democratic central committee, representing district 17 which encompasses rock phil and the beautiful city of gaithersburg, welcome. gaithersburg is a city that promotes that humanities which >> we are pleased to bring you this five this event, thanks to the support of our sponsors and volunteers, when you see them around, please take the time to say thanks. i would like to get right to this event here but first a few announcements. please silence all your devices. await. await. go ahead. silence all devices. thank you. and if you are on social media today and we hope that you are, please use the hashtag gbf gaithersburg book festival. your feedback is valuable to us, there will be surveys available at our tent and on our website. by submitting a survey you will be submitting a drawing to win a 100 dollars a gift card. i encourage you to enter the survey. at the end of this presentation, mr. surely will be signing books and copies are on sale in this tent and around the grounds here so make sure you take advantage of having an author like mr. shirley. take advantage. a quick word about buying books, this is a free event but it does and i does help the book festival if you buy a book. the more books we sell at our events, the more publishers will want to send their authors here to speak with us. purchasing this for a partner, politics and prose, helps support one of the world's great independent bookstores, it benefits our local economy and supports local jobs. if you enjoy this program and you are in a position to do so, please buy some books. let me introduce this steamed panel that we have here. tackling the familiar, or that which we believe to be familiar, is a challenge for even the most seasoned author. the task is even more daunting when the familiars and icon, and a hero to many. done well, the best books often eliminated subject which done well, the best books often illuminate a subject which we are already familiar with. they provide texture, context, nuance. the really good once transcend and speak to the sole. craig shirley is that author, reagan rising is that book. the author is a member of the charter members of the conservative party and this comes from his love of reagan and conservatism honestly. reagan rising offers a glimpse into the lives of one of our most celebrated personalities. more than a mere biography however, it chronicles the journey of a man who having just suffered a devastating defeat in 1976, picks himself up and becomes a leader of a new brand of conservatism. ultimately achieving an improbable and overwhelming victory for years later. trump's presidency perhaps offers the perfect backdrop against which to study reagan's ascendance. with the republican party struggling to define itself, reagan rising offers meaningful insight into a development of a philosophy that is served as a touchstone for conservatives across the country. reagan's optimistic and unify conservative philosophize to and spices day. as a special aside, researching what i say this introduction, i saw that mr. shirley played instrumental role in having the sport of across designated as the state sport of maryland. for that, i'm sure he will always have a special place in the heart of all maryland. gaithersburg, join me in welcoming craig shirley. (applause) interviewing mr. surely today will be juan williams who needs no introduction but we are going to introduce them anyway. emmy award winner and fox news contributor since 1997, celebrated author in his own right, mister williams, the prolific chronicler of the civil rights experience in america. like this titles includes eyes on the prize, american civil rights year 1954 to 1965. and thurgood marshall and american revolutionary. there are ten more but for the sake of time i truncated to those two. finally, as the treasure of the montgomery county democratic party, the democrats announced an almost two to one majority over registered republican in our county. so one, welcome to friendly territory. if you ever need a respite from fox news, we welcome you here with open arms. gaithersburg, please join me in welcoming juan williams. [applause] >> a pleasure to be here with craig shirley. who i have known since the reagan white house. back in the eighties. i did not know about lacrosse, that is fabulous. but i want to start with the very basic question for the people who have been so kind to come into our tents here at the book festival and ask why did you write this book because you have written extensively about reagan before? >> first, thank you. first of all, i guess if you are in friendly territory i am behind enemy lines. that's all. i'm retired from all that anyway. i did think that for making us wait, we ought to rename his tv show before. i wrote this because it is an important part of american history. an important part of reagan's history because it is never been explored before. like winston churchill, martin gilbert was -- okay. i have a big mouth. martin gilbert, who is winston churchill's most famous biographer, and most important biographer, wrote a dozen books on churchill, various aspects of his life, and one of his books was called the wilderness years. and it was about that time in the late twenties and early thirties when churchill was cast aside by the conservatives in england, great britain. and embarked on a new career of writing and doing radio commentary and lecturing. and it mirrors reagan in many ways because reagan in 76, as you pointed out, was cast aside by his party. and churchill was warning about spending most of his radio commentary and his columns warning about the rising threat of adolf hitler and nazism, something that most people in england at the time we're ignoring. reagan spent his wilderness years writing, doing radio commentary, warning about the rising threat of the soviet union. there is a lot of parallels between churchill's wilderness years and reagan's wilderness years. of course, there are many, many issues we could get into later, it's serendipitous but it's also because he forced them to the four. issues like prop 13 in california, the panama canal treaties, other issues. you recovering, i was involved with, they come to the four that helped produce his election in 1980. and that is why i wrote it. douglas brinkley, terrific historian who edited the reagan diary said the realm of reagan scholarship is beginning to open up and i think every time i sit down to think about ronald reagan, i think about a new aspect of his life and his career and his times that has been either either under reported or hasn't been covered it all. >> let's get to friendly territory behind these lines, and talk about the elephant pun intended, in the room, which is donald trump. when i. >> no, no. i mean no is the answer to this question. >> i see, you've seen into the crystal ball. >> here's the question, people say well gosh, how would you compare -- i >> wouldn't. >> reagan, to trump and then they say, what does come of republican ideology, and conservatism from reagan to trump? >> you covered the reagan white house row many years? >> for. >> and the reagan campaign in 84. >> let me ask you, is there anything about donald trump that reminds you remotely, of ronald reagan? >> no. you saw the crystal ball. i must tell you, so many people in the republican party really hold ronald reagan up as this inspiring figure. >> and with good reason. >> a paradigm. and conservatism, but then they'll say they are now with trump. >> that is just a matter of practicality. you can be with reagan but you can also be in the modern age and say, i am for trump because he wasn't hillary or i'm for trump for whatever reasons. he is taking on a bureaucracy or whatever else, but comparing the two individuals, there is no, my wife is looking at me. i have been guilty for 35 years. reagan was an intellectual, reagan was thoughtful, reagan was an american conservative, reagan was kind, he was gentle, he was thoughtful, even in his diaries he wouldn't swear. he would write de, dash dash dash, instead of writing. that's how gentle he was. there was a story that when he was president, he had one of the first, second female secret service agents. he kept standing aside as he's walking through a door to let the secret service agents go first. he said, my mother told me ladies always go first. the head of the treasury department had to sit down and say mister president, she is not a woman, she is an agent. she is a professional and you have to allow her to do her job. reagan was very reluctant. i can't imagine anybody ever saying anything like that about donald trump. reagan was a populist, he was an american conservative. he was committed to his principles but he was also flexible. he was kind. he was thoughtful, not always particularly thoughtful, but more so than most men. we don't turn to me for evidence of reagan's importance to american history. john patrick davis, who in many ways, was the official historian of the american left in the 20th century, he wrote books about labor movement, euro books about the civil rights movement, he wrote books about the environmental movement. his last book, he had been abruptly in the sixties. and he had done battle with then governor reagan over the whole free speech movement and the rights of berkeley. rhetorical battle, not physical battle. his last book is called ronald reagan, faith, freedom in the making of history. in this book, this liberal historian rates ronald reagan as one of our four greatest presidents. he compares into washington, abraham lincoln, franklin roosevelt, because they saved or freed many, many people. he said that is the best definition of greatness, is that didn't american president save or free many many people? >> when we think about reagan and the republican party conservatism, i go back to barry goldwater, to 64, to reagan's famous speech. for the sake of this audience, before we take him into the wilderness, which is where you take him here, explain to us how he comes to being. because one of the great distinctions between reagan and trump is that reagan has a strong political history before he challenges the party establishment. >> he had already had a lot of executive experience as head of the screen actors guild. a couple years ago, reagan negotiated the residual's which became important to a lot of old, retired actors and actresses who are out of work, we're still getting stipends and residual's from the work they had done in tv and movies years ago, because the studios would pay the actors and actresses one to pierre on a tv show or movie or something like that, and then they could re-broadcast it and pocket all the royalties with impunity. reagan, in his last term as president of the screen actors guild, negotiated residual's so that their images and their voice was not sold without compensation. reagan was the one that did it. i was having lunch with fred barnes a couple years ago, he was in one of those washington movies, he had a little role in what those washington movies. i think it was day if. he was telling me about it, the movie had been re-broadcast in hungary or something like that, and he got a residual check for 12 dollars and 98 cents and i said you know why you got that check? and he said no. i said you got that because of ronald reagan negotiating that with studios. my point is, he had very good executive skills and very good negotiating skills long before he ran for governor but of course his movie career had faded. he liked hollywood, he loved hollywood, but by 1962 63, he made one movie after that called the killers, which was an adaptation of hemingway's novel. he hated the movie so much he never saw it. it's the only movie, he did 57 movies i think. it is the only time in 57 movies where he is depicted as a bad guy and he slaps angie dixon in the movie and he really hated that. he hated that. he would never see the movie. he himself was in the wilderness several times including after 63. he is kind of like a professional host in southern california, introducing political candidates, various things, and starting to develop a speech which became known as the speech. for local candidates but mostly for goldwater and 63, the draft goldwater movement actually started in the fall of 63. my parents were members of it, they came here to washington and went to the draft goldwater convention. walter brennan kissed my mother. so a anybody remember walter brennan? the real mccoy. good. >> it's odd to think of walter brennan in my mind, kissing your mom. kind of an old man. >> he's developing a speech and finally a group of southern and wealthy southern california businessmen go to reagan and his brother neil, neil was an ad executive in southern california. they say to reagan, we want to put this speech on television to help goldwater. so they put up the money and it was broadcast on nbc and it was an enormous hit that raised millions of dollars for the goldwater campaign and the republican national committee. and of course, goldwater loses an historic landslide but david brody wrote for the washington post, that the one ray of sunlight in an otherwise dismal campaign was reagan speech. goldwater's defeat is devastating for the republican party, the republicans are in the minority in the house and vastly in the minority in the senate and they have very few state houses, very few governorships and in many ways, the republican party is dysfunctional-y debt. it doesn't have a coherent philosophy. reagan now is embarking, traveling to california and he says the group of business men come to him and the same group and they say we want you to run for the senate. he said i don't want to run for senate. or congress. they said what about governor? that peaked is interest. he began going around the state taking sounding's, doing local business groups and civic groups and other organized groups and getting feedback and feedback from the people was good so that is when he decided to run for governor of california. now he has just completely broken from hollywood. now he called himself not just a politician but a citizen politician. let's go forward from a time to choose which is the title of the speech. an amazing speech and you can go on youtube and wash it. very clear, there's a landslide for johnson over goldwater. we come forward in time then from the time he spends in as a governor in sacramento, and now we are in the nixon era. and here comes ronald reagan to challenge the party at a moment when the party is shaking and things aren't clear but they want to gerald ford. he is the establishment candidate. in this book, you take us through some of these very difficult shows for a man who is popular, who says that he is in keeping with the real conservative ideology of the time. but finds that his party is somewhere else. >> the party is still somewhat in the wilderness. the republican party from 1932 up until the late seventies doesn't have a coherent philosophy. democrats have a coherent philosophy and they are also the party of optimism, the party of hope, the part of the future. franklin roosevelt runs for president, happy days are here again, john kennedy says we need to get this country moving again. the democratic party from 32 until 76 and beyond, is the party of hope, optimism and the future. the republican party is the green i spate green eyeshade, eat your spinach, balance the budget party and their message is basically metoo-ism. there were a lot of conservative accusing moderate republicans of all the time, metoo-ism. we can manage better than the democrats, we can do a better. that was basically their pitch, it wasn't very inspirational pitch, obviously. which is why they are in the minority from 32 up until 68 and even beyond. 68 was an aberration. reagan comes forward, the early leaders of the conservative movement like bill buckley and others, have a coherent message that was based on the framers, based on the founders, based on the constitution, which had been cast aside or at least put on the sidelines from 32 on. we're reaching an era now, i have to go backwards, from 32 to the sixties, most americans believe that government is working, and government is working for them. it didn't solve the great depression but it did a good effort and people appreciated it. but it did defeat the empire of japan. it did defeat nazi germany, it did build the interstate highway system, it did build roads, bridges and public education. at one point we had the finest public education system in the world, in the forties, fifties and sixties. by the sixties, government is starting to fail. it doesn't save jon kennedy. government doesn't save mart in the king junior. government doesn't save robert kennedy, senator robert kennedy. in the seventies, government can't win the vietnam war, government can't stop hyperinflation, government can't stop high interest rates, government can't stop gas lines. it seems carter runs and 76, he is an outsider and was not wedded to the idea of a government. he's a reformer, he's got to clean up washington, he's going to go after the corruption, he's got to cut taxes. he is really much more of a populist, almost conservative, who sees that people are frustrated in the seventies, they don't believe government is working for them anymore. but reagan also sees this. carter attacks from somewhat the left but not really. reagan is on the right, which is why they emerge as the two most interesting candidates in 1976. reagan to come to the convention, loses the nomination gerald ford by 69 delegate votes out of 2269 cast in kansas city. for a lot of reasons. the mississippi delegation, the ohio delegation, the new york delegation, reagan is convinced that ford has not stolen the nomination but not one entirely legitimately. and now we are getting down to the weeds. but this really wets reagan's appetite to run again, even though at the time he 65 years old and a lot of people said, you have been around the track twice, you lost twice, you give your best shot, you gave a deal kaletra. but now it's time to step aside for 1980 and that some new young fresh blood run for the nomination and reagan says no, no, we're running. >> you didn't mention forward in much detail but tell me what is his view of gerald ford? is for the establishment? >> 14 reagan don't like each other. mrs. reagan and mrs. ford can even be in the same state with each other. that is how little they like each other. for distance to the presidency by way of his 22nd amendment when nixon picks him after resigning, taking kickbacks and maryland while the governor of maryland. and still taking kickbacks you don't he's vice president of the united states. nixon need somebody who is going to placate all elements of the party but someone who is not going to threaten him, not want to cause him to look over his shoulders. he quickly deduce is a jared ford fills the bill, gerald ford, his lifelong dream was to be speaker of the houston by 1974, that is never going to happen. becoming vice president is kind of a nice capitalist career. but then the smoking gun tape is revealed in july of 1974. it's all the news now. >> there is an elephant in the tenth. >> that's right. i say smoking gun, six months ago, people would've said what what are you talking about? anyway, nixon is revealed ordering the cia to help the fbi investigation into watergate and that is the end of richard nixon. drove forward a sense to the presidency but gerald ford has no republicans made a psychic investment in gerald ford. nobody outside of one congressional district in maryland has voted for gerald ford he his hold on the republican party is very tenuous and he wants to run for 76. but he confuses nixon's appeal nixon's policies. he was by and large, he was fairly conservative but not as conservative as reagan. [train horn] is that for trump? (laughs) he pursues all of nixon's policies, he continues to taunt, he continues his fiscal policies, he continues to the bench. this creates an opening for conservative challenger for 76 and some looked at it but reagan was the only one who was serious about it. >> the reality is that carter beats ford by a narrow margin. >> less than 2%, and 40 gets to hundred and 40 electoral votes. if he carried ohio, carter carries ohio in 1976 by 6000 votes out of over 3 million cast. he carries, the team stores are headquartered in ohio so there's a lot of suspicion that the team stores wouldn't do that. they wouldn't do it either. let me quickly say. the fact that ford came so close would seem to indicate that there is a shift, but reagan now definitely in his will in your book. persists. >> yes, he does. he immediately creates a political organization. citizens for the republic to advance his conservatism and to help candidates run for office. he embarks, he restarts is rated career, he's doing five-minute radio commentaries five days a week and he literally recorded them at the corner of hollywood and divine in los angeles. he records five minute commentaries they go out to hundreds of radio stations on either reel to reel tape or on 45 record albums. this is before the day where you could send out a soundbites via the internet to 1000 radio stations. these are five minute reader commentaries. i won points, 55 million people every week or listening to ronald reagan. plus he's got a twice a week column which is being carried by hundreds of newspapers. in the mid to late seventies, you have to be under a rock to not know about ronald reagan. >> did it work? >> sure. he becomes, after ford loses, reagan becomes, that is a good question, he becomes the de facto leader of the republican party. one of the big issues is the panama canal treaty. you developed it as an issue in 76. the pandemic canal was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. my grandmother, she was so furious that carter was going to give away the canal to the republican republic of panama. i didn't realize it until later how important it was to her because she grew up with the canal, this is a great example of american exceptionalism. we succeeded where the french failed. it is very important psychically. to my grandmother and millions of americans like her. the idea that carter is going to turn over control to panama is just infuriating and this is also at a time where americas is waning its influence and we have lost vietnam, we're losing to the soviets, americas days over plus there's all these problems at home, when it comes at a terrible time and of course he's campaigning against for strolled ford and then jimmy carter, and where the canal treaty. reagan is out there starting in north carolina and 76. he's pounding the election and we built it we pitted we're going to keep it and his audience just goes crazy over this. he keeps he keeps it up as an issue he even as carter becomes president he still is going to continue the foreign policy of transfer to control the pandemic analysis. zone national television to make the case to the american people was it's important to get the control of the panama canal and he singles out private citizen ron reagan. the president united states singles at one person out of 240 million people he singles out reagan so the next day, cbs news calls private citizen ron reagan and says would you like a half hour of national broadcast time correspond to the president of the united states? this would never happen today? right so reagan of course jumps at the chance and he goes on to get the half hour speech responding to the president of the united states attacking him over the panama canal. >> let's shift from him attacking the president to his fight again with the republican establishment assessment embodied in george h. w. bush. >> right. the party is split. it has been split since the fifties 50 to eisenhower probably outsiders nixon and lodge cool water rockefeller is always a split between the republican party and more moderate outsiders happens in 1980. reagan represents the conservative outsiders in bush represents more moderate insiders this represents a fight over these two individuals. well it was a seesaw battle for a while so reagan kind of coasts. mike devin wants told me but reagan needs to challenge he doesn't take the george bush challenge here seriously. and he ends up losing the iowa caucuses 1980 which is a stunning stunning upset to the political world is enormous it's huge a bitter broadcaster in illinois in the thirties. he's a local hero. and george bush is from new england our texas. he has lost ties to iowa more than any prep school in new england so he beats reagan. that night tom pets of nbc goes on national television and says we has just witnessed the political funeral of ronald reagan ronald reagan is out that's it. five weeks later, he scores an enormous comeback in the new hampshire primary. we all remember the debate, the same is national debate. hunting for this microphone, mr. green, even though his name was breen. that begins, that starts the beginning of his come back against bush. but he goes to detroit, the parties still divided and so he needs to pick bush to unify the party. nixon picks agony an order to unify the party. ticket splitting the party both parties practiced perfection in the fifties sixties and into the seventies. but unify the party. it goes through 30 primaries and stay conventions. the nomination is not just reagan's for the asking, he's got a fight the street fight of his life to beat george bush to get the nomination. >> that fight is the source of the term voodoo economics. >> yes that's right. reagan was pushing camera. he had developed this issue in 70 80 was doing radio commentaries about him and, temper off tax cuts become more of the senate fetuses of is 80 campaign. it's really bedeviling bush because he can't match. if he came up with his own tax plan but it was more focused on business then individual rate reagan was more focused on. the individual and less on business. so blush i'm wisely goes out and starts attacking a very popular plan of reagan's that reagan is scoring well political with and he calls it voodoo economics. reagan was so furious over that he almost didn't pick bush in fact it was a big sticking point with reagan why he didn't want to pick bushes running mate and 19. 80 >> or about out of time. we'd like to invite questions from the audience please have your questions prepared. but i want to come back to this because we started craig by talking about trump reagan. reagan actually gets a tax reform plan done. >> to actually. 81 80. two >> and he's able to do business with democrats on the nail tip o'neill. he has success in forms of moving things forward but he gets criticism from time not only from democrats but from fellow fellow republicans. >> and washington establishment. that's >> that's what i'm trying to say. so here comes. trump >> i wasn't sure if you can imagine. >> i'm glad. to crack surely jeff he likes to score so. you get another situation here here's another populist outsider trying to rival the establishment. you say the establishment does not hold water and i'm thinking is it a result of the fact that one guy could get things done in washington and so far the other cannot? >> i think the parties have changed. there were a lot more conservative democrats in 1981 in there are today. there were a lot more liberal republicans in washington than there are in the republican party today. but ultimately politics is personal. you've been writing about it for a long time and you see it. politics is. personal rebel reagan was able to work with democrats. like dan like the 86 tax bill. raskin cow ski deserves mostly credit for getting the 86 tax reform act through congress more than tip on neil, because tip o'neill was we're getting ready to retire. go back to what i said, the rollout of consider sort of democrats noticeable we have also rigging could bring them over to the republic unfold. look at reagan speeches, look at reagan's commentary, look at his cuban a. he didn't come to washington to declare war on the media. he had been taxing the bureaucracy for sure, but he realized he needed democrats to get his programs through, he realized he needed the media to at least be open to the idea, i tease you about the washington post but the washington post editorial was often very supportive. he said after we got the nomination reagan brought a new intellectual revolution to american politics in that ascending to be thankful for. reagan put that into practice i think it was personal, philosophical. i think the parties have changed. we are at the end of jimmy carter and jimmy carter will defend, always say was a good man, who came to washington with the best of intentions. but jimmy carter failed as president because he didn't ultimately understand washington. but we had a recession. so democrats needed to do something and they are willing to take a chance on reagan onyx. on camera. >> but get back to trump. (laughter) >> look the reason, let me answer this is diplomatically as possible. and lot of people in the eighties who thought reagan was gonna be a failure. he left office with very apply approval numbers. you can also american historians were not raiding him very high. now they're going back and looking at the reagan presidency, he's now raided the last poll of american assurances had a number 13 which i think is kind of law but he's steadily going up over the last 30 or 40. years i don't have the newspapers of eight years or four years from now to tell you about donald trump. reagan approach the presidency differently he, was a different man, different style. there is no comparison except both were outsiders and both were threats to the political system. that's the only thing i would say compare the two man. but when >> but when people inside the republican party say trump is the inheritor. >> that's not. you >> know is the answer? again >> no trump is not the inheritor. in the fact it -- he's the inheritor but he's also the inheritor of the bushes as well. h.w. and george w.. as far as the coalition they put together a window nomination. i don't think the trump would be comfortable being described as an inheritor. (laughter) it's obvious. there are certain type of republican primary voter the issues niche age they may change their philosophy. essentially the republican primary voters voted for richard nixon in the republican primaries in 1960 is very similar to the republican primary voter voted for donald trump in 2016. >> he needs the silent majority concept? >> exactly. solomon geordie concept was coined by richard nixon and reintroduce by donald. trump >> so you think then that people like paul ryan. when you look at people like mitch mcconnell. are they the true inheritors of the reagan legacy or is it someone else but i missing? >> i don't know if there is anyone inheritor i'll tell you one thing. ike saw mick mike pence give a speech today at grove city college. he was terrific. it was a reagan ask speech. i was a very good speech. i think somebody's corner to write the contrast between his speech or op-ed, or a column contrasting his speech with trump's at the coast guard academy. it begs to be written. if you haven't seen i'd urge you to go on youtube and look at it really was a speech for all americans. >> i get the impression you didn't think much of mr. trump's speech of the coast guard academy. (laughter) >> he uses first person pronouns like he's eating breakfast. >> let's go to the audience here. we have a question right here. >> i don't think there's a microphone coming. >> speaking of inheritance, would you say that ted cruz and the freedom caucus or political legacies of reagan? >> reagan was motivated by certain things. freedom, and valuable vigilante in the future. he was a romantic. he believed in the philosophy eventually in alignment. he corridor mers, and he quoted pain so much of the lightning is about those elements and by the time reagan is an adult he started to fully form fellas philosophy centered on maximum freedom consistent with law and order. anyone who articulates that or understands that is the air to the reagan philosophy whether it's ted cruz or mike pence or mcconnell. anyone who tries to advance the rights and freedoms of privacy. we have >> we have a question in the. back >> many recovered minutes now join liberals and questioning the war on drugs and its aftermath and the human toll it's taken. if reagan or alive in mentally well today, do you think he would've have some of the same reservations? >> that's a tough one. that's a good question. it's a tough one. because reagan was in many ways libertarian. it did an interview in 1970 with reasoned magazine in which he said libertarians was a fundamental base for conservatism. but he's also a traditionalist i'm sure he would've devised, maybe yes i think we should control distribution and use of drugs, of hallucinogenic's, but it should be done by the states and localities not by the federal government. i think that's probably closest to what the blending of his philosophy as libertarianism but also as a traditionalist. >> i think a powerful question at the moment given what we're seeing from the eternal general jeff sessions. sessions wants to go back on the war on drugs, you see many republicans, including some republicans that might surprise you, hard-liners, that say we have too many people incarcerated in the country and it's not economically rewarding. it's cheaper to send in the college and put them in jail. i'm just wondering when you hear this question you think, again this is a departure from ronald reagan's attitude and his willingness to work with others to here, to respond to the situation. >> i think there's a lot of departures. reagan i think he, was for a strong border and he said strong borders are important for national security national identity. but the issue also came up about walls and he kind of pooh-poohed it in the republican primary in 1980. >> immigration is so big he said build a wall but have a big door in the middle. (laughter) >> but everything reagan does and is presently has to be done in the shot of the cold war. when he proposed the north american free trade agreement, it was to build a more solid free market system in the west to repel soviet advances and violate the monroe doctrine. he wanted a strong western hemisphere, same with nicaragua, el salvador. he wanted free and prosperous democracies. well you covered. wrong to build strong prosperous democracies in the caribbean to fend off soviet advances to undermine those countries. >> we don't have time for another question. craig surely's book, reagan rising, the divisive years, 1976 to 1980. as you can tell from this conversation, very lively, very topical and has power in this moment. greg thank you so much. [applause]. >> weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span three. tonight, gettysburg college professor timothy shannon explores colonial era diplomatic ties between european settlers and iroquois confederacy in eastern great lakes region. he describes what treaty medians might look like, the role of interpreters, and the importance of exchanging. guess what tonight, beginning at 8 pm eastern. enjoy american history tv, this weekend every weekend on c-span three. you're watching american history tv. every weekend on c-span three. explore our nations past. c-span 3, created by americas cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by or to television provider. up next, a look at president reagan's foreign policy towards the soviet union during the 19 eighties. university of central arkansas history jar mark in which are gradually downplayed his policy in later decades as they sought to reimagine -- . >> good morning. good morning and welcome to the montgomery lawyers chapter of the federal society present