National security staff in 1969 and traveled the world on every major Diplomatic Initiative in the midst of the vietnam war and greater cold war. He was with dr. Kissinger with negotiators in paris that culminated in the paris peace accords. He was with president nixon in moscow during his first in 1972 and heip 1973 yom after the kippur war. He was a key actor in the historic trip to china in 1972 known popularly as the week that changed the world. Severalto hold positions. From 2015 to 2016 he conducted oral histories with dr. Kissinger on behalf of the Nixon Foundation. The collection of interviews cover a variety of subject matter. Be readussia, and can in this book called kissinger on kissinger reflections of diplomacy, grand, strategy, and leadership. It is available for purchase in our museum store and mr. Lord will sign copies. Ambassador lord will be interviewed by dr. Frank gh gannon. He worked with Randolph Churchill to write the biography of his father, instant churchill. He became a white house fellow under Donald Rumsfeld and went on to serve on the domestic counsel in press secretary ron ziegler. He left washington aboard air force one following president nixons resignation. Distinction of having interviewed president nixon for 38 hours which are in digitalndigenous format. Yesterday our president visited dr. Kissinger knowing ambassador lord was going to be speaking tonight. To passinger asked hugh on his best wishes for everyone here tonight and watching him on cspan. It is my pleasure to introduce andou dr. Frank gannon ambassador winston lord. [applause] dr. Gannon thank you for coming. It is a great pleasure and honor. I found one of several references in the various kissinger memoirs. I will not read about you being a terrible punster. [laughter] this one says you became one of my best collaborators, a resident conscience, and a close friend. He was familiar with my views, had a global perspective. Praise from caesars praise from me. [laughter] after the association with dr. Kissinger you went on to a very distinguished career which could be the subject of another talk. I am in the curious position you have a book, an excellent book, dition ofyour e the interviews you did with dr. Kissinger. Im asking you to comment on Henry Kissinger. I will refer to some of the things in the book, but it will be openended. The book is very short. It is very accessible and really interesting. I would recommend the best thing to do is to buy it and read it. You cannot go wrong. Appropriate youre at the library because the Nixon Foundation played a part in the genesis of these interviews. Ambassador lord i have been. Oing around the country nothing else compares with this one in relevance. Library andxon museum and this is about the nixonkitchekissinger policy. 38 hoursmself conducted of interviews with president nixon. Wasto mention the fact he in the white house when i was. Thirdly, the foundation has been absolutely crucial and i am delighted hugh hewitt was the new president. Did several. S we first were panels on the key and then we did when interview to reflect back on these events. He was 93 when he did the interview. We barely touched the transcript. What you read here would be extraordinary for a 30yearold talking about last weeks news let alone a 93yearold talking about 50 years ago. The point i am making is the Foundation Together with the National Archives supported these interviews and no one was more indispensable than the person who introduced us, jonathan. The composition and editing of the video, giving advice, he with us. Osely if it were not for jonathan and the foundation, we would not have this book. One last comment. And my movinggh fact you could buy this afterward. We are looking for ways to make this a bestseller. [laughter] we have another idea we are toying with. We put out a press release from the book before it was issued and a good friend of mind saw the press release from his iphone. A very small space and the iphone cut off the last two le tters of the book. [laughter] you see what is coming right . And boughty excited ofe than 100 copies kissinger on kissing. [laughter] we may change the title. I have a short video that was made, about two minutes, that was made for dr. Kissingers 95th birthday which was in new york in may. Clips from theof interviews. Interviews . D six ambassador lord that is right. Dr. Gannon this gives a brief flavor of what the book is based on. [video clip] policyn thought of for as grand strategy. Policy as grand strategy. The improvement of the relationship of countries to each other, balancing selfinterest, would promote peace and the security of the united states. I understudied the other american president who thought in such conceptions. Richard nixon was focusing on objectives. He did so in terms of experiences in meeting with leaders. My approach was very similar to his in terms of focusing on objectives, but the odd material for my thinking was historical and philosophical. I saw the world in terms of situations that i had studied and had lessons one could draw from. A strategic objective was to prevent the soviet union from becoming the dominant country. The soviet army had occupied czechoslovakia and 42 russian divisions appeared on the chinese border. The use of soviet military pressure was a feature of the cold war world. Opening armsy control negotiations on nuclear weapons. Use the summit with the soviet union to create incentives in china, but the soviet union tried to blackmail us. We said, ok, we are going to try this. Look at what nixon said about china. He addressed the problem of china from the view of world order. That by getting china involved in the the wholenal system of International Politics would be transfer because all other countries would have to consider the impact of china in terms of the new system. He calculated we might produce a situation in which america would be closer to most of the contestants and each other. The second or third day in office i looked at the war plans and the expected consequences of a nuclear war were ended. , we cannot let these and in a wayup that did not destroy civilization. Occurring at a high point of the vietnam war they would say that was one of the main themes of the Nixon Administration. Possibility of peaceating agreements for and to indicate specific steps toward it and to combine these two actions in one relatively brief period of time. It specializes the special nature of Foreign Policy nixon conducted. The breakthrough in negotiations would come when one of the arab that sovietncluded military support was not the way to achieve their objectives. Managed towar we establish ourselves as mediators between the arab and the israeli side. Ended and weo be had to do this in contention with the soviet union because the soviet union still had the major influence in the arab world. Said, we are going to have a big array of negotiations with the soviet union after we have opened china. People thought this was madness. That took society from where it was to where it has never been. You need courage to walk alone part of the way. [applause] dr. Gannon nixon liked to spring surprises and his announcement of his first two principal advisors ticked all those boxes. The harvard professor who was a and a memberrter of the Kennedy Administration and his principal foreign advisor work for his political rival. You, ifinger tel says to i spent 15 years of my life trying to keep him from becoming president , it is astonishing he chose me for his security advisor. [laughter] the politics breeds strange bedfellows, but nixon and kissinger were odd. What do you think nixon signed kissinger and why do you think he said yes . Ambassador lord let me thank you for that excerpt. That set the book very nicely. Honor. A strange nixon was a conservative from the west coast, distrustful of ivy league and harvard professors. You have a jewish immigrant working for nelson rockefeller. [laughter] they had actually never met. Maybe once at a social meeting. Nixon had read kissingers books. Nixon wanted to dominate Foreign Policy when he was so interested and he knew to do that he needed an ablebodied, National Security advisor. He put politics aside and thought about the National Interest and also what would serve his interest in forging a new world order. Just the sheer brilliance of nixon already exhibited. I will get back to one other , but let me get to the acceptance. When he was asked by the president to be National Security advisor instead of saying, yes immediately, he hesitated. Misplaced loyalty to rockefeller. Not entirely sure of what nixon was going to be doing and he went to rockefeller who chewed him out and said, youve got to serve your country. What are you doing . He is taking the chance by picking you. Andy immediately saw that henry would have said yes anyway because his motto was serving the National Interest. As someone who analyzed foreign ,olicy in history all his life and i am sure he left at the chance to do something about it in terms of policy. Andad been advisor to jfk consulted with johnson and other president s. Motives ande main that is what brought them together. Forewardthe forward t to the book. He looks at the world in a longterm trend that takes into account the impact you have in one country and does not just react and lead your faction to discrete events, but tied them together. It was clear they each shared a strategic worldview which was probably a major reason nixon chose, as well as the others, and why kissinger was happy to join him. They brought different strengths. Nixon as a congressman and Vice President , then as a private citizen, had traveled the world extensively and new many leaders, studied Foreign Policy, and was the best prepared president ever for Foreign Policy. Kissingers strength was historical, philosophical, strategic, conceptual. They had the same instinct and strategy, but when used history and the other thought of the immediacy of knowledge. It was a wonderful mix. Dr. Gannon you mentioned the president s and the president elect wanted to bring the for policy apparatus into the white house. You have an interesting thing i had not seen before we are nixon and kissinger go out to see the ailing and dying general eisenhower. He gives them some specific advice and Henry Kissinger has a brush with the former general. Ambassador lord the thing about this book is henry not only recalled strategy and specific milestones, he punctuates the recounting with i anecdotes. It was early in the administration. Kissinger had the conventional mistaken views eisenhower was a decent guy. He soon learned differently and by the way, i think eisenhower is a great president , that is my opinion. Given eisenhowers interest in National Issues they had a him at the briefed hospital. The very next day, not because of the meeting, but because somebody in the nfc there was a leak. Outnhower chewed kissinger saying, how dare you let this get out . The public just told me about it. Kissinger said, i am not sure i can control this. He said, young man, do a better job. Greatned henrys respect because of that. Dr. Gannon that was the first week of the administration, plagued by leaks. They had briefed eisenhower on the most secret plan for the middle east and on the next day it was on the front page of the New York Times pickup. I want to talk about you. When you were a High School Student in the early 1950s what did you think you want to be when you grew up . Ambassador lord secretary of state. [laughter] interest i did have an in international relations, Foreign Policy very early on for two reasons. One, my mother was very much into public service. Ambassador to the u. N. For human rights. She was involved in international and domestic issues. We sat around the dinner table and these issues would come up. Secondly, i did a lot of traveling when i was young. Wasof my vacations uzbekistan and kazakhstan. Forces suggested i wanted to go into this field, but i was not quite sure how. I made sure to take a broad education. , i took a lot of political science, history, then went to graduate school where i met my wife. She took extremely good notes and economics class and that was subject. Ubject weak i decided to become her friend. [laughter] dr. Gannon you were an english major that became a diplomat and she was an economics major that became a best selling author. [laughter] ambassador lord she said you better go into some other discipline once i blew up the lab. [laughter] veryannon you also had a distinguished academic career. What was the path that led you to kissinger . I worked for a who endedyoung person up suing kissinger later. I will not get into details, but halpiner you halpin and wanted me to go with them. Over to join the staff a inth after it started february 1969. We should not spend much time on me. We ought to spend on kissinger and nixon. It was obviously a great opportunity. I had to have an interview with kissinger. It was a 15 minute interview and you could see the chaos. The secretary of the treasury was on the phone, but he zeroed in on the key issue. He said, i want this agreement, i want debate, i went intellectual exchange from my staff, but if we lose the battle , i want you to carry it out loyally which i think is the correct approach. I passed that test. The point is the first year i was not in the front office. I was sitting across the eisenhower office. Would send kissinger memos like and i wroted several memos that were raising questions about some of the things nixon and kissinger were doing. He did not like the yesmen or yes women. He want to debate. Debate. O ed debate. This was a great example of somebody who encouraged debate. Dr. Gannon he goes to the office every day. He is a legendary difficult boss. Bee of the stories have to where there is smoke, theres fire. Let us take the ingle birth thereador lord i was not so i am not entirely sure, but it is a good story. He stepped over the body to get to the door. [laughter] i will give you another example. I have affection for henry. If you do not send him the transcript, i will be nice behind his back. He was not perfect. He was extremely demanding. If you read nothing else, read my foreword. Asefer to some of them attractive aspects. He stretched my nerves in alsontience, but stretched my horizons. Our goal has always been that i am appreciative to him for the climb as well as the view. The climb could be arduous. Speechwriting. I can write fairly well, nowhere near my wife and she does fiction. Henry andches for sometimes indirectly for the president. It would go Something Like this. The timing would generally be just before the redskins kicked off against the cowboys in a football game. [laughter] he would call me up. That was pretty annoying. Heres how it goes speechwriting. This is about 90 true. He would give me a topic to write a speech and i would come into days later with a draft. He would call me into his office the next day and say, is that the best you can do . I would say, i think so, but let me take another whack at it. I would come in with a second draft. He says, are you sure this is the best you can do . Let me try again. This goes on for six drafts. [laughter] i am getting a little annoyed. Henry, i looked at every sentence, tweaked ever semicolon. This is the best i can do. He said, in that case, now i will read it. [laughter] me on way, he would push speechwriting or writing memos for the president for him because he knew i could write. Another staff member might be good on researching negotiation. He would not push that person. He had a sense of where to push and where not to push. Dr. Gannon you recommend reading your foreword. This book not only has and not only has the unedited transcripts in a very interesting and useful way, but it has an introduction by dr. Kissinger, it has your setup, and then you have introductions to each of the chapters. Ambassador lord i wrote the introductions. , theannon occasionally questions you asked. Uninterrupted atted at all. In the book he has an interesting assessment of the nixon Strategic Vision and talks about him as one of his main contributions that he was interested in the conceptual aspects of for policy. Was theto you, nixon founding father who thought of Foreign Policy a is grand strategy. It was the structural improvement of the relationship of countries to each other in a way the balancing of their self interests would promote global peace and security for the united states. He thought of that in relatively long range terms. Is that the way you think of nixon . Ambassador lord absolutely. I am the last remaining centrist in america. I am a flaming centrist. I mentioned that because i worked for democratic president s, i have voted for both, i worked for reagan and clinton. Of the seven president s i have served nixon was by far the most formidable in Foreign Policy. This is coming from a relatively person. E the man had flaws, we all know that. Who doesnt . You cannot take away the strategic approach. It is one reason why he and kissinger got along. They approached things the same way. He did a couple of things that were important. He knew exactly how to work with kissinger. First of all, their worldviews coincided. But he struck a beautiful balance. Some president s micromanage. Jimmy carter use to determine who could play on the tennis court. That is a pretty important subject. [laughter] not a bad idea. Some others delegate completely. Nixon had the white house dominate the process. He made the courageous decisions on how to end the vietnam war, open to china, you do not know what the reaction is going to be. He had to back up kissinger. He had a strategic approach which kissinger could reflect. Then he left it to henry to do the actual negotiations and tactics and never secondguessed him. Henry always have the confidence they had enough shared they could backup each other. In china, negotiating the shanghai can occasions before meeting before washistoric meeting, there no way to communicate back home. Sufficiently confident under the president s view that he agreed to the chin