly are. gingrich the revolution of 1984, trump and his populist revelation of four years ago. all of them represent different periods of time and philosophy of republican-ism. i hate the phrase big tent but i will use it here. the republican authority is a big tent of ideologies going all the way back to abraham lincoln and down through the ages. >> >> so, when did you first meet ronald reagan? >> i first met ronald reagan in 1978. i was working on a campaign in hampshire. gordon humphrey was running for the u.s. and it was considered everybody at the time as a long shot. it actually ended up winning over the incumbent, john mcintyre, by 6000 votes. reagan came up to campaign, so in new hampshire was a very important primary. it was even more important at the time. reagan needed to win new hampshire in 1980. he came up to campaign for gordon humphrey and for a gentleman running for reelection, mel thompson. he came into the new hampshire to film commercials for gordon humphrey. he was accompanied by two aides who quickly disappeared. governor reagan and i just sat there in the lobby i was in complete awe of this man, i had been for many, many, years. he was completely relaxed, completely friendly, jovial, we talked about high school in college sports. but we like, when who played. we talked about the new hampshire whether. we both agree we didn't like it. he was utterly charming, utterly kind. here i was this 21-year-old wet behind the ears kid talking to the leader of america and conservative at the time, the leading contender for the republican nomination. he afforded me nothing but kindness and generosity of spirit. that was a memory that i will carry with me the rest of my life. you talk about how he sat down in this hotel lobby in shadow of him. you also recount in last act story about his post-presidency office. the phones were not hooked up correctly. >> yes, that was a story that was given to me by matt ryan, president reagan's chief of staff in the post presidency. they had rented office space the plane was to open up an office for former president reagan in century city. ironically he was in a building were in movie with film showing a terrorist disaster. secret service was known to impress that his office was chosen for where the terrorist attack could happen but it was high up in the building. the office was being assembled and the reagan they were not supposed to be in the office for several weeks or at least a month. he had just been retired from the presidency. he had a lot of requests for interviews, and as you can imagine he was quite busy. he showed up in the office one day in deng or ease, here i am! one of my supposed to do? we hastily ran around the boxes, got cargo boxes and set him up an office. with a desk in a phone in the pad and paper. they thought he would be okay for a short time but the lungs had been rounded incorrectly. they were not going to the reception it desk they were going to that particular office where the president was. he would answer everyone, be job look calling wanting to speak with the president. reagan would write it down, write it down. came out a couple hours later that he had a list to fred ryan. he said, these people want to meet me. so fred with a little bit taken aback. everyone he wrote down was called back, got a picture taken with ronald reagan. except for this one fellow, after he was on the list and he talked to fred ryan, he wanted to come back and bring one of his neighbors. fred said, no! lightning struck here once. that is enough. so he didn't get the chance to come back a second time. >> craig, what is some of the topline things that ronald reagan accomplished as governor of california for eight years and president for eight years? >> that's a good question. he won sacramento, a neophyte, he thought he would do a lot more than actually did in us for several years. -- he started to address the affairs of government more diligently. he was able to enact a huge tax rebate at the time, in 1970. something like $500 million which was certainly an astronomical amount of money at the time. he had to deal with the campus unrest in the 1960s. there were many anti war protests going on. throughout berkeley and other campuses were on flame -- there was one story there that perhaps it is apocryphal but reagan was at a college campus and there was a hippie carrying a son. the son said make love not war. reagan looked at the heavy a look at the sign any turn to a sign and said, i don't think he can do either from the looks of him. he tried to reorganize government the best he could. he tried to reform health care. he was a very successful governor. at the time, california was a country in two of itself. it would've been the sixth largest economy in the world. he reformed welfare, police protection was developed to a greater degree. he dealt successfully with the campus unrest. he went and listened to their concerns in their complaints, not that he could actually do anything about vietnam but it meant a lot that he would talk to the young people. that is one people -- he did as governor it was shown that students would ask governor reagan it was a weekly television show he would meet with students these high school and college students and answer all their questions. it was unheard of at the time. he really love them. he became quite adept unable to handle all of their questions. so, even the l.a. times when reagan left the presidency, they said he had been reverie rough on reagan tree years. they acknowledge that reagan saved his day from bankruptcy. when he became governor it was running 1 million dollar a day deficit. it was increasing by 1 million dollars a day. he turned it around in years to a surplus and pay down the deficit, saving the state from bankruptcy. as president, it was exactly what he said he was going to do. when he man a 1980, he was gonna defeat tone-ism, he was gonna lower the interest rates, who's gonna turn the economy around. he was gonna restore american morale. he did exactly all of those things. he defeated soviet communism during the cold war. he, inflation when he was running in 1980 the interest rates or something like 18% inflation was almost as high they said the value of $1 wasn't worth today when it was worth yesterday. so really, it was devastating to people savings, especially u.s. citizens he turned around the economy he created good paying jobs when he left office inflation was i think a 4.7% when he left in january, 1989. he did restore american morale. the proof is in the pudding. his approval rating among all americans was something like 73%. when he left office in january of 89, his approval rating was 79%. it was higher even than fdr when fdr passed away in april of 1945. higher than dwight eisenhower when he left office. highest in a long, long, time. he is still regarded today as the american people as one of the greatest in a long time. washington, lincoln, and franklin roosevelt. >> one of the critiques of the reagan presidency is he spent a lot of time talking about deficits, but they grew under has stewardship. >> that is true, peter. he later wrote in his memoirs, there are two things that he was disappointed and that he can do more about. one was the deficit, the other was -- the other hand is the deficit is explainable as what we now know as the peace dividend. this was a necessary to build up americas defenses that have been slashed and cut four years since richard nixon's time in the presidency. gerald ford, jimmy carter, richard nixon, all slashed in cut national defense. you had soldiers, g.i.s in 1980 who are actually on food stamps. we were flying airplanes that were 50 years old. these b-52 use were ancient planes. meanwhile, the soviets were perfecting the newest technology, including the supposed backfire bomber, which is actually supersonic and quite deadly! the national defense had to be rebuilt. reagan, that was his commitment. if we didn't have a stronger defense, and everything else is academic. this is a deficit created by this defensive buildup. it is freeing minimum people imprisoned behind the iron curtain in poland, and other warsaw pact countries other were -- the soviet union and russia itself then it was a price worth paying to free the millions of people that have been in prison behind the iron curtain. >> you talked about his so-called true ideology as being more pragmatic than he is given credit for. >> yes. >> is that going to hurt his legacy among conservatives? >> i don't think so! i think his legacy is pretty well cemented among conservatives. his library in simi valley in california, it's still the most visited presidential library in all of america. people go to the lincoln library, which is out of the way. it is a hike to get there! it's not like in downtown los angeles. fema valley is off the beaten path someone. and yet more people go there than go to the kennedy library or the clinton library or the bush library or anything even approaching that he is still, to this day, a very, very, popular and successful president. in march of this year, you wrote in news max that reagan was a populist, but had the intellect of a statesman. reagan, like trump, ran at a time when many americans also had grievances against the establishment. unlike trump, he made every talking point optimistic and every speech uplifting, something trump could never do if his life depended on it. >> yeah, that is essential. i'm glad you quoted that. that is the essential difference i think between trump and reagan. reagan, first of all, was reelected, and trump was not. second of all, reagan had a higher approval rating. and third of all, most of trump's philosophy is derived from ronald reagan. the idea, whether it's conservative judges or tax cuts, not just to stimulate the economy, but to expand personal freedom. reduce the power of the government, increase the power of the individual. -- in 1981, just after he was elected president, just after he was sworn in, he was meeting with a group of conservative and he told them -- it's about creating jobs. it's really about expanding personal freedom. he knew that power is finite. you can't put it here or there. it is either with the government or through the citizenry. and he wanted to go back to a time of the founders and the framers and move it away from the national government and back to the citizenry. the way to do that is give them more money. that was really a motivating force. tax cuts were expanding the power of the individual. he was very committed. you look at his speeches and how many times he uses the words individual or individuality or something -- this was the core of his philosophy, a small, respectful government with a restrained police force and intelligent judiciary. otherwise, leave people alone. that was his policy. it became his philosophy starting in the 1940s. i would say in 1980, with the advent of the social -- which he added to his coalition, a fully formed conservativism -- >> it was in 2017 that your book reagan rising, the decisive years, 1976 to 1980, came out. i want to play a little bit of video from 1976 in kansas city. >> if i could just take a moment. i had an assignment the other day. someone asked me to write a letter for a time capsule that will be opened in los angeles 100 years from now. at our try centennial. it sounded like an easy assignment. they suggested i write something about the problems and issues of the day. and i set out to do so, riding down the coast in an automobile, looking at the blue pacific on one side and the santa as mountains on the other and i couldn't help but wonder if it was going to be that beautiful hundred years from now as it was on that summer day. and then, as i tried to write, let your own minds turn to that task, you are going to write for people 100 years from now, will they look back with appreciation and say, thank god for those people in 1976, who headed off that loss of freedom, who kept us now 100 years later free, who kept our world from nuclear destruction. and if we fail, they probably won't get to read the letter at all because it spoke of individual freedom and they won't be allowed to talk of that or read of it. this is our challenge. and this is why, here in this hall tonight, better than we have ever done before, we need to quit talking to each other and about each other and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in numbers than we have ever been, but we carry the message they are waiting for. we must go forth from here, united, determined, and what a great general said a few years ago is true. there is no substitute for victory. [applause] >> craig shirley, what did you hear? >> it's interesting. that speech is so important, to reagan's political future. first of all, i was not there in 1976. that arena is now since gone. it was destroyed in a tornado some years ago. i was actually working my way through college. i was slinging hash at a seafood restaurant in cape cod. but my wife was there. she was working for the campaign and she was on the floor that night. she told me repeatedly, many times we talked about it, it was the most thrilling experience of her life to hear reagan give the speech. i wrote the book, reagan's revolution, and interviewed many people, including someone who is on the floor also. he was standing next to a ford supporter, from florida. and after reagan gave the speech, she muttered, oh my god. we nominated the wrong man. the convention margin was razor-thin. at the time, you need 101 -- and ford won the nomination only by 50 or 60 delegates. reagan only lost by 80. it was very slim. very now. and there have been accusations over the years of hanky pinkie in the new york delegation. but it was pretty clean, as far as it goes. there were accusations about the florida delegation. the police were called and. there were lied to tractors. one police officer said at the time, the polygraph test came back negative. he said, that's the first time i ever heard of a politician telling the truth. the speech itself is so important because reagan was not going to run again. there were newspaper articles and columns and things like that at the time. i remember newsweek had an article called, often -- writing an o bit about reagan's political career. he was 65 years old. he's been around the track twice, in 1968 and 1976. and both times he lost. most people assumed -- he gave the speech and what is interesting is that he was out campaigning for republican delegates across the nation in press conferences and endorsements and things like that. and everywhere, he won. the police officers, captain's, the flight attendants, the citizens on the street, everybody came up to him and said, oh governor, you need to run one more time. it was that outpouring that i think convinced him to try one more time in 1980 because he wasn't going to try. that was probably it for him. but there was one time he was on an airplane and he always like to sit in the aisle so he could meet people as they were coming on. and this woman came on, and she embraced him and she said, oh governor, you need to do it just one more time. sitting next to him -- i interviewed him and he told me the story. he was sitting next to governor reagan, and this woman embraced him, and encouraged him to run again. and he turned to mike, at that time, and he said, i guess i better do it one more time. i guess i better go. it was the outpouring of that speech. it was interesting. because usually -- this nominee, who is the last speaker. he is the last speaker of the night. but this night in kansas city, it was ronald reagan who was the last to speak, not for it. and it was a last-minute idea. reagan was not supposed to speak to the audience. but ford knew he was the head of a badly fractured party. so, at the last minute, they encourage reagan to come down. reagan did interviews that night in the sky box in the city and there was one interview with tom -- in the sky box in which -- he said -- reagan said, no. all of a sudden, 17,000 people employed him to come down to the stage along with the ford. they said, we want reagan. we want reagan. we want ron. we want ron. and he slowly and reluctantly leaves the sky box and went down to the podium. he had no prepared speech. that speech you played was not on a teleprompter. it was all extemporaneous. imagine the pressure of being live on three networks, giving a speech before thousands of people. it was a great reveal of reagan's heart, you know, when he talks about soviet missiles being able to wipe out america in a matter of minutes. i tells you what was really on break-ins mind. mike also told me, he was accompanying reagan as he made his way to the podium, and he turned to him and the governor said to him, what do you think i should say? mike said, governor, you will think of something. >> ronald reagan went on to win landslide elections in 1980 and 1984. 1014 electoral votes to 62 total for jimmy carter and -- in those two elections. good afternoon and welcome to book tv on c-span two. this is our monthly in-depth program with one author and we look at his or her entire body of work. craig shirley it is our guest. he has written seven books. we've talked about some of the reagan books. including reagan's revolution, his first one from 2005. rendezvous with destiny came out in 2009. then, he to topics to december 1941, 31 days that changed america. that came out in 2011. last act, the final years and the emerging legacy of ronald reagan, came out in 2015. reagan rising, the decisive years, 1976 to 1980, came out in 2017. and then, citizen newt, the making of a break and conservative, also came out in 2017. and finally, his most frequent book, is on mary ball washington, the untold story of george washington's mother. that came out in 2019 and we will be discussing that as well. this is an interactive program and we want to hear your voices. here is how you can participate in this program with author craig surely. you can call in. 202 is zero, area code. -- for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones -- and if you can't get through on the phone lines, but still want to participate, you can do it a variety of ways. number one, via text. and this number is only four text messages, please include your first name and your city, if you would. 2027488903. -- just remember, at book tv is our handle there and finally, you can email, book tv at c-span dot org. we will be scrolling through all of those numbers and all of those ways of contacting us in just a minute, so you can participate and we will begin taking your calls in just a minute as well. so, craig surely, in the midst of writing biographies on ronald reagan, you switch to december 1941. what inspired that? >> that is a good question. i remember as a child, i was born in the 50s, so i obviously didn't remember world war ii. but i had in laws and grandparents who did. and every sunday afternoon up there at church, there was a dinner at one of my grandparents houses. there was a lace tablecloth and white linen napkins. there would be a big turkey or ham or pig roast beef at the center of the table. and around the table, there were aunts and uncles and various relatives. invariably, the conversation turned to the world war. my grandfather would say, i bought that to soda before the war, but i sold it after the war. they would talk about the various exports and experiences. world war ii is a national experience. everybody sacrifice for the war effort. that is what it was called at the time, the world of -- war effort. -- one third, maybe, one fourth, of all vegetables grown in america -- my father was a boy scout and they used the boy scouts to hand out promotional posters. -- and churches and other locations -- loose flips -- by war bonds. and other promotional posters. my mother had a victory garden. my grandfather tried to enlist three times. after pearl harbor and three times, the draft board said, you are 41 years old. you are blind as a bat. you have dependence, for dependence. we are not that desperate. after trying and failing four times, three times, he became so -- my grandmother, both my grandmothers, were rosie the rivers. one tested machine guns. the other grandmother was a bomb inspector. i can't imagine what a bomb inspector would do at the time. my grandmother, who inspected machine guns, in syracuse, new york, she would come down the assembly line and she would take up one and set it down and get another one, fire it off the target, set it down. and i saw one time her wore industry badges and things like that. but everybody in my family, including my uncle, who pay the ultimate sacrifice, my father is too young for world war ii -- so is his brother, ronny. their oldest brother, barney, ellsworth, i have it surely, was a navy radio operator. and he was killed in action in the pacific. he was shot down when they were making a bombing run in southeast asia. and ironically, he was killed on his 21st birthday in 1945. so, he became a cherished memory for all of us. and he still is today. and he was always part of the conversation. they used to talk about the tire rationing or gas rationing or meat rationing. -- so, this all -- i always had this with me. many folks down at pearl harbor, obviously -- came out 20 or 30 years ago, it was a terrific terrific book on december 7th, 1941. there had never been a book done on the effect that december 7th had on the civilians in america. how america changed literally overnight. how the war affected the national mood, and national behavior. something like three weeks after pearl harbor, ford motor company and fisher out of body pipes and goodyear rubber stop making cars. by the way, the government ran everything! they ran everything including baby wipes. they issued an order proclamations on how many baby diapers you could use. that is how much they manage the economy! they made for stop making cars on the orders of the united states government. and start making b 24 and be 25 bombers out of fabricated autoparts. they did that in a matter of two weeks you could not use, the government sent out a memo to radio operators, radio station owners you could not use the war for professional purposes. here is the war, brought to you by campbell's soup. you could not broadcast troop movements. you can't broadcast ship movements. you cannot broadcast, you take loose lips sink ships quite literally. they gave instructions to the radio stations about they couldn't couldn't say. everybody went along. everybody followed the orders of the government! they believe that their nation was at risk. they believe that the nation would being threatened. they had to do these things in order to win the war. it is fascinating how much, how homogenous our nation was in 1941 versus today. the only thing i can think of to compare it to is september 11th, when the planes ran into the world trade center in the pentagon. our national unity only lasted a couple weeks, couple of months. and it soon fell to bickering amongst themselves over union issues. where as we stayed pretty unified as a nation starting september 7th and we stay that way until 1945 when the japanese finally surrendered to douglas macarthur in world war ii. >> so craig shirley the book is divided by day, september 1st through 31st. how prepared was the united states on december 1st for a major war? how much of a surprise to the american government was december 7th? >> yeah we were not prepared at all we had just come within one vote a month earlier of dissolving our standing army. i believe it was october 1941 dissolving the distending army. it would've sent hundreds of thousands of troops home at the time. not paddle tested, but they were trained. they were undergoing training. we had 108 naval fleet. we had 108 airplanes. we were not prepared for war at all! discovered that the fdr library my son and he our government was, interesting lee enough, something that we discovered at the fdr library. my son andrew who was my head researcher on this book. he went to the fdr library in upstate new york, at fdr's home. he came across a memo from the office of naval intelligence, december for, 1941. it was a 17-page memo stamped top secret. it had only been declassified in the 70s by late around gathering dust and so andrew found. and it was three days before the attack this memo for the office of naval intelligence, it came out in detail of japanese tension possible they were. the assessment of where the japanese might intact. the panama canal, the wake islands, indonesia, and the hawaiian islands. this memo was prepared and given to the president, three days before the attack no action was taken other than sending a warning out to our field commanders on december six, 1941. there was not an alert to disperse your ships and planes to minimize the attack and be prepared for attack. all these other potential things that they should've done, they were not notified. this memo interestingly enough was unnoticed until andrew found it at the after the are library in new york. >> how was the economy? eight years of fdr at that point. what was the economic situation in america? >> it is a nuanced answer. let's take a minute to answer this. the new deal as an economic strategy was a failure. unemployment in 1933 was almost the same as it was in 1941, with the advent of the war. the new deal was good because it raise peoples morale and it gave people hope that is always important. without hope there is no future but the economy itself did not improve. there were several things that might have been mistakes. one was smooth holly, which raise tariffs on imports coming into united states. fdr did not cut taxes which he should have. he should've bought the marketplace out which is what he should've done. have as much money in circulation. the other thing, to the failure of the new deal in my opinion was focusing extremely on production instead of consumption. to achieve a growing economy unique consumption, it is not enough to build a car you need to be able to sell it and use it. that is -- for, it gm could make all the cars that they want and they did. people did not have the money to buy them then it is besides the point advent of -- was when the this is the problem with the economy all through those many years until the advent of -- that is when the u.s. economy really started to perk up. because the british people, churchill was already leading them in world war ii. and finally, the nazis -- and fighting the japanese in the pacific. and they were consuming american products under -- that they were either borrowing or we were donating under programs like -- the american economy only began to perk up because we were producing things that were being consumed by the british people and that is when the economy -- we went into a mass production of ships and planes and guns and uniforms and all of that. everything was diverted towards the war effort. every sacrifice that was humanly thought of was made by the national government and by the american people. >> before we got to call, it should be noted that you are not a full-time other. >> no. [laughs] i also wear many hats. i used to, for many years, i was a lacrosse coach, coaching youth and high school across. many years ago, i thought i would finish up my life as a -- i also own a small part public relations marketing there -- from here in virginia. we have many conservative foundations and think tanks and individuals as clients. as i tell people, -- my partner -- we have been in business for 35 years. we have never missed a payroll in 35 years. i guess you could say, i have made -- the business has made it. i am also a farmer. >> let's hear from our colors now. we have discussed a little bit of american political history. and world war ii history. michaels and your field beach florida. thank you. >> hi. wow. you guys are always so amazing. reagan was so amazing because of his popularity. i think it was as positive conservatism, which unfortunately, in my opinion at least, -- trump is different. reagan was a chimera. i think a slushy -- it needs a precise temperature control, or -- reagan had a sense of that. they need a balance between positive-ism and abundance versus fear and scarcity -- right now, in our current contest with trumpism, we're seeing that as a mortal battle. what he had a sense of is what is important is governance and temperature control. and reduced a blowup and the governor is something that is actually our social -- >> hey, michael. before we get too deep there, very quickly, you are a fan of ronald reagan, and not so much of donald trump? is that correct? thank, you sir. let's hear from craig shirley. >> thank you for your call and your interest. i am in that same camp myself as a fan of reagan and somebody who grew to admire reagan and worked for him. and i don't admire donald trump as much. though, donald trump had very good policies, very good stories to tell as president of the united states. and he revive the economy. his handling of covid and vaccination and all the issues -- there are issues that i take issue with him on and i take issue two with his personal behavior, as far as what he said and the comments he made, we're not always, in my opinion, very presidential. those will affect his legacy. it is still to be determined, i think. -- before we rationally address it -- was his presidency simply a detour in time or was it something more important? i tend to lean more on the side that it was more important. but important in a short context, in a nuanced context. because i do think that there is evolution in the united states. sometimes we go to the left, sometimes more to the right. right now, we're going to the left, ever since george w. bush, back in 1988 and his son and clinton and barack obama and others, we have been slowly moving to the left. whereas we were moving to the right before that. this is happened many times. this rhythm in the american presidency. we go president by president, activist government and then periods of last great presidents and lest activist government. his biggest legacy is important and needs to be studied. that is what i have tried to do. i'm running to more books on reagan. i just finished april, 1945, and that is the companion folk to my book, december 1941. and the reason i did this book, april 1945, is because almost everything happens in april of 1945. roosevelt passed away and was interned at hyde park. adolf hitler committed suicide. mussolini was taken down by the mob. the bloody campaign and okinawa island, which was the final staging before the invasion of japan. the auschwitz is discovered. dachau's discovered. the allied troops, especially the soviets and the americans, are closing and. there are just so many things that happened in these four weeks, which is why i devoted this time to this next book. it comes out early next year. >> hi, hugh. you are on with author craig shirley. >> thank you so much for this wonderful program. it is so interesting to look back and really see a lot of things that we were unaware of. i would like to help mr. craig shirley bring even more things out in a positive way. i actually have a poem and the president ronald reagan library titled, caring and sharing. i can give you a -- we are clams december 19th, 1983, national care and share day. asking companies and nonprofits to do as much as they can to help the less fortunate. that is a really positive message that needs to come out even more in these times. i wanted to see if he could comment on two people. i received a letter from a friend of president reagan, charles, who headed the u.s. information agency, related to information i sent to him, concerning the company of the future now, back in the early 80s. one other quick thing. roy cohn had and relationship with president reagan. but he also was donald trump's main mentor. i wanted to see if he knew much about those two gentlemen. >> charlie wick was an old and dear friend of reagan's. he -- it goes back to the hollywood days with the reagan's. came up the many years -- and it later devolved into a political framework. reagan employed him. -- they were very close. they used to spend christmas together every year. he said reagan was particularly fond of charlie and his wife. i think he was godfather to at least one of the reagan children. they were very close. and also geographically -- they were their entire life. as far as roy cohn. when you are president of the united states, a lot of people come away thinking, the president will take their advice. and listen to them. roy cohn was important to joe mccarthy in the senate subcommittee on investigating sabotage in the united states government. it was during the time in the early 50s, late 40th. roy cohn was a self promoter. and he promoted -- made himself more important to reagan than he really was. reagan already had his framework for how he was going to run the country and govern the country. his worldview was already set. so, there was very little you could point to that he had any influence over reagan on. he simply met him once or twice. i think that was about it. there were several letters or memos in the reagan white house that were generated -- his invitations to nancy reagan and mrs. reagan and president reagan when they were in new york -- and the political analysis was, mr. roy, stay away from him. give him a wide berth as much as possible. his influence is pretty outsized, considering who reagan was and who he listened to and whose advice he took. well isn't sylvester, georgia. good afternoon beau you are on book tv. >> thank you, it's a wonderful program. two things. the first an i live down the street from the pearl harbor survivor who commanded the uss war. the japanese submarine that morning. the other thing i wanted to ask you with the book he wrote on reagan between 76 and 80. i remember reagan debating his fellow -- >> it was a great progress. >> and sent him into a national standoff on his own party. >> it sure did. i'm sorry, go ahead. >> no, he's done. quite sure. >> your turn, yeah. the panama canal treaty were a important moment in the country. everyone was talking about it in 1977 or 1978! the treaties had gone back when the isthmus of panama was dugout under teddy roosevelt administration. the panama canal was created but over the 70s, into the 60s and 70s, we always had control and jurisdiction over the panama canal. there was this anti-imperialism belief, theme, in america. i share the, i believed with it, we should return the rights the sovereignty of the canal to the panamanian people. panama at the time was being run by a dictator, oman showery owes, who reagan used to point now as a dictator. there was a great debate inside the republican party over the panama canal creepy reagan was opposed to relinquishing the treaty to panama in 1978 bill buckley was in favor the other conservatives were in favor but reagan was leading a national campaign against the treaties he participated they participated in the panel canal truth squad. all through the country they had press conferences, there was much debate in the senate and on national television. and then in the newspapers and it really gripped the nation for a long period of time before they were finally voted on. they finally passed the senate through to treaties. they passed the senate by one vote. the jurisdiction of the panama canal was returned to the panamanian people. it was, reagan used it to maximum advantage for himself. he kept himself in the public eye, and kept himself focused on the public issue that was firing the imagination of millions of americans. it really helped him, and it helped the republican party. i remember when i interviewed former president carter for my book, rendezvous with destiny, on the 1980 campaign. he pointed out that every democrat and, republican who voted for the panama canal treaties lost in 1978 or 1980. he felt was a result of what's those treaties meant. it was a hot issue in the country at the time. this was just after the vietnam war and watergate. it became an issue of national pride. you know, the panama can now, i remember my grandmother was so hot about it at the time. she grew up in an era when the panama canal with one of the five runners of the world. this and other things, it was important psychologically to the american people. we conquered malaria because of it, albert schweitzer, we bill this tribe to build a cannot canal. it was important to the american people, psychologically i think that they could hold on to the pain of canal. it just became an issue. not a complex issue, but wasn't about american imperialism or anything like that. the sovereignty and rights at the time, the soviet union was itching to have part of the canal so they could more easily move they're fully between the atlantic in the pacific ocean. it was a hot, hot, issue at the time. by the way i salute your neighbor, think your neighbor who was a proud -- a wonderful thing he did. that is a great sacrifice he made. thank you to him. >> the pearl harbor survivor. >> we have one hour left in our conversation with author craig surely. here is how you can participate, use the code to 02 for all of our numbers. for those of you in the east or central towns on, if you are out west you can dial in at 202, 7488001. if you can't get through on the phone lines or would prefer to send a text or written message, you can do that in many written ways. this is for the text only. please include your first name and your city to zero 2 to 0 a 8403. if you would like to make a comment on social media, at book tv is what you need to remember finally email on book tv at c-span dot o r g. craig surely, we reference william f buckley a minute ago but i wanted to ask you about him and milton freeman. their effect on ronald reagan's thinking. >> it cannot be measured. in fact both of them reagan was a personal friend of bill buckley. they exchange many, many, letters bill buckley was also friends with mrs. reagan, nancy reagan. they exchange many randy letters. they got together socially, things like that. the national review is a magazine i could not be underestimated in its role in fueling the conservative movement beginning in the 1950s refining conservatism and protecting they john berke society, of the things like that. as part of the american conservative movement very were extremely close friends obviously avid readers. milton friedman as reagan bone freeman of course won the nobel prize for economics, when he was teaching at the university of chicago. he row a few things a was a national celebrity. i remember in the 70s when pbs was running a series on economics, it contained a lot of interviews with milton freeman. his thinking inspired a lot of reagan's policies, including the tax cuts and budget policies that helped restart the economy let's go through reverend robert hodge from seared views and new well, the reverend robert -- from syracuse, new york, emails into you, craig surely, what was nancy reagan's role in his success? and what do you think of karen's -- new biography of her? i have not read the book yet. i am anxious to read it. i'm sure it's a very good book. she's a good reporter. i've known her for years. so, i'm sorry, what was the first part of your question? >> what's nancy reagan's role was in ronald reagan success. >> she was invaluable to ronald reagan. if reagan had wanted to be the best shoe salesman in the world, she would have made sure he was the best shoe salesman in the world. it just so happened that he wanted to be president of the united states. so, she was not a massive little cookie baker, but she was a traditionalists. she was elegant. she was beautiful. she also had a very good mind on her shoulders. she also had a very good antenna for detecting people who were using reagan to their benefit. she was good at keeping people away who were not going to help her husband. or we're going to hurt him. she famously was involved in the church in sacramento when he was governor, and more so, when he was president of the united states. they were a true partnership. it's one of the great romances of white house history, going back to george and martha washington. some presidential couples are more estranged. but they were, not only a loving couple -- but i will flip in the same bed together and things like that. but they were a good political team, although, her influence was much more subtle then, say, eleanor roosevelt was. she was equally effective as a first lady, not as effective as eleanor roosevelt and maybe some others in front, but behind the scenes, she was very effective. mrs. reagan was wonderful, to me, over the years. i remember when i was starting on my first book on the 76 campaign, i was having some trouble with the reagan library. she caught wind of it through a mutual friend, who has since passed away, who was one of the presidents speech writers. no book had ever been written on the 76 campaign. we both agreed it was the most thrilling campaign he had ever had. 76 was the most meaningful and most exciting. -- these files that the library had had been sealed and i had not been catalog because they were not a priority like the presidential files were. she personally told them to open up the files and make them available to me for my exclusive use for my book on the 76 campaign. i will be forever indebted to mrs. reagan and honor her memory. >> book tv has covered this new biography of nancy reagan. we covered her at an event on the ronald reagan library. -- in montgomery, alabama, please go ahead. >> good show, gentlemen. i, as a baby boomer -- this is my 50th birthday. >> happy birthday. >> thank you. i wanted to share a story from my dad in regard to fdr's day of infamy. he had two other brothers and four sisters. i remember him saying that he and one of his siblings, one of my aunts, they were driving on their way to see my grandparents, their parents, of course. and the bulletin came over the car radio but the choppiness -- japanese had bombed pearl harbor and my dad and my aunt looked at each other and they were thinking the same thing. their oldest brother was a chief petty officer stationed on pearl harbor. a lot of things were going through their mind. my grandparents did not have a radio. so, my dad and my aunt decided not to say anything to them when they arrived. luckily, my uncle called. it was in an ornament -- you can imagine what they all went through when they were waiting to hear from him. as time went on, shortly after that, my grandparents learned about what had happened. my uncle called and he was and six by that day, recovering from it. thank god he was safe. >> can you bring this to a wrap? >> yes. so, basically, nationalism was running very good. my other aunts, they worked in the factory, making military -- my other two uncles, my dad served in the marines, my uncle in the navy, and my other uncle in the army. it was a time of being proud to be an american. and i just wanted to say that, mr. craig shirley, thank you for writing about world war ii. indeed, it was the greatest generation. >> thank you and your family for your service. i'm sure you have a lot of -- and you are right, it was a time of great patriotism and great sacrifice. every family sacrificed in world war ii. every family, large or small, sent a son off to war, a daughter off to the war industry plans to work their, or they had victory gardens, or they sacrificed at the grocery store or their taxes or they bought bonds. but everybody made some type of sacrifice and world war ii. it's really a remarkable time, which we will probably never see again in this country, not that level of focus. >> craig shirley, an email from mark. do you think carter would have been reelected over rake and if the iran hostage rescue had succeeded in 1979? >> that's a good question. it's a hypothetical, obviously. i have dealt a lot into this in my books and another writings. i talk to president carter about that. i think it's possible he might have one. it would've been such a wave of euphoria for the release of the hostages, for the rescue of the hostages. it might well have -- he might've won reelection. on the other hand, udall claw, that happened months before the election. it may have been a critical point in time, where the glow wears off and people start to focus on the real issues, high inflation, high interest rates, unemployment. and the soured relations with the soviet union, and other things that were blamed as the failures on the carter administration. i'm not sure. i think, if anything, it may have made the election closer. it may have been -- as it was in 1980. >> -- florida -- good afternoon. >> hi, how are you? i just wanted to tell you a couple of little things and ask you a question. and that was, by the way, when i was six weeks old, my father took me out of the bassinet to hear roosevelt declare war. and then, my father's three brothers subsequently served. one getting at least 14 medals. but my question is about -- you mentioned that in 1945, in april, that we found out about dachau and auschwitz. my understanding is that the state department knew about it all the time, going back lead to the 1930s. and that breckenridge -- almost singlehandedly kept the information from going to any newspapers. are you familiar with that story? >> thank you, ma'am. and i salute your brothers and your family for their commitment to the war. one thing you mentioned was roosevelt, i don't think i did president roosevelt justice. the new deal was and economic failure, but a social morale success. after years greatest success was in the defeat of the empire of japan and nazi germany. and churchill -- these two men literally save the world. they save europe. they saved america. they say the pacific from the axis powers. no amount of praise can we be too much to put on them for what they did. the new deal, what is underpaid -able, is that there is no debate about world war ii. he is the reason we won world war ii. yes, i have heard that story. there is no evidence to prove it. i'm trying to remember when auschwitz was first opened and daca was first opened. 1933 or 1935 or something like that. and the u.s. state department, u.s. government, may have known about those things. they probably did. but there is no paper trail. i would say, nobody i've interviewed talked about this. i had to rely on what was available to me at the time, which was after yards documents. truman administration documents. the documents of newspapers and things like that. and that is when auschwitz and the other camps were discovered, was in early 1945. so, that is what i went with. it would be the subject of a very, very good book or a good article or speech or discussion over when the united states actually knew about auschwitz. and if so, why they didn't move to stop it earlier. that is a very worthy topic of discussion. >> craig shirley, in 2017, your book, citizen newt, v -- is newt king which a friend of yours? >> yes, i would consider him a friend. i don't know if he would consider me a friend. it is an authorized biography. i took three or four years to finish it. it is about his time, his childhood. -- establishing himself as certainly one of the leading political figures in america today -- you have to think long and hard to come up with a figure who has much influence us -- he still has influence today, with regular commentaries and social media comments and fox news and his columns and speeches. he emailed me. we email back and fourth. he was wonderfully cooperative in this book. i got unlimited access to him and his papers and to talk to him about everything about his campaigns. when it with house minority leader -- how he constructed the contract with america -- basically, we talked about everything. we talked about reagan. we talked about gorbachev. we talked about clinton a lot. we talked about what he thought about clinton. we talked about al gore. you would have to go back to probably henry clay,, -- a national political leader who had as much of an effect on national politics -- both henry clay and new gingrich -- i think his place in history and the republican party, the conservative movement and the national political movement, his place in history is assured. >> do you think nancy pelosi has that same status today? >> as a woman, yes. she is not an ideal factory, the way gingrich is or was. but she probably understands power better than he does. she has never been house -- or challenged as speaker. her authority is supreme. certainly, just from a political standpoint, not an ideological standpoint, is an admirable woman and has done much with her to ten years as speaker of the house. but she did not do the revolutionary things that gingrich did. he reform the house post office and the house bank and went after corruption left and right in his own party. and in the other party. much more so than anybody else did. much more so than nancy pelosi. they are similar and they are different. she understands power better than he does. he understands ideology and movements better than she does. >> -- in 2018 wrote in the atlantic of this about new gingrich. few figures in modern history have done more than gingrich to lay the groundwork for trump's rise. during his two decades in congress, he pioneered a style of partisan combat complete with name-calling and strategic obstructionism that poisoned americas culture and plunged washington into permanent dysfunction. >> i reject that. there have been animosity between the two parties for eons. going back to the civil war, when they literally went to war with each other, the two parties. the drama -- 600,000 men died as a result of the fight between two political parties. it hasn't come to that yet. newt gingrich it is not to blame for that. he is a tough fighter. but he is a firefighter. he went after corruption when he saw and the funded people who need to defend. his motives were always mostly pure. i talked to many people, who -- and i talked to him ad nauseam. and i came to the conclusion that he is a good man. because he has been so successful, he has faced criticism. someone like -- would be a critic because they are a liberal. and he is envious. and thus, opposed too newt gingrich -- >> pot, please go ahead for your question or comment. >> it's customary for former presidents to give speeches. what do you think now 30 years after the fact, of ronald reagan taking one or $2 million for a couple of speeches in japan. was that unpresidential or unseemly? >> do you think it was? >> i looked a scandal that it. i really don't know what to think about it, seeing how other former presidents have cashed in on the presidency. this was the first one i remembered in my lifetime. >> thank you, ma'am. >> thank you. it is a good question. i thought about it a lot. maybe if i were him, i would have advised him differently. he needed the money at the time. i know that. and the japanese were willing to pay it. so, why not? on the other hand, probably, for a momentary time in history, it diminished the luster of his legacy, but not completely. only in a transitory sense. he still regarded as one of our greatest presidents. and this is not topic a. usually, it is iran -- when people raise questions about the reagan presidency. or his feelings on -- or his hard-line early on with the soviet union. those are usually the points about reagan -- as opposed to his post presidency. but i understand your concern. it is a valid one. and it is one i don't have the answer to, quite frankly. if i had been there at the time, i would've been in a position to advise him and i may have advised him do something different. >> craig shirley, wood is your take on iran contra and ronald reagan? >> it was unusual. it was arms for hostages, as we all know. -- there was a violation of the logan act. -- it was all over north, lieutenant colonel, out of control. he was operating out of the white house, unbeknownst to what he was doing. >> -- it went from a supremely confident jim baker, who is a great role model, to don regan, who was supremely incompetent and was fired by reagan. -- he earned mrs. reagan's ire, justifiably. he had his own personal -- he was eloquent to serve the president of the united states, much less his chief of staff. at the end, reagan took responsibility himself. he said, look, this happened on my watch. the argument is over whether or not reagan knew about it or not. i remember he wrote in his diaries that he was mad at oliver north to claim that he gave reagan a briefing on this deal. the whole exact camp david did not show that. the proof was on reagan's side. but it is a block eye on his administration. -- it really tugged at reagan's heartstrings a lot. hostages were being tortured. nobody profited from that. nobody gave money. but it was wrong. it was a violation of -- and reagan took his lumps. it is something that needs to be considered, along with all the aspects of his presidency. i remember at the time, 1986 i think it was, when's popularity was 55% approval. it went down to 45% approval in a matter of days because of the controversy over iran contra. it certainly cost people their jobs, justifiably or not. and it was a months long debate here in washington before the matter was all clear it up. >> before we run out of time, we have about a half hour left. i want to make sure to get to your most recent book, mary ball washington, the untold story of george washington's mother. you write, she was a woman who used a facade of motherly virtue to cover her desire to control her son. in the same way that he led a country to break away from its overbearing imperial matron, george had to struggle to find independence in his own life to step away from the power of his demanding mother. how were you able to discover that 215 years later? >> through letters, other, contemporaneous accounts at the time, and the obvious truth. like, for instance, when washington was 14 years old, of course, the american counties were under british rule. and he wanted to enlist in the british navy as a cabin boy. and so, mary wrote a letter to a relative in london. and it came back. and it said, under no circumstances let george become a cabin boy in the british navy. this is quoting, he will be treated like a dog. you'll be treated terribly. there was a caste system in british society. and the british carried it over into the british navy. royalty was first, then they were subjects, than there were other lesser people. and way down at the bottom of the list would have been the american cabin boys. this was a time to that british admiralty kept copious logs, including one third of british cabin boys died at sea. they were killed in battle. they caught scurvy. there were many ways that british cabin boys, all cabin boys in the british navy, died at sea. and of course, they were serving with some really -- sailors. they were really rough next and drunkard's and bombs and all sorts, who were forced by these gangs -- the british army used to go through brothels and bars and london and grab men and throw them on to ships and train them to become sea man. he would've been with a really rough crowd, maybe a dangerous crowd. and so, she told them, he was not going to become a british cabin boy. she changed the course of history and that decision. she may have saved his life as well. there were other times two in her life where she either change the course of history or spared his life or both. >> we'll get you started on mary ball washington? >> two of my favorite presidents our george washington and ronald reagan. i think they're fascinating individuals. they both have many different interests and they have pursued many different careers, in the military, in politics, things like that. i wanted to do a book on washington. after i discovered -- and others and books written about washington. it seem to have petered out. the way to get our washington was to do a book about his mother because nobody had ever done a book about mary ball washington before. and i lived on the middle peninsula virginia. her descendants are thick as thieves down there. there's a lot of paperwork, a lot of history, a lot of history there. including, she died in her 80s. she died of breast cancer. just a couple years ago, a descendant of hers, her owned a antique store down there, she also died of breast cancer. this was around time that geological trail, almost 250 years -- she had an enormous influence on her son her entire life. i wanted to write this book about him and how he was influenced by her. she was a single mother, raising six children in a century that wasn't very hospitable to women. women couldn't vote. they only came to vote in 1920. what we don't know, or few people now, is that women in that era could not even own property. unless they were holding on to their property, simply from a deceased husband and pass it along to the oldest son, as she was doing with fairy farm, holding it for george washington. she was a strong and capable woman because she had to be strong and capable, because it was a tough century for women. but especially so for her as a single mother. she is somebody that is fascinating. you can't find everything out about her. i had to limit it to wet i could discover. for instance, would i couldn't discover is where she is buried. nobody knows where the mother is george washington's buried. meditation rock, where she used to go, as big outcropping of rocks there -- she used to go there with her bible. and she would think and meditate. she may have been buried there. she may have been buried out the cottage in fredericksburg. nobody knows. i was limited in how much i could write about her because not everything is known about. or not everything that should be known, say, like roosevelt, we know everything about franklin roosevelt's mother or other presidential mothers of a more recent era. we know about them. mary ball washington, we don't. >> stephen, please go ahead with your question or comment. >> i. i appreciate you being on today and your insights. i would like to ask you a question on the more personal level for president reagan. it's my understanding that he appreciated his staff and when a staffer would have a significant event in their life, such as a marriage who are maybe the birth of a child, that he would personalize something to the staffer. i would appreciate you answering that. >> sure. thank you. reagan had a mixed -- how do i say it? he had a debatable relationship with his staff. some stuff, he was indifferent. with other staff, he was intellectually curious or personally involved. but on the issue of marriages, and births of babies and things like that, he was deeply involved. he would write them a letter. he would bring them into the oval office for a photograph. there was a zone of privacy around him and nancy reagan that people could not penetrate. on the other hand, he wrote a very convivial letter when he was governor and give donations. there was one famous story when he was governor. he used to get news clips every morning and get a bunch of letters every morning. he got hundreds of letters. the hate letters, the love letters, and the people in need letters. i read one from this woman who was in need, out in indiana. she was raising two children by herself. he was having a difficult time. he wrote a letter back and sent her a check for $100. she could not believe it, that the president of the united states would actually answer her letter and give her a check. she took it to the bank and the bank found out, yes, this is the president of the united states's signature. reagan later, next month, was balancing his checkbook at his desk in the oval office and he noticed that this woman had not deposited the check. so, he got her on the phone -- without a name or address or phone number or anything like that -- famous for tracking down people. they tracked this woman down. and he asked her, why? she said, i'm sorry mister president, but i wanted to keep this as a souvenir. reagan said, look, i'm going to send you another check, but don't cash both of them. there were moments of great tenderness. he would donate personal effects to the college. the many times he showed affection and warmth and kindness to people, like, for instance, the white house is -- one department, he probably loved the most, the speech writing department. he probably had the best set of speech writers in the history of america, with the exception of ted sorenson, who was john kennedy speech writer. but he had a marvelous set of speech writers. it wasn't just order takers. this was a think tank inside the white house. they would promote ideas and suggestions and things like tear down this wall and things like that. they came from the brow of the speech writers. sometimes, reagan would accept them and sometimes he wouldn't. he was involved with every one of them. he would add it. he would add. he would write things himself, whole paragraphs. he was very involved with them and they grew to really appreciate and love ronald reagan. >> here is an email from margaret and a place i think you have probably been, dickson, illinois. thank you, mr. craig shirley for your extensive information on ronald reagan. i live in dickson, illinois. the school he attended is now a museum. our public library has a large section on reagan. i will check in there to find your book. i once lived in reagan's home before it became a historic site. >> how about that? isn't that a wonderful story. yes, i've been index and many times. i have been in his boyhood town many times. i attended his church several times. there are two statues of ronald reagan and dixon. there is one with him on horseback down at the river, where he was a lifeguard, where he saved 77 lives as a high school lifeguard. then, there's other statues near his home there, the little clapboard house there in dickson. it is very important to his legacy. but it's also important to remember that he moved around many times as a child. his father was an itinerant shoe salesman, as it is well-known, and he was an alcoholic. he took jobs in many locations, including chicago, dickson, other places in and around downstate western al annoy. this is important. but there are a number of homes he lived into. including, in college, where he was a -- he went to church there us well. he wants joked, he used to serve food and a woman sorority. he joked later it was the best job he had ever had. >> george from manassas, virginia, texas into you, can you comment on the importance of the radio show president reagan did between 1976 and 1980? and he goes on to say, i heard president reagan speak in 1975. it changed me. it felt like he spoke only to me, was his comment. >> would a wonderful letter. i am glad he brought up the radio commentaries. they were so important. this is an area before cable television and the internet. you were limited in your forms of communication. television, local television, things like that. then, local radio, and syndicated radio. then, newspapers and wire services. magazines and things like that. personal letters, spoken word. communication was much more limited in that era than it is now. that made his radio pronouncements very, very important. he did over 1000 radio commentaries and his lifetime before his presidency. they were five minutes each, five days a week. so, you had to really keep your wits about you to make sure the radio commentary was topical. the radio studio and last los angeles, literally at the corner of hollywood and -- [laughs] he wrote many of them. some are written by -- some others were written by pat buchanan or peter hannaford. but he wrote the vast majority of them. and several books have been published about his radio commentaries. they were just indicated on hundreds of radio stations around the country, including a radio station in syracuse that i used to hear. millions of people listened every day. they commented on the fact of his ability to mobilize voters -- there were lots of people who listen to reagan and later became reagan-ites after his common sense commentaries. >> mark and st. paul, minnesota. hi, mark. >> it is my recollection that it is -- [inaudible] president biden indicated that trickle down economics never work. i am curious as to what mr. surely take would be on that comment? >> thank you for that question. i'm glad you brought it up. i heard that in biden's speech to congress the other night two and, of course, it was nonsense. there never was a trickle down economics. it was simply giving people back their own money. it is an unfortunate phrase that was created by stockman, who was reagan's budget director, who later designs -- he remains with a stain on his record today. it is a false argument, a false charge. it would be a waste of time to try to engage. but you can't argue with the results. in eight years, regan created 19 million new jobs. he beat inflation. he beat high interest rates. he behind flay shun. he turned around the nation's morale. the proof is in the pudding. and the proof is that reagan onyx works as an economic and cultural and social political force from 1981 to 1989. >> craig shirley, you wrote recently in newsmax that we have had great presidents and bad presidents and at the moment, we're stuck with one, joe biden, who will at most beaches mediocre. my hopes are not even that high, to be honest. >> yeah, my op-eds tend to be a little bit brighter than my book writing. i think biden's problem today is he has to fundamental a belief and government to be able to solve peoples problems. regan, when he accepted the nomination for president of the united states in detroit in 1980. he said to the assembled delegates there and to the national audience watching, don't trust me, trust yourself. and that is the essential difference between the two parties. one is the party, or should be, the party of the individual and the party of belief and themselves. and the other believes that people are inherently ineffectual in solving their own problems and government activism is necessary as a means to solve their problems. and that is the summation really of what biden said. he has historically wrong. i may write another op-ed about that. >> barbara from virginia, please go ahead with a question or comment. >> i have a comment. and the comment is, i can't believe that you sat there and said that no one made money off the iran contra affair. there is no way for you to make that statement. you have no knowledge of that. you have the c i say, everybody they knew, all the politicians that were getting paid to look the other way. and the military industrial complex, which is the corporations that around the world, which is why it was done, and who had it done. and then you say, reagan paid the price politically. big deal! he should have gone to prison! >> that is barbara in virginia. craig shirley? >> i think we should put barbara down as undecided. >> carmen, new rochelle, new york. >> good afternoon to you. mr. shirley, i've heard rumors and suspicions that when president reagan was running for the office against jimmy carter, he had representatives and iran talking to the iranian leaders as to not release the hostages because it would aid him when election time came around. i always wondered if that was true. and maybe you could shed some light on that? >> sure, thank you. it's a good question. there is no evidence. there's a book written several years ago. several books. one of them was by mr. sick, whose last name summed up his political philosophy. -- to enable reagan to win -- nothing could be further from the truth. george bush did not fly to paris, france. he didn't fly to -- he was in the u.s. the whole time. no representatives of the reagan campaign or anybody from the military, the cia, or anything like that. ever met with the delegates. these are conspiracies that have no basis in fact. they are just made up. it is just entirely untrue. i will tell you, i interviewed bruce langston, who was the sergeant there of the american embassy. i interviewed him for my book on the 1980 campaign. he said, the reason we released on the eve of the inauguration of ronald reagan, was that the iranians were terrified of reagan and that they felt they could push him to turn it around. they didn't feel like they could push him around and they were terrified that reagan would take military action, decisive military action, if they stayed in tehran. that is why they release the hostages on the eve of his inauguration. that is just a simple fact. >> for all our in-depth offers, we like to ask them what they are reading and some of their favorite books. here are the responses from craig shirley. the adventures of tom sawyer, april 1865, miracle at philadelphia, the bonfire and the vanities, and lonesome dove. currently, mr. shirley it is rating and of days, i think and grow rich, franklin and winston, and one minute to midnight. a lot of history titles there. but one stood out to me and that was napoleon hills think and grew rich. what is that about? >> this book has been around for 100 years. my grandmother, georgia, first read it when i was a young boy. she read it about 1 million times. it is kind of a similar book to other motivational books. but it is different to. the power of positive thinking by roman -- norman vincent peel, it's similar to that book. it's inspirational. it's about how you achieve success by different means, through spiritual, economic, social, cultural means. it's a book to read just for pleasure and dress to re-energize my thinking every couple of years. and i have read it for many years now. for many years, whenever i hire a new person, i gave them a copy of think and grow rich because it contained so much useful information. >> another book you tell us you are reading is cs lewis is the screw tape letters. why? >> yes. i love the as lewis. he proved that you can be a spiritual and be a libertarian. in this case, christian and libertarian. it teaches about wordsworth is the devil and what he is teaching his young word out to ruin people's lives -- and thanks to avoid and thanks to know about. like, if a house is burning down, you hand somebody a box of matches or somebody is drowning, you hand them a fire hose. it's about what is going around in society and culture and what to avoid and what to embrace. it really is a good spiritual and practical book. >> wilmer, please go ahead. >> good afternoon, mister shirley. how are you doing today? >> good. how about you? >> i'm well. i would like to ask you, what was your -- reagan documentary on showtime a few months ago? did you think that it was fairly accurate? >> what were your thoughts on it? >> my thoughts -- i found to be very interesting because in past reagan documentaries -- this one was more in-depth. i just wanted to know, since he is the reagan expert, i want to know, did he believe it was accurate or not? >> it was not accurate. it was a mess. it was made by a man who used to vote for michael dukakis when he was running for the president of the united states. one person i -- i was not approach because i think he knew i would not cooperate. one person who did cooperate, who later told me, he said he had been duped. he had been sold a bill of goods. it was electively edited. it was another liberal attack, unfortunately, two's march the reagan legacy. a much better treatment of reagan's life is an epic movie coming out in the next several months, called reagan. i happen to know the producer. he is a straight-up guy. he's using several reagan boot -- books. it's not a documentary. it's a theatrical movie. dennis kuwait is playing reagan. and several well-known actors are playing in it as well. this will be a much more accurate portrayal of reagan's life and career. that documentary was so sorely lacking. >> when you say the producer is a straight-up guy, it's not a way of saying, he is coming at it from a conservative point of view? >> actually, i don't know is politics. i know him socially, but i don't know him politically. but i have known him over many years. he's been working on this movie for many years, raising the fonds and the actors. and i've always judged him. i've been on several political panels with him and i have always judged him to be a straight-up guy. he has no agenda. there have been many documentaries that have been anti-reagan. there are a few that are pro rake in. i am looking forward to this movie because, i'm not sure, maybe i'm not going to be happy with it. but i believe it's going to be a factual accounting of his life and career. >> we often have heard over the past four years about the media and donald trump. did ronald reagan face a hostile media? >> you betcha! downright hostile media. it was despicable. they endorsed jimmy carter for president in 1980 and endorsed, i believe, every democrat running sense stevenson in 1952. their newspaper coverage of this heinous towards reagan. same in the war times. three networks were very rough on reagan all the years. that's why they're used to use the phrase, talking over the media. -- networks had to, as a courtesy -- support for tax cuts -- the white house staff knew that he could not get a fair shake from the media. so, he faced a very hostile media. not probably as hostile as trump's because it was a professional governance that tempered the media back then that is less prevalent today. you know well the issues like individual shows and things like that were much more respectful of both sides of the aisle than they are today. now, they're just downright hostile. abc, nbc, cbs, the washington post, the new york times -- that is why alternative media is growing up around the three networks. that is why fox and newsmax and the washington admits -- and other broadcast outlets, where people who are on the right feel like they can get a fair shake or at least get a chance to tell their point of view without it being filtered or edited. >> craig shirley is the author of four biographies on ronald reagan, a couple more in the works. he's written about world war ii, another one in the works. he's also written about newt gingrich and mary ball washington, the mother of george washington. he's been our guest on in-depth in book tv for the past two hours. thank you. >> thank you very much. it has been a lot of fun. >> hello and welcome to our events at the cato institute on the stupidity of war. john mueller has been an eminent professor in this domain. and it's great that we're here to celebrate his latest book and his quest to challenge conventional wisdom. we are taking questions today

Related Keywords

Alabama , United States , United Kingdom , Minnesota , California , Russia , Syracuse , New York , Woman , Berkeley , Torun , Kujawsko Pomorskie , Poland , Tehran , Iran , Hollywood , Sacramento , Panama , Panama Canal , Panama General , Chicago , Illinois , Cape Cod , Florida , Georgia , Japan , New Hampshire , Fredericksburg , Virginia , Texas , Vietnam , Republic Of , Indiana , Indonesia , Simi Valley , Washington , London , City Of , Germany , New Rochelle , Ellsworth , Hyde Park , Pacific Ocean , Oc , , Clinton Library , France , Turkey , Americans , America , Soviets , Soviet , British , Japanese , American , Norman Vincent , Peter Hannaford , Albert Schweitzer , Nancy Pelosi , Joe Biden , Ronald Reagan , Jim Baker , George Bush , George Washington , Reagan , John Mueller , Ted Sorenson , Henry Clay , Fred Ryan , Al Gore , Newt Gingrich , Adolf Hitler , Nancy Reagan , Craig Shirley , Tom Sawyer , Don Regan , Peter Reagan , Los Angeles , Roy Cohn , Matt Ryan , Gerald Ford , Jimmy Carter , Mikhail Gorbachev , Gordon Humphrey , Barack Obama , Eleanor Roosevelt , George W Bush , Milton Freeman , Newt King , Richard Nixon , Mel Thompson ,