Journalist and author john farrell. He discusses his book, Richard Nixon, the life. Brian john farrell, better known as jack, author of the book Richard Nixon, the life. At the very end of your book in the footnotes, the source notes, you say this. He hoped that billy graham or Norman Vincent peele would handle the prayers this is his funeral and doesnt want a catholic or jew to participate. What was that all about . John this was at his funeral. Nixon came from a california nixon came from a california background. When he was growing up, it was the outback. It was orange groves and hills and a very small towns in between. He grew up with a certain provincial bigotry. I think he got some of that from his father, who was an unlearned man. And over the years, nixon learned to deal with it because he had to. Nixon could do almost anything if he had do. Like henryt advisors butinger, who were jewish, in private, against his enemies who happened to be jewish, he could be very ugly. I think this was sort of a blanket statement. Holdeman had his own biases, but perhaps he took it down a little more severely than it sounds. Nixon definitely wanted a protestant, mainstream, White American burial. Brian i found the last 120 pages where there were source notes, not a part of the narrative in your book, some of the most interesting stuff. And anybody watching, usually people are older that watch is kind of a program, they are going to know who Richard Nixon was. I will not go through all of that in the details. That is why i am focusing on this. With that in mind, i want you to hear something that you know about from one of the tapes. First of all i will ask you, did holdeman know that nixon had a taping system . And secretman service and secret Service Technicians were the only ones. Brian this is holdeman and nixon talking in the oval office in 1971. We have it on the screen. Listen carefully. Brian they both know they are on tape. What in the world are they talking about that for . John they knew they were on tape, but it would take far too much intellectual concentration and effort to talk all the time for the tape recorder. And he was confident that he could maintain control on it. He had been eisenhowers Vice President , and he had seen eisenhower and truman make the vast claims of executive privilege. He thought he would be able to safeguard his tapes and papers forever. Nobody else would ever hear about them. The best part about the about them. That there tapes is are ramblings. They are spewings. They are nixon talking off the top of his head. They dont show any of the positive signs of nixon, and miy will be this huge llstone around his neck. Someone tries to write something nice about him, saying he was a decent president , he did things for the environment, presented a health care plan, he created the Environmental Protection agency. Someone tries to writeto something drop him back down on the list of president s. It is very revealing. It is fantastic for a historian. We have two or three presidencies in a row where we have kennedy, johnson, and nixon caught on tape talking to their aides. Nothing like this ever before. Imagine if you had washington and jefferson and hamilton talking on take in the cabinet. On tape in the cabinet. They will forever be a hindrance to the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon. Brian how long did you work on this book . John six years. Brian why did you do it . John i had a very smart editor at double day, who looked five years into the future and said, i think five years from now people will be ready with all the new stuff coming out, and this whole new audience of xers, thereand gen will be an interest to see who nixon was. Bill thomas came to me and asked if i would like to do it. Took me five seconds to say yes. Brian in your acknowledgment in this book, which is a logbook close to 700 pages. John if you only want to read the text, it is only 500 pages. [laughter] it is aimed at people that want to read the story in a readable way. Then i had to do 200 pages of footnotes, because i know journalists and academics would insist to see where this stuff came from, but also because there are lots of interesting questions that you answered. There are subtleties, when the average reader wants to read about dick and pat in watergate, are not wanting to get into a debate over the role of cia in watergate. I save that for the footnotes. Brian you say that Stephen Ambrose took three volumes to tell a story of the 37th president. Then you list all that is new. How many books like this on the whole life of Richard Nixon have been written . John since the turnofthecentury, i think there is only one person to do a wellrounded biography, and that was evan thomas. Cia in watergate. I save that for the footnotes. Everyone wrote in the 1990s. They are good books. It is amazing how much they were able to get to the essence of the man and find revealing stuff. With several of them, he cooperate. He cooperated. Brian you have a long list of things that have come since Stephen Ambrose. You say he did not have any access to but a few of the 3700 hours of white house tape recordings. How many of those did you listen to or read about . John fortunately there are three or four massive books of transcripts, and several places online in the Miller Center at university of virginia, and also luke victors website nixon tapes. You dont have to listen to everything. There are two ways to listen, one is for greatest hits, and the others to pack a day and listen through. There was one day i text and picked and listened through. The pentagon papers day i did month september 1971. Other than that, i jumped around. They are very hard to listen to. The ones in the oval office on the telephone are crystal clear, but the ones in the executive office hideaway office, there are cluttering cups he talks away from the microphone. Brian the 400 oral histories of nixons friends and families college. By whittier when did that become public . John within the last two or three years. Brian what was unique about those . John whittier was where he went to college. When did that become public . John college. They went and talked to all his old quaker relatives, all the old relatives from yorba linda. All the people that used the store in whittier that his father ran on the highway outside of town. Itit was, i think, i hope, that the opening chapters that captured the early Richard Nixon captured the early Richard Nixon and formation of his capture are made far more richer. Brian i will try to come back to this. Nixons grand jury testimony how did not become public and when . John both of them were the results of court decisions. I know the nixon was. Debate very contentious nixon was a spy, about what happened when in the progression. Here you have nixon and whittaker chambers, who accused hiss of being a spy. All congressional leaders told to raise their hand on the penalty of perjury, saying what they did over the past six. Past six months. To me, contemporary testimony given under of is the best he will get as a historian. Was ak absolutely he spy. Brian where you a donter . A doubter . John there were books written a secret russian eavesdropping case brian was that Allen Weinstein . John no. We can look it up. [laughter] brian another thing on the h. R. Haldeman h. R. Haldeman did telephone conversations, all of which has been opened to scholars. John nixonjohn nixon is so woa biographer, because there is nothing more revealing than haldemans diary, which he kept faithfully every night and wrote said, what nixon s mood was. Kissinger, has this brilliant analytical mind. Put together three volumes of memoirs. Almost immediately after he left government service. They are just magical sources. You could go back to them time and time again. Brian what book is this for you . John the third. I did a biography i did a biography of speaker tip oneill, then one on Clarence Darrow. Brian where did you grow up . John huntington, new york, than rockville, maryland. I worked for the denver post twice. Had worked there in denver for five years. I went to the boston globe for 25 years. Then i came back to the denver post in washington. Brian how long have you not worked for a newspaper . John since 2003. The industry had begun to crater. I had the first book under my dont and decided under my belt and decided to do this fulltime. In your book you make the made in thet nixon frostnixon interviews in 1927. Made in the i dont agree with that what brought me down was a coup, conspiracy, etc. I brought myself down. Gave them the sword, and they stuck it in, and they twisted relish. If i was in their position, i would have done the same. Brian how long did it take david frost to get to relish. That point . John almost at the end of the interview. Nixon almost the interview like opened the interview almost like a filibuster. Nixon talked on and on. For was great frustration on the frost side that they were not pinning him down. They knew they would get to watergate. They knew they didnt want to be filibustered the way he did it on vietnam. Frost does this dramatic thing where he takes his clipboard and puts it on the ground and says, mr. President , i am going to put this aside and let you have a chance to Say Something you will be sorry if you dont come to grips with what you have done to the american people. It is a great moment. Brian not as great as the final goodbye in the east room of the white house. That, i think,that, i think, ise greatest moments of American History bar none. Did you ever did you ever meet . John no. On one chapter of his inauguration, he is driving down pennsylvania avenue with an open topped limousine waiting to the crowds. Crowds. Suddenly antiwar protesters start throwing cans and rocks. They have to put nixon back inside the limo. s presidency got off to a rocky start because of vietnam. I was there as a spectator in the crowd. That was the only time i saw him in person. Brian his father, you have a lot about him in the book. Where did you learn it . John mostly from the oral histories from whittier. It is amazing how many times you come across the lord belligerent the word belligerent, stubborn, rude. Just sounded to be a very unpleasant man. Richard nixon was a very sensitive guy, very sensitive child. Had tw brotherso, died as a youth. E in some ways was bruised by that dad. In nixonland, the author talks about the sturdy political trope that all politicians are trying to prove they are good in the of a fatherticism from whom they can never win his approval. Brian how did you go about doing this . Physically, where were you . Of ajohn havent gotten the intract three years earlier, could have done the research 30 minutes from my house. Everything was at the National Archives in greenbelt, maryland. In those three years before i contract, everything was up and moved to yorba linda, california, which was then the private Nixon Library, now a National Archive library. I spent a lot of time in the extendedstay motel up and movea linda, california, which was in yorba linda. Brian of all the things you got access to, to what made the biggest what made the biggest impact on you . John the biggest news nugget on have had Robert Caroll with his great series on lyndon johnson. One of his editors gave the advice, turn the page. Keep going, even though you are finding nothing great. Some time ago in 2007, something nixon had fought for years to keep private, his personal and campaign papers were released to the public. If you go through them, page after page of haldeman saying okay, this is how we will deal with the bumper stickers. This is what the polls show in alabama, or, this is where we are going to go next week. If you keep turning the pages, as bob told me, i came across this section of notes haldeman kept. He used to sit down with nixon. Haldeman had a yellow pad. Everything nixon told him to do, haldeman what writedown on the yellow pad. He would put a big checkmark next to it when it was done. Here was a yellow pad where down, we arees going to monkeywrench Lyndon Johnsons peach initiative. This was something that had been rumored nixon denied it at the time to lyndon johnson, and frost andto david denied it to his biographers, always said he never played any role in doing that, but in fact he had used a frost and gobetweeno his Campaign Aide and had her communicate to the south vietnamese that they would get in a better deal if they backed off from the peace process, and they got elected. The war went on. Withobably went too far to the impression that the war would not have gone on had he not done this. Certainly lbj thought there was a good chance a peace deal was possible. Whatever nixon did to disrupt it, i make the argument in the book this was far worse than watergate given the loss of life that followed. Long answer. [laughter] brian in your notes, you say he wanted the job but did not get it. John there is a section of not just haldemans scrawled notes, but also it shows a degree of selfconsciousness, but haldeman had collected them together. M. O. s, timeslips showing communication between the Nixon Campaign and anna. Nixons lawyers major we did not see it for four years. Brian this is personal stuff. It new, but it is from other books you have went to. You say some positive things about professor erwin gelman as most premier most premier authorities. John he has taken it upon himself to write Richard Nixons history and politics starting with his book the contender. He just did a book called the apprentice and the president was president ial years. Through three or four times as many as i have. Seen those the collection he knows the collection in yorba linda more than 90. More than id o. Brian where would you put him on the list of people who have done books on Richard Nixon . John is in good health and given good health and his goal to chronicle the rest of the presidency, this will be similar to caros work. Brian he notes nixon was taken 3 tranquilizers during the day. He was also taking a stimulant and could lead to mood psychological dependence. He had a potentially addictive drug before sleeping. His physicians also prescribed the barbiturate seconal. Thats heavy stuff. John two things. One was nixon was a tightly wound guy. In the 1950s, he was treated badly by eisenhower. His rise was so quick, he went from nobody to the vice presidency in six years. He was overwhelmed by it, huge battlethis between eisenhower and joe mccarthy. It is no surprised he took to selfmedicating himself when he had these symptoms of tension. Thehe hand, if you remember famous Jacqueline Suzanne dolls,alley of the this is what americans in the 1960s did. They helped a lot of pills. They popped a lot of pills. Drinking and the use of tranquilizers and sleeping pills is as common then as antianxiety drugs are today. Brian at one point in the process did you write all of these source notes . John i keep making the same mistake over and over again, which is not doing them while i write the book. Then i have to find i have to dig back through the files. I think i did everything i need on a footnote, then have to go back and do it over again. The next note i have to swear to myself i will have them all done. Brian it seems to me your source notes were unusual. Were you aware of that when you were writing them . John i have a direct editor who encourages me to do that. Is for people who like what is the phrase then you go on the next page to include this. In telephone conversations with kissinger and snow crust, on october 11, he said in telephone conversations where did that come from . Access to that conversation . John that was the result of a court conversation . John that was the result of a court case filed to get the kissinger telecons, as theyre caled. I think it was filed by the National Security archive, or public citizen. They got access to thousands of pages. Secretary would have conversations with a foreign nation, he would take notes. This practice went back for as long as there was telephones. Kissinger fought very hard. He one then kept in his control he want them kept in his control throughout his lifetime. For access to them within the last decades. Brian how excessive was the drinking . John if i had to pick one person on the skill of great reliability, he was one. People that when they spoke to it was either i agreed with them exactly, or they spoke such sense that i was overwhelmed by listening to them. Historysly long oral said it was a problem. We shouldnt exaggerate it, but it was a problem. How many have you talked to that were close to Richard Nixon . John i talked to a dozen. I talked to his secretary of defense. ,s im talking to mel, i say you were a close friend of jerry ford, who succeeded nixon and pardoned him. Were a close friend of nixon. Did you play any role in nixons resignation . Told nixon yeah, i he would be pardoned. Ford, who succeeded nixon deniet the years that there was any deal that he would be pardoned. And here is mel in his mid90s telling me this. People havehe told me again. Finally the third time i sent, you are telling me something that will be very controversial, because both president s always insisted there was never a deal, and now you are conveying that nixon was going to get a pardon if he resigned. He stops me oh, i predicted. This was my conclusion that i predicted. What do you do with that . Do you make it a selling point that you have gotten proof of a deal . Or do you realize that a 95yearold man doing his best to remember these things, having written a memoir which does not say this at all, may have been mistakes . Brian let me go to another source note. He gave him a whole week. At the same meeting, haig presented forward with the option of pardoning nixon. Nixon subsequently resigned, but and and ford insist no explicit quitting crew chrome was struck. Quid pro quo was struck. John i think everybody had a good idea of what was going to happen. There was a congressional investigation after the pardon. All of fords aides then and since have testified to this meeting between ford and all of. Cant say that you are dangling a pardon. It is a long complicated history. Yeah, i was ah gobetween. It would have been a nice new piece. Used me how many i knew that were close to nixon. I talked to a few i was not quite as diligent in talking to guys, guys, because i basically questioned their memory. Having done the book about Clarence Darrow, i have a great skepticism about testimony from memory. Tip oneill, Richard Nixon, which was the most fun and interesting . John tip is always the oldest child so i will always like tip. Clarence darrow, i adore the personality of the man and nixon was by far the most fascinating. It was a great intellectual challenge. And also, you cannot be honest and look at Richard Nixons life and not have sympathy for him. She really did have a tough life. He was trying to be a good guy , and yet he had this part of his character, this great, shakespearean fatal flaw that brought him down. Brian this is from your source. Politicians have been known to exaggerate, this is you saying this, politicians have been know to exaggerate, and nixon was a veteran liar. John definitely. He once told lynn barnett, you are never going to succeed in politics because youre not a good enough liar. Nixon was a Great High School debater, and in high school and college debate, you have to take the slides of an argument. Both sides of an argument. You have to be able to argue the positive and then argue the negative. It gives you such a flexibility of mind and such a willingness to see that the fact can be turned in your advantage and nixon, throughout his political career, was the best at that. I always like trying to see how his actions could be explained in a way that could turn the tables on the other guy. If that meant lying, that meant lying. That was during the pentagon papers case. Had taken ther secret history of the vietnam war and given to the new york times. The great irony, and the great revealing thing about that story was it did not go up to the next to the nixon years, just the kennedy years. The instinct was, let the democrats tear themselves apart on this. Because it was a threat to nixon s further conduct of the war, because kissinger egged him on, they launched in into this fight. He lost it. He had this big antileaking drive that brought this group of men called the plumbers into his white house and it was the same plumbers who were the guys caught at watergate. Brian as i said in the beginning, it was not supposed to be an area from start to finish. This is a another thing that i have not heard. Nixon was offered a chairmanship of the Dreyfus Corporation and a chance to serve as commissioner of major league baseball. You can see nixon again in the interviews, he got 60,000 advance for six crises of one of his books before elected president , of which 20,000 was paid to one of the several aides that helped him. Dreyfus corporation . John the Dreyfus Corporation, he was friends with mr. Dreyfuss , and his first name escapes me. The more interesting thing to that one is i am preparing a speech i have to give in boston at fenway park and it is going to be about nixon. Nixon was a huge sports fan. There was at this instance in the midst of the watergate crisis were a Reporter Asks him in a chance encounter who he thinks the greatest players of all time are, and nixon pulls out all the books with all the batting averages and he makes not one list, but two lists. One list is before integration and the other is after integration. After baseball was integrated by his onetime good friend jackie robinson. Hunter thompson, who hated him, the gonzo writer who hated nixon carrideitics once did a in his limousine and they talked football the whole time and that afternoon, the next dispatch Hunter Thompson wrote he is not a bad guy. He really knows what linebackers do and what makes a good linebacker and a good safety. He seems to have mellowed. Nixon and sports is fascinatingt he probably would have been far overqualified to be commissioner of baseball, which is why he turned it down no doubt. Brian you also said he got 600,000 in the interviews that he did. That was a long time ago in the 1970s. This footnote money was momentarily an issue. Our only an office while lier in office that theis very ironic president often known for that wonderful clip where he says, im not a crook. Incredibly these high standards when he left office. He had the reference for the thead reference through office, but there were things he was not going to do because they would tarnish the office. He never took money for paid speeches. Brian another story you recount. Do you remember that story . John the story i tell in the arena is that he went to williamsburg virginia for a conference. This young there, girl came up to him hate and the f. Him in ace in the face. That was his recollection. I could not find it in any News Coverage of the trip. Maybe it happened in private, but maybe it didnt happen at all. I found a memo from pat buchanan that described not a young girl, but a young man shouting from the crowd, how does it feel to be a more criminal . Criminal . When we talk about nixon lying and exaggerating, that planted the seed in his brain that over time became bigger and put him with having been the victim of being spat on. Brian has anyone else from your research in the last 50 years or so lied from the presidency beside Richard Nixon . John absolutely. Free of the most amazing presidencies in a row. 100 years from now they will be grouped together as the cold war president s, and rank on how good they did. Since we are still sitting here and not in radioactive ash, they did a good job. These huge swings back and forth. Did some horrible aberrational things like hiring the mafia to assassinate fidel castro. The full report of the church committee, which went into a history of administration after administration that spied on americans, opened their mail, bugged their telephones. Not just the mob, people like Richard Nixon. Lennon. E like john they were under pressure. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the civil war. Gned thegned adams si alien and sedition act. During times of crisis, you can make excuses. Morality, i dont think when you look at roosevelt, truman, eisenhower, kennedy, johnson, and nixon, that there is a huge bit of difference as to what they would do to advance their own political future and country. Brian i had a question about the media. You have an interesting source i will ask in a moment. Lets watch not. Did you ever ask yourself why so many in the media are against you . They did not agree with what i stood for. This was long before watergate. They all thought he was innocent. If they did not think he was innocent, they did not want them exposed, because as one individual said, it would be a reflection on the Foreign Policy of the roosevelt administration, which was not my goal at all. It was difficult. Not that i did not have many friends in the media. Media people, while many of them try to be objective, they also have strong convictions. Frankly they generally are not particularly enamored with conservatives, as i am. Probably moream reasonable than some of the conservatives they go after. What do you think . John i cant argue with anyone that he said, except he does not tell the whole story. It is a fascinating relationship. During the narrative, i do a couple pages on where he stands right at that moment. It really did twist his perception and paranoia over the years. She first ran in Southern California as a conservative, and at that time the Los Angeles Times was the conservative voice in california politics. They heavily promoted him into the United States senate. He had a very jaundiced view of free press. Either they are forming and will advance their career because they are conservative, or they are liberals that will tear me down because of that. Brian act as your source notes. Notes. To your source years later amid the watergate bushal, george h. W. Produced affidavits brian where did you find all that . John nixons defenders over the years have attempted from time to time assemble collections of past misdeeds to show that nixon was the victim of a double standard. I think their argument is well taken. Stepe carried everything a further, a step too far. He frankly was not as good as it. All of these people got caught, so they were not very good at it either. The way the watergate burglars, the way their team was assembled was clumsy. They were cynical burnt out intelligence agents that were supervised by young men on nixon s staff who just wanted to be the cat that brought the dead mouse to the president s door. They are all eager for advancement, trying to be more macho than the next guy. The interesting thing about watergate is that it is something as small as a bugging, compared to the history you just read, which is accepted practice. J edgar hoover saw that times were changing, and that these practices would not be seen in the 1970s the way they have been seen in earlier years. Over pulled back hoover pulled back. That is what led it next them have that capability in the house and ultimately what got him into such trouble. Brian did you talk to either one of his daughters . John i did not. Julie was nice in that every once in a while i went find an i would find an answer know. Nly she would most cases she would write back. There is a famous photo of the eisenhower inaugural. Julie is there with her dad. David is looking know. Most cases she would write back. At her. It is cute knowing the history that years later they would fall in love and marry. Said, he is not looking at me the way you think hes looking at me. I had been in a sledding accident and had this big black eye. He was staring at this little girl with a big black eye. You can see that she had a shiner. They loaned me the book. The 3 nixon women, if you go to the dictionary and look up longsuffering, their picture should be there. Paranoiaerstand their after seeing how their father was treated, but they can do much better to follow the example of the truman family. The treatment family opened up letters to his wife. David mccullough wrote a book that elevated truman 10 steps up the president ial latter. Someday they will do that, and someone will write a book better than mine because it will have more from nixons diaries, it will have more letters from jul trisha. Right now they are still pretty burnt. Brian why, in your opinion, does julie talk more than tricia . John i think it is a case of personality. There is a case on the tapes aree nixon and haldeman analyzing both personalities. Saying julie is so vocally that the country just loves her, where tricia is more of a pristine beauty. Nixon says, yeah, tricia is more like me, more contained, more alone, and julie is the one with a milliondollar personality. That is the perception. Brian my understanding is that nixon, his youngest brother, is still alive. Did you meet with him . John having what i said about the other 90yearold guys, nothing was more important to me than the day i spent with ed nixon. First of all, he looks like dick, and he walks like dick, and you get a sense of what the nixon men were like, and with that family was like. He was a geologist, a scientist. He does not have the most strategic view of politics, but has this really keen nixonian wry sense of humor. Is very enlightening to me. Which is another reason why i wish julie and tricia with sit down and just do oral histories for the library. Brian what you think of the Frank Gannett interviews, and how many were there . John six, nine, Something Like that . Brian he was a friend of john he was the ghost writer. Frank does not lik like the word ghostwriter. He helped write memoirs along with diane sawyer. They helped nixon sit down. Frank him to open up on many subjects. Remember nixon calling himself paranoid about the press. Brian here is in in a short clip about the resignation. Henry was very thoughtful. He came up to me and wanted to walk to the residence with me. He said, i always do this after the important speeches. As we got to the door of the residence, he said, mr. President , history is going to record that you are a great president. I said, henry, that will depend on who writes the history. I made a few calls to people. Outside. Chanting a reminder of the vietnam days, but this time the chant was jail to the chief that did not bother me. I had been heckled by experts. John do you know what is great aboutthat did not bother that . He loved the fact that he will always be famous. Even as the only president to resign, even recounting those events, he is delighted by the idea that this nobody could from yorba linda so dominated the 20th century, even though it him, cost him for so much grief and almost killed him there is a part of nixon who is grateful. Brian there is a back note quoting Henry Kissinger, saying he did not like him. John consider did not like him . Kissinger did not like him . He is a good example of nixon being able to either instinctively or brilliantly find somebody and make him his tool. Kissinger with haldeman lasted longer than anybody. Kissinger was very good at what he did. Argument withic them over vietnam that i carry out through the vietnam chapters. There is no denying they saw the thebetween russia and soviet union and china and exploited the way they did. This led to the opening of china and changed our world forever. Nixons goal in china was to give us a couple of decades of and he gave us probably 50 years of peace. Brian Henry Kissinger is quoted the soviet union and china and exploited the way they did. The tapes show him kissing upas. Said he was a phony because all after speeches. Mr. President , you are the greatest. John somewhere in three volumes of memoirs, kissinger says he has a great way of witty, selfdeprecating nod towards the on this. Towards the mr. President , you are the greatest. John obvious. Says the worst things about these tapes is there going to show me as a kiss up and in some cases they are just awful. Brian did he talk to you . John no, kissinger did not talk , but again, with Henry Kissinger, he has written probably five or six books on the nixon years. He has told repeatedly, given speeches. There is a limit to what i could have asked him. Should i have asked him one more time, are you a war criminal . Roger stone who works for Richard Nixon and has a huge tattoo on his back of nixons face, he was here talking about his own book. Lets watch what he had to say about Richard Nixon and donald trump. The first person to imagine a from presidency was not me but former president Richard Nixon. I was working for nixon doing political chores in his postpresident ial years and he met President Trump in George Steinbrenners box in Yankee Stadium. They hit it off. Called me the next day and says, i met your man. He really could go all the way. John roger in private sitdown in part is not the same as in public. Me a private interview about his experience with nixon. Brian what is the difference between public and private . Ins books and on television is a bit of a show man, in but he can speak to youn nixon with the depth and insight. I dont believe that. ,ike with Clarence Darrow people over time can convince themselves what they want to believe. Brian you dont believe Richard Nixon said that . John it is a stretch for me to believe that roger stone would end up working for donald trump all these years later and remember that Richard Nixon met donald trump in a box in Yankee Stadium and came back one day and said he is going to be president one day. American history is filled i cant tell you hundreds of relatives sat in their kitchen that young said, dick, he that young dick, he is a bright guy and he is going to be president. Everybody predicts president s are going to be president. Brian hand in your a lot of havewittier oral histories according that after the fact. Again you did not answer a question i asked you earlier. It was really about where did write this . Where was your base . John my write this . Where was your base . John my days my base was here. I live right off the beltway near the mormon temple. In 20 or 30 years. Set the problem is that they cant put everything in the Nixon Library online. It would take 200 or 300 years. If you are too lazy, you will only do the online stuff. I spend hours watching cspan archives. On have a lot about nixon been. On cspan. If you only do that, you dont get into the texture that can be done by turning the been. On cspan. Darrow and nixon books, a lot is online. Brian may be an unfair question page. Both the if you were going to ta chapter in this book that everyone should read that is new, different, unusual, what would it be . Big it does not have the historical piece of the puzzle think contributed, but i the piece on the cambodian incursion, that chapter is relatively short. Its got lots of new stuff. It has great quotes from the tapes people have never gone before. I like that one. Love the 1946 campaign. Brian john farrell, that are known as jack. The book is love the 1946 campa. Brian nixon the life. Called richard thanks for joining us. John thank you. For free transcripts or to give us your comments about this q. Org. , visit us at q we are also available as hes been podcast cspan podcasts. Coming up tonight on cspan, events from 2017, including othersown actors and discussing issues they care to steve we talked televisions influence on politics. We start tonights primetime programming with celebrities Ashton Kutcher, jennifer garner, and ryan phillippe. After Ashton Kutcher is the cofounder of an organization childrenorn fenders of defenders of children. He testified before the Senate Foreign relations committee