Wife of our president newly elected hugh hewitt. [applause] our distinguished speaker was to dr. Kissinger as dr. Kissinger was to president nixon. He joined kissingers security staff in 1969 as special assistant traveling the world on virtually every Major Initiative in the greater cold war. He was with dr. Kissinger during the talks with go she ate her in purse that culminated in the paris peace accords. He was with president nixon in moscow in during his first trip there in 1972 and he was therefore kissingers shuttles between the arabs and israelis after the yom kippur war. He was a key actor in nixons trip to china in 1972 known as the week that changed the world. Was president of the council on formal relations and assistant secretary of state for Southeast Asian and pacific affairs. From until 2016 he conducted oral histories of Henry Kissinger on behalf of the foundation. They cover a variety of subject , andr china, vietnam statesmanship and are and now adable book is available for purchase in our museum store. Investor lord will sign copies for you. Ambassador lord will sign copies for you. He will be interviewed by after working in advertising, he worked with sir Randolph Churchill to write the definitive biography of the Prime Minister of a winston churchill. A workhousework fellow under donald rumsfeld. In 1970 four, gannon left washington to california aboard white house one and was an assistant he has the rare distinction of having interviewed president nixon for 38 hours, which are all available in digital format been nixon president ial library. We will see some of these videos in the presentation tonight. I should mention that yesterday our president hugh hewitt visited kissinger in new york city. He asked tio to pass on his best hugh to pass on his best wishes to the audience watching tonight. It is my pleasure to introduce dr. Frank gannon and ambassador lord. T lord winston [applause] well, thank you all for coming and thank you all for being here. Honora great pleasure and hewitt broughth fresh from kissinger. Read the memoir about him being a terrible punster, but in this one he says you became a one of my best collaborators, resident conscience and a close friend. He had a global, not simply original perspective. After the association with dr. Kissinger and the Nixon White House you went on to a very distinguished career, which could be the subject of another talk, but i am in the curious possession that you have an excellent book, which is your e you ed addition ition of the interviews. I will if to some things in the book, but it will be kind of open ended. The advantage of the book is that it is short, accessible, and interesting. The best thing to do is buy it and read it. You cannot go wrong. Also appropriate that you are here in the library because the Nixon Foundation played a part in the genesis of these interviews. I have been going around the country promoting this book with literally no other thing than this one, that compares with this one in terms of the appropriateness and relevance. You and jonathan have already touched upon it. Of course it is the Nixon Library and use em. And museum. 30 hoursself conducted of interviews with president hours. 38 that is also very relevant, not to mention the fact he was in the white house when i was. Is absolutely crucial and i am happy to see misses hewitt here. The new president will be terrific. , we didrviews we did several interviews, first panels on some of the key events that were in this volume and then we got kissinger to do one interview to reflect back on these events. It is extraordinary. When he did the interviews reflecting on the events that were 50 years old, it is amazing. Theasic barely touched transcript. And 92 a 92yearold talking about these events is pretty extraordinary. It was put together the National Archives supported these interviews and that no one was more indispensable than. Onathan, who ran the video he is absolutely was absolutely essential in the composition and editing of the video. Jeff shepard was also involved. Jonathan, jeff, and the foundation, without them we would not have this book. Mentioned my moving around. The fact you can buy this afterward, we are looking to make this we have another idea we were towing with. We put out the book before it was issued and a good friend of saw a brokaw, tom very small space. The iphone cut off the last two letters of the book, so tom [laughter] amb. Lord you see what is coming, right . Tom brokaw went out and bought 10 copies of the book thinking he was getting kissinger on kissing. [laughter] amb. Lord i have a short bit dr. Gannon i have a short video that was made for dr. Kissingers birthday in new york in may. It is a couple of clips from the interviews, so you conducted was it six two hour interviews . Amb. Lord that is right. Dr. Gannon this gives a brief flavor of what the book is based on. Nixons grand strategy, that Foreign Policy would see each other, balancing selfinterest, would promote peace and the security of the united states. I havent studied any 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. Nixon began by opening arms control negotiations on nuclear weapons. The plan was to 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. You look at what nixon said about china. He addressed the problem of china from the view of world order. His view was that by getting china involved in the International System the whole 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. He said, we cannot let these weapons pile up and in a way 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. We saw the possibility of negotiating agreements for peace 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 countries concluded that soviet military support was not the way to achieve their objectives. During the war we managed to establish ourselves as mediators between the arab and the israeli side. The war had to be ended and we had to do this in contention with the soviet union because the soviet union still had the major influence in the arab world. Somebody 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 kennedy supporter and a member of the Kennedy Administration and his principal foreign advisor work for his political rival. Dr. Kissinger says to you, if 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. It was a strange honor. 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 aspect, 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. Partly out of 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. Henry immediately saw that and henry would have said yes anyway because his motto was serving the National Interest. As someone who analyzed Foreign Policy in history all his life, and i am sure he left at the chance to do something about it in terms of policy. He had been advisor to jfk and consulted with johnson and other president s. These are the main motives and that is what brought them together. It is in the foreward 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 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 meeting and briefed him at the hospital. The very next day, not because of the meeting, but because somebody in the nfc there was a leak. Eisenhower chewed kissinger out 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. He gained henrys Great 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. 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] actually, i did have an interest in international relations, Foreign Policy very early on for two reasons. One, my mother was very much into public service. She was 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. One of my vacations was uzbekistan and kazakhstan. These two forces suggested i wanted to go into this field, but i was not quite sure how. I made sure to take a broad education. English major, 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 my week subject weak subject. 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. [laughter] dr. Gannon you also had a very distinguished academic career. What was the path that led you to kissinger . Ambassador lord i worked for a brilliant young person who ended up suing kissinger later. I will not get into details, but kissinger you halpin and halpin wanted me to go with them. I went over to join the staff a month after it started in 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 looking ahead and i wrote 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 wanted 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. Some of the stories have to be where there is smoke, theres fire. Ambassador lord i was not there so i am not entirely sure, but it is a good story. He stepped over the body to get to the door. To get to the phone and start working. [laughter] i will give you another example. Look, i have unbelievable respect and 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. I refer to some of them as attractive aspects. He stretched my nerves in patientience, but also stretched my horizons. I learned a great deal about how to approach Foreign Policy. I have always been, as i say in the book, appreciative to him for the climb as well as the view. The climb could be arduous. I will give you one example. Speechwriting. I can write fairly well, nowhere near my wife and she does fiction. I do nonfiction. I did speeches for henry and 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] i was a rabid fan. He would call me up. Saying i needed to work on a speech. That was pretty annoying. Thats why i quit once a week. 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. I finally say, henry, i looked at every sentence, tweaked every colon and semicolon. This is the best i can do. He said, in that case, now i will read it. [laughter] by the way, he would push me on 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. Dr. Gannon occasionally, the questions you asked. It is not uninterrupted 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. He says to you, nixon was the founding father who thought of Foreign Policy 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 f