Rick perlstein, in your third book,in that period from 1962 to 1976, you talk about being a dark time in our history. I am talking about global warming, look at the ebola crisis. Of course, the middle east is blowing up again. In america, the crisis of inequality, we kind of have a new normal of which 7 or 8 of unemployed it is ok, the skyrocketing of inequality, the bankers that seem to be able to get away with everything, but, the 1970s were really awful too. Here you are, 13 years ago when you were talking on this program. I want to see if your beliefs are the same today. I am a europeanstyle social democrat. I probably identify with the tradition which has given America Progressive income tax, education, some kind of old age insurance, and we have nothing to be ashamed of. I believe that we can take back the standard of american politics from conservatives. I would not change a word. In this book, you write about what era . The invisible bridge. It covers from 1962 through the Republican Convention in august of 1976. Your first book on goldwater went through what . 1959 through 1964. Your second book nixonland, starts with the watts riots and goes through nixons landside in 1972. What is a person with your personal views of politics doing spending all this time with conservatives in this country . That takes us back a ways. I started this project in 1997, and, i might have told you last time, let me know if i am repeating myself, i was fascinated with the 1960s when i was growing up. I went to the renaissance bookstore in wisconsin. It was full of used books and used magazines. That was my playground. I would pick up books about the black panthers, i would pick up books by the reverend john noble, a fundamentalist preacher who argued that the beatles were a communist plot. When i came to new york, i realized i wanted to become a journalist. I wanted to write a book. It was right around the time that Newt GingrichsRepublican Congress was taking the world by storm, Timothy Mcveigh blew up the Federal Building in oklahoma city, and i had also been fascinated with my fellow tribes of america tribes of america is a great book that studied the right wing populist movements. When i was a kid, i used to watch the fundamentalist preachers on sunday morning tv. When i was a young adult, i listened to rush limbaugh. These interests all came together, a story that had not been told, a lifelong interest, and my course was set. When you started off with this book, you had something that people only dream about. You had the cover of the New York Times book review. This time around, you got all positive reviews. You got a review from a man who is known as a conservative, max booth. This is his quote, this is the shit from richard nixon, he created the epa, he went to china, and it covers these areas. I think conservatives should reconsider conservative president s. President nixon was voted as a conservative, but max booth speaks to gerald ford governing. He was in the middle of negotiations with the soviet union. We can get into this later, that what Ronald Reagan was able to exploit was the rhetoric of campaigning versus the rhetoric of governing. Why the conservative movement did not buy what was what ford was up to is the real question. You can tell me more favorable reviews. The Washington Post wrote this, upon which my work is all parasitic. He does not claim any particular revelations. I think that is unfair. I think a lot of people who are supportive of my work make that claim. In my first chapter i talk about the return of the p. O. W. s, and is completely original. I watched every news report on the return of the p. O. W. s. I crafted a chapter that took six months, and it was boswell well researched as any scholarly monograph. I listened to every Ronald Reagan radio broadcast from 1975. I did a ton of research at the national archives. I did a ton of original research in the newspapers. Im talking about a shifting consciousness. The idea that i am recycling journalism of the time, i do not think it really stands the test of scrutiny. But i should not be ungrateful for the review. Part of me that read that thinks that from a lot of other peoples writings, by the New York Times and others, have you been sued . I have been threatened by a lawsuit by a fellow named greg shirley. He wants all of the copies of the books, i do not know where they are now, destroyed. How long did you know the times was going to do the story . I received a letter from this fellows lawyer, maybe a week before my book came out. My reaction was dismay, because this man is a pretty good historian. My original thought was once i get the book destroyed, i want his book read. It is a good book that relies on original interviews with lots of the participants, and all of the other historians are a pretty collegial bunch. When you work on a book and you come up with an argument or an idea, as craig did with the 1976 of the president ial campaign, universally, every other historian that i have come across is flattered. I cite him 125 times in the book. The thought that he had thought that i had done wrong by him was sad. I felt bad. I did not mean to show disrespect. Let me show this on the screen. This is from your source notes. They are not only on the internet, but they are linkable. As you can see on the blue, you can click on the blue, it is a hyperlink. I try to make it as transparent as possible. So you go to rickperlstein. Net. Why did you do it this way instead of putting it in the book . When i did the first two books, i was frustrated that people did not seem to read the notes. I thought we would have a Lively Exchange about the methods being used. I had complaints, people felt they were left out, but there was one exception, people were very fascinated that i had found a journalistic reference in 1964 to Barry Goldwater that he should stand against the civil rights act. That is the only thing i heard. I thought, what if i could make these notes so much more accessible, make my work accessible, and turn them in to a project where history teachers can show how historians work, every man his own historian, right . Show people what the resources are available to them, on google newspapers, on google books, some of the most important memos are online. The university of Santa Barbara has put every single president ial speech online. Youtube videos where you can watch Ronald Reagan give his speech to the 1976 convention. Videos of john dean testifying to the committee, what if i could do that and make it a very participatory process . Show people how history gets made, show them the guts. I was incredibly exciting for that was incredibly exciting for me. Because the book was so long, that meant that i could avoid a book thate weighed 150 lbs. By the end of the notes. Everyone has a computer in their pocket these days. Everyone has an iphone. Most people. If you dont, you can always print out the notes. Everyone has ipad. I thought about people do audio books now. Audio books you dont have any footnotes. But with this, you can kind of follow along. Thats what notes are for. You explain where your work comes from, and you give the reader a chance to verify your work. You get other scholars a chance to test your theories and build their own. So i am incredibly proud of the innovation, and we will see what people think. Innovators take risk. I am willing to take the lumps. Before the 1973 to 1976, you talk about a speech. You are talking about Ronald Reagans speech. There was a video hookup by Ronald Reagan on behalf of Barry Goldwaters president ial campaign. How important was the speech . It was full of ironies. People do not think it would be effective, but also people thought that Barry Goldwater was critical of social security. It went on, and it was a sensation. He raised so much money that the campaign had a surplus. He did not have enough both but they had enough money. Afterwards, the man at the post, said it was the most effective political speech since William Jennings bryant eva cross of gold speech. Lets watch just a little bit of this. [video clip] and this idea that the government has no other power is still the newest and most unique idea with all of mans ideas relations to man. Whether we believe in our capacity to selfgovernment or whether we believe in revolution, in a far distant capital can plan our lives better than we can plan ourselves, frequently you are told that you must choose between left or right, what but there is only up or down. The ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order. Regardless of their sincerity, and their humanitarian motive, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. What did you think here . I thought that those who would trade our freedom for security, i thought of how many people are willing to trade freedom for security it comes to 9 11. I hear lots of ironies. I love that line. There is no left or right, only up or down. But the dominant impression is what and if active communicator he is. There is nothing original about the insight. One of our other clips, if we have time, does not show a teleprompter. And he was looking down on the page, and he had given that speech dozens, if not hundreds, of times before. Reagan had a very upanddown checkered career in the entertainment history. This was one of the down periods. He had an amazing job hosting at General Electric theater. Or politicalob reasons, because he was aggressively attacking the at a timeministration when General Electric was facing off for pricefixing. He lost his job, and he got a much less distinguished job as a host for a television show. When Ronald Reagan was down and out when they came to his entertainment career, he tended to reach for politics. That is when he became most active in politics. Now he is conservative, he used to be a liberal. He spent almost all of his time in 1962, 1963, and 1964 about the evils of federal government control. He polished that speech to a high sheen. I am sure he could have done it in his sleep. How much which chapter did you spend the most time on . Definitely the first one. About the prisoners of war. Each subsequent chapter takes less time. It you are building a foundation the first chapter is a foundation of the house. I had to struggle to express the foundational idea of the book, which was this kind of debate over the meaning of patriotism, over the right or wrong patriotism and the kind of patriotism that people began to develop after the vietnam war. You were saying a true patriot, is he or she one who criticizes their country at war . It took a good six months. Chapter 17 is called star. Yes a very long chapter. How did you do it . A very important part of that chapter, well of course, there are lots of people who have written about Reagans Hollywood career, there are also people who have written about the Hollywood Star system and how it works, but i think the richest source was an archive at the university of california, los angeles, the papers of ann edwards. She wrote a very fantastic book called early reagan. She did a great civic act of leaving her papers at ucla. I was able to read every single fan Magazine Article about reagan. I was able to read reviews of all of his movies. I was able to read a nancy reagan studio questionnaire which she would answer questions about what she would do if she was not an actress, all kinds of amazing stuff. There was the copy of a hotel registry where jack reagan had signed his name. He was a very dashing figure in the world, even with his signature. Finally watching things like Ronald Reagan movies. I saw dozens of episodes of General Electric theater. Of course, a lot of what you are writing about when you are writing about an actor is his performances. It is a very long chapter, there is also a chapter about during there is also his involvement with the studio strike of the 1940s. There was a long house hearing on that strike. All kinds of stuff. How much of a democrat was he then . Dyed in the wool. He called himself a bleeding heart hopeless liberal. You can go on youtube and watch an astonishing speech he gave on the radio in 1948 for the democratic ticket, specifically praising hubert humphrey, also praising truman, and what is fascinating about that speech is that it is so recognizably Ronald Reagan. His ability to tell an exemplary story, in this case it is the story of a guy who had to go back to work because inflation was eating up all of his savings, and just like Ronald Reagan, he gives the perfect punchline the guy is 90 years old. The only difference is that the good guys and the bad guys are exactly reversed. He is not blaming the stuff on the government, but on big operations. We have outtakes, and we found this on youtube, it is from old movies. And it is a Ronald Reagan you dont see very often. It is a minute or so. Lets run this. [video clip] all right, now, take a deep breath i will try not to hurt. Now try to get the goddamned dress off. Did you find out that you are free tonight . That is the wrong goddamned line, isnt it . It has been two years since i have been in new york. How does it look to you . You are looking blooming. Oh i am fine. Have you been getting any lately . Have you been getting any lately . Do you mean a overtime . [laughter] i had another one of those goddamned fits. It must be difficult for a man goddamn knowledge. Mary oh no. You turn right around and leave. Oh, but mary. You get out and counted 20. God damn. You know, that makes me think of the nixon tapes, and the scandal that came out. The president swore. The other thing is, it reminds me of a story that the late robert novak told in his memoirs where he realized in the summer of 1975 when reagan was running for president , he took a long plane trip with them. It was delayed because of weather. Maybe because reagan was so reagan hated flying, and he got over his fear of and novak said he would tell all of these dialect stories. He said that reagan told him that he had tried to bed every starlet in hollywood in between his marriages. It is humanizing. Right . And what kind of an actor was he . How many of his movies did you watch . May be six or seven or eight. They are hard to get a hold of. Because, a lot of them were garbage in teen knew it. He would apologize for them. A couple of good ones, and he was starting to build up a head of steam as an actor. He came to hollywood in 1937, and he debuted with a bang. His first picture was love is on the air, he played a radio broadcaster, and then he went downhill almost immediately. And then he had a breakthrough role with knut rotney, all american, that is the one where he says win one for the gipper. He had another breakthrough role in the one where he said where is the rest of me . His father pulled some strings to make sure that he stayed stateside. Pulled someer strings, to make sure he stayed stateside. He made some films at a place that actors called fort wacky, but then the taste for actors changed, there was a taste for van johnson, who was much more of a midcentury existentialist who was a wiry character. Here is some video from one of those training film that he made, this is at the reagan library. All right, one at a time. Danny is ok, hell go over. Stay steady. Thats my shot. Hang tight. [bomb sound] yeah, he comes back, and his career is deadsville. He was in some real turkeys. He could not get the kind of jobs he wanted. He begged jeff warner to put western, and he would not do it, and he was memorialized in a book about the 100 worst movies of all time, he starred alongside Shirley Temple in her first adult role. He had to kiss Shirley Temple, and they cut the kiss because people booed during the screening. Reagan slumped in his seat and walked out. Every time when his career would go down, he would turn to politics. He started starting from behind the podium in stead. This is from your book on page 357, the fact that he is a leader of all of these groups and a narrator of operation terror,explain why two fbi agents showed up to reagans doorstep one day. Did you listen to those, that 13 part series . I wonder if it is available. I do not know. But there is a wonderful book , about by a former sever franciscosan newspaper writer called subversive, and it is about j edgar hoover, Ronald Reagan, and the fbi files. It is kind of like a triple biography of these three people. He reviewed the fbi files and he worked very closely with the fbi during that. So, in his book, i dont know how many pages, you probably remember how many pages, 800 pages, what were you trying to accomplish, and is there a next one . Yes. I think what i was trying to accomplish as i researched this. , the overarching story that has not been told, the big story, is the shift of american policy politics from 1973 through 1976. It turned out to be this dark, dark, dark time. That we were First Talking abou talking about was when there first was an energy shortage, that is something that made people think about america and how we could solve big problems. How we could call our leaders to account. How we could create a foreignpolicy that wasnt being involved as foreign policeman, and there was a struggle at the same time in American Life where people did not want to do that hard, civic work of solving the problems are and Ronald Reagan rode on that wave, and began telling people that they did not need to worry about these problems, that watergate wasnt a problem, that the burglars were not criminals at heart, and that the Energy Crisis was trumped up, and thats by the time of the bicentennial, there is a more grownup version of patriotism. We are going to jump j