Television for serious readers. Good evening. My name is jim, im the executive Vice President of the Richard Nixon foundation. Its always a pleasure to welcome you all here to the Beautiful Library in orange county, california. Id like to think our numbers were training us this evening. If you are a member, stand up and be recognized. Come on, theres a couple of you here. There we go. [applause] its an exclusive group of members who support the ongoing quirks of president nixons foundation which applies the legacy and vision that he had two opportunities facing our nation in the world today. If youre interested in joining, track me down. Anybody can get you signed up this evening. Id like to tell you about a few special offense, august 20, their new amazon number one bestseller, justice on trial about the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings. September 11, we will host two programs, first as an annual commemoration of patriots day and then we will host Supreme Court justice or such that evening. 7 00 p. M. For discussion within 60 foundation. Finally september 13, general james will appear in conversation. Tickets can be purchased by visiting the nixon foundation. Org. This evening, we are pleased to host the author, post president yards years of president nixon. His life and achievement back and come back. Its deserving of the book of its own and probably a series of books. Not one to be written off, he rose from the worst to become americas elder statesman. In the 20 year period, he reinvented a former president serving as advisor to every corner of his successors, he made 29 foreign trips and worked with World Leaders across the globe. To tell this remarkable story, of after the fall, we are trying to casey pipes. He is a historian whose previous book on president eisenhowers well claimed. He served to george w. Bush as a speechwriter inflator at the gettysburg college. Join me in welcoming casey pipes. [applause] thank you for being here and for having me. Thank thank you for the kind words. After hearing all of the people coming up later this fall, i kind of want to come back. [laughter] i also want to think the president of the foundation who was indispensable to me in the writing of this book and have me on the radio last week to help promote. I want to think a couple of the archivists who worked with me, Greg Cummings and eisenberg who understands i am retired. Great work in helping me get the files needed. You remember walker and fred, just a tremendous number of people helped make this possible. I want to say hello to linda and larry you are right here, these are the parents and friends of ours, the pitching coach and we live right around the corner. You get the award for traveling to the furthest i think in two and a half hours to be with us. So thank you for being with us. Hope its worth it. Let me know, ill be asking here. Thanks to all of you for being here as well its great to be back. The first time i came here was in 1995, i was an intern at the Ronald Reagan president ial library. He brought me down, his friend was running things down here. John showed us around, it was wonderful to be here. I came again in 2007 with the release of the eisenhower book. Then in 2010, once the book was out, once the book was inked and i had a deal, i came here and began going through the files and spent a number of months here doing the research. So its been amazing. When i first started, i wonder if theres really an audience, do people really care . Last week we were the number one new arrival on amazon. I did an interview last week with the number one morning sure and the anchor is the football playbyplay guy. I better have my nixon sports story ready for this interview. He spent 15 minutes walking through the post residency and at the end i sent an email and said i appreciate this and he said, nixon is one of the most fascinating people, ive always been a fan of nixon. Its amazing how there are nixon people all over the world and we dont even realize it. Amazing command man and amazing career. My story has always been to tell the stories that have been on hold and need to be told. Focus on stories we know something about but we need to know more. For me, the road less traveled first led me to the story of eisenhower. The road last traveled led me to the nixon post presidency. This is a story that needs to be told and understood in a way that has never been fully understood before. We have an idea of what nixon was doing, he was active, hopefully you will agree. We have an idea he was somewhat successful, hopefully after reading this you will read this and realize he was more successful than you could have realized. Before talking about and what is contained in it, we have to understand how high he climbed as president to appreciate how far he fell at the end of his presidency. Think about nixon in 1972, is closing in on a deal to end the war in vietnam, he went 49 state and the largest landslide in american history. Hes on top of the world. Less than two years later, the Approval Ratings hovering in the 20s, forced to resign. He finds himself fighting for his life. Well talk about that more in a minute. There have been entire libraries of book written about his life. Entire libraries written by his presidency. Even vice presidency and even to get. We have monica memoirs which are wonderful, robert which covers the first few years. Theres never been a twentyyear volume that covers the entire story of what happened to him after watergate. Historians will always debate whether nixon was a great president. I think this book makes clear theres no debate he was a great president. Hes one of the Great Stories and president ial history, is the greatest nixon story thats never really been told. So why a book of his life after watergate . If its so important, why hasnt no one done it before . s shakespearean figure. Of all the experience, we will suffered and have setbacks but none of us experienced professional setbacks the way he did. In a sense, the story is about us. We all come back and find our way when we get lost. The other reason the story has not been written is because the papers are privately owned by the family and i was able to write this book. Not only is this a new book about a new period of life for nixon but has new material in it. I think it makes it interesting from it makes it worth reading and thinking about because this is a very extraordinary. In the life of a very extraordinary man. When he left the white house in 1974, he had no money, no future and no obvious way to make a living. Within weeks of moving back, he faces a health scare almost paint his life. Battle of depression. Heres what he wrote in 1974, write books, make speeches and try to put things into context. This is the roadmap he would use for 20 years. Writing books, giving speeches and putting things in the perspective for the people in history. Its amazing how well he did. He does it so well and so effective and well known for his books and appearances, people began to accept him back again. Part of the story in this book is this relationship with reagan, bush and nixon and his advice and counsel and how it helped change policy and history. Let me mention three changes you will read about in the book. Changes that occurred because of nixon and one change that occurred because of nixon. This is really the heart of what the book is about. Change. First, nixon and the post presidency changes the very nature of the post presidency. There are no other president s. They all die. Truman died in 72, eisenhower and 69. Nixon knew all of them but he watched what they did in retirement and what they did was very different than what hes going to do. They basically retired. He becomes a doting grandfather. These are men that basically accept retirement and go away. Nixon has no such choice. He has to make a living. He has to resign from the barr, he wants to resign but they wont let him. They want the privilege of kicking him out. He cant practice law, he has no way of making a living. What he does with no template in front of him, he invents the template that all ex president s today more or less follow. He write books, travels two countries, giving speeches, stays in contact with other World Leaders. He talks to presences, he uses his ideas to influence washington. You think about the post president s today. Clinton and george w. Bush with his think tank in dallas. Trying to influence policy. Barack obama writing books, they are all in some way following the nixon model. Nixon didnt have the option of retiring. He wanted to remain active. He told john taylor that he had to remain active for his own health. To keep his mind as sharp as he wanted it to be. He spent years writing book after book on his main area of expertise and he becomes a trusted advisor and confidant. He doesnt just write books, he writes books that matter. Books that people read and people absorb and Pay Attention to. He didnt just say something, he had something important to say when he was writing and speaking. He showed he still had an Important Role to play as an outside counselor. He read the real work in 80 and was inspired by and carried it around with him at one time. In many ways, this led him to have an even closer relationship with nixon. Nixon relished the chance. The only power he had left, his mind and ideas to influence policy. It gives counsel the influence with his ideas on things big and small. Let me give you an example of something small. Shortly after reagan becomes president , he wants ways to take advantage of reagans ability. Nixon said, i have a great mind, reagan has a great gun. Hes a guy with tremendous ability, he can speak to the country, rally the country and nixon sees this and wants to take advantage of it. Early in the reagan administration, nixon sends memo to reagans longtime communication advisor, urging the creation of a weekly ten minute radio talk to allow the president to dominate the papers. Nixon suggests they do this sunday, he tweaks it and saturday morning radio address is born. Cap austin from 1982 2018 when trump discontinued it. Weve always known he started. His real contributions came on bigger matters. Nixon meets with him, he finds that this could be a man that reagan said he could do business with. He senses opportunity here to move forward and perhaps end the cold war. He wants reagan to meet with him from a position of strength. When reagan announces intentions to build the initiative, nixon immediately doubts the science, but the technology will work. But he loves the idea of using it for leverage in negotiations. Almost from the beginning, he sees fdi as a key bargaining chip for reagan. Later on, when he threatens to pull up, he walked out after they essentially strike a deal because he tells reagan this is contingent upon you getting rid of him. He comes up with a solution. Nixon suggests the security advisor, i feel very strongly that the president could formally offer mutually share with the soviets the result of our research. This would undercut his position. He was right. Reagan took the advice, offered to Share Technology publicly and he essentially boxed him in and brought him back to the table. This maneuver helped the negotiations continued forward and played a role in getting the soviets to agree in the treaty with an entire class of nuclear weapons. President bush, he privately went to china after the tragedy. Taking advantage of the goodwill that people had in that country. He met with leadership and spoke brutally language to him. The enemy would be the death of the relationship with the u. S. If it happened again. Upon returning home, he reported back to the president , they wanted to put sanctions in place, something the president and nixon didnt want to do or see happen. But the fact that he delivered the message, help diffuse the situation and helped the president out of the crisis. Heres Richard Nixon and bill clinton working together to assist him and democracy in russia, the emerging breakaway republics. It was the best meeting ive ever had as clinton marveled at the wisdom nixon gave him. He urged him to be brave and support the movement in ways that he didnt believe bush had done enough to do. He changes the post presidency and policy, most important this book shows nixon changed himself. During this period, he comes to terms with all he achieved and all he lost. The conventional wisdom says he accidentally confessed during the watergate section, this has been a myth that they have perpetuated for some time. The reality is quite different. They talked about in advance. He apologized for his moral failures. He said he screwed it all up but he never admitted criminal wrongdoing because he didnt think he violated any criminal laws. This would be the message he used the rest of his life when he was asked about this topic. It came not as an accident, it came as a plain answer to a question that they planned together. The moral failures wait on him. He dealt with it in his own way, by beginning to reveal himself more and more and come public with people. His opponent called to let him know he was dying of cancer, nixon consoled his former rival. When the two men hung up, nixon turned to his aide and said, i dont care what it takes, im going to his funeral, start working on it. I freaked hung up and turned to his wife and said, no former president should have to live in exile. He wanted nixon to be seen in public as historical because he knew it would give him a sense, the country a sense that there was forgiveness and grace. The funeral in washington, the first since washington. He publicly emerged at another funeral, this time to deliver the eulogy for his friend, woody haze. This is what nixon said in his eulogy. He was never satisfied with success and he was never going to be discouraged by failure. There is a rule in life, if you take no risk, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risk, you will win no victories. Nixon certainly was describing woody haze but almost certainly, he was describing himself. When mcfarlane survived in failed suicide attempt, when he woke up in the hospital, the first person he saw sitting by his bedside was nixon. He pointed out the bible on the nightstand next to the bed, your strong faith will get you through this. Finally, after the dedication of his president ial library, where we are today, nixon told friends who gathered around him afterwards at the time that his grandkids asked him what name he wanted to be called, you can call me anything you want to call me, he said. Ive been called everything. This period of his life shows nixon as a human. It shows him as somebody who struggled through the failures of life and for setbacks of political career and get came out on the other side. Nixon in exile is a different man, a man in full, a man who can look back on success and failure, on tragedy as well as triumph, defeat as well as defiant response. He never gave up. There is a lesson in the all of that for all of us. Its remarkable to think in august 1974 when he left and arrived a few miles from here, not even Richard Nixon could have imagined that he would be back in the white house, giving president reagan advice. Or delivering a message that was important to the Bush Administration meeting with bill clinton and becoming friends with bill clinton, in april 1994, bill clinton arrives at the funeral to deliver a eulogy in which he said, make the day of judging nixon only by watergate come to an end. Nixon himself said only those who have been in the deepest valleys can appreciate how magnificent it is on the highest mountain top. He was constantly navigating the valleys, nixon in his last 20 years could look back on his entire life and for once enjoy the view. He made it back. Thats the story of after the fall. I hope you read it and like it and know how grateful i am thought you came. Im happy to take questions or comments. [applause] thank you. We will take questions if you will raise your hands. I welcome to you with the microphone. I want to ask the first one. Give me what you think Richard Nixon would think of the Current Media arena and what i mean by that is in this day and age, we have media that is so quick and spread viral, instantly with social media, give me your take of what he would think about. He certainly would be more diplomatic about it that our current president but i dont know he thought much more highly of them than our current president does. Theres a book in the 90s, New York Times runs a favorable review of a new biography, one of nixons favorite historians, wrote our review and it was very positive about nixon. Accident reads it in his office and says, the New York Times once a decade will write something nice about me. I guess because of 1990, they wanted this decade out of the way. Always had a very skeptical view of the role of media. I dont think that improved over time. The media environment today is very different with all the different platforms, social media platforms. He was an innovator. The whole concept of him developing the idea of saturday morning radio address, he wanted to find ways to communicate more effectively so i think he would be somebody looking for ways to use the tools to his advantage in the presence advantage, however the president might be. No doubt about it it costs quite a bit. It did and theres a scene in the book where ford comes to seem in the hospital in october of 1974 when nixon had his health care provided and its an emotional scene. I think its the closest he ever got to thinking him. The whole concept of the pardon was a very difficult thing for him because he did feel bad about it has been mentioned before. But publicly states remorse about what happened that he didnt feel like he had broken any laws that he didnt feel comments he said my mistake was i wasnt a very good butcher using gladstones phrase. He was trying to help people so he was had very complicated feelings on this topic and i dont know that something that he would have ever thought to sit down and talk to gerald ford about. They didnt have that kind of relationship in the first place. It was a former relationship. The scene at the white house is probably as close as i can get to it and you know its worth reading and he was in an emotional state. Llamas died in here comes the president of the United States who just issued this pardon. Its a great theme and i would recommend that but other than that i dont know there was a whole lot of direct conversation between the two. Could you talk a little bit about some of the p