Jeff spent 13 years at the washington post. Im not sure that is where you learn how to write well but that is certainly where you learn how to get a good story and by the end he was running the outlook section and then he went to the new yorker and was a Senior Editor there for nearly 13 years and that is a place where you learn to write well and help others write well. Besides writing nonfiction, jeff has written three, four, i guess four works of fiction. So this is someone who understands the importance of narrative and of a good story. He brought those talents, for some reason, to the relationship between eisenhower and nixon and i want to begin by asking you, jeff, why did you choose that particular marriage . Because as to be focus of this because it was really a great story. 2 began with two people who really doesnt know each other. One was American Hero of sort we dont have anymore. Fivestar generals, no more fivestar generals. The man credited to leading allies to victory in europe, 62 years old and 39yearold Orange County congressman. Eisenhower ran with nixon but didnt really choose him as Vice President. He wasnt even aware that a president ial candidate gets to choose his Vice President. So he later was asked by james rosen of the New York Times, what really happened the night nixon was chosen . I had my advisors and six or seven people were on the list and nixon was on the list. So they got together and they had a very strained relationship that went on and on during eisenhowers presidency. It became closer, which nixon calls his Wilderness Years and eisenhowers postpresidency. Around 1966, east send hours grandson, david, who was going to amherst, began to date julie nixon who was going to smith, seven miles away. They were completely crazy about each other. A year later, they were 19 years old. A year later when they were 20 they were married. They became one family. In november of 1968 they had thanksgiving together, the the nixons and eisenhowers. And julie nixons first born was eisenhower. That was great story from beginning to end. The topic of tonights discussion is rethinking nixon. Does this relationship cause you to rethink nixon . I thought about nixon a lot. I never really, im not sure i really rethought him because i was not doing the nixon presidency. I have an epilogue that deals with what came after. I only deal with the book with three months or two months of the nixon presidency which began when he was inaugurated. Two months later, eisenhower was dead. That is what covers the story. Their first meeting they met at bee homian grove, exclusive mens club in San Francisco and ended with eisenhowers death in 1969. What sense of the man did you get . Of nixon . Yeah. He baffled me and i found him extremely complicated. I was sort of rivetted by this sort of different sides of him. He could be really vindictive and sort of vicious. Even long before all the tapes that weve all heard, he would refer to one time he referred to his 1960 running mate, Henry Cabot Lodge and next kel headed gutless wonder sort of thing yet could be so kind to people and generous in ways he didnt have to be. He always had a thing about the kennedys. But when he was president he invited mrs. Kennedy and two children to come see him at the white house. It wasnt perfunctory look around. He spent time with them. They played with the dog. He wrote them thank you letters. Personal thank you letters back to all the two children. So touched mrs. Kennedy and wrote back to nixon, that was a such a sweet thing. So you had that side of him. He had this other side that completely boulevarded me. What really struck me reading in your book how mean Dwight Eisenhower was to Richard Nixon. What yeah. I mean it is amazing, it is amazing how mean. Should give some examples of that. Eisenhower wasnt even aware of it. Eisenhower regarded almost everyone who worked for him as staff. Nixon was Lieutenant Commander in the navy. Eisenhower was a fivestar general. Try to get a sense of that today, we dont have any. We have fourstars, like, david petraeus. But this is a difference sort of between, leading the allied Expeditionary Force in the invasion of normandy or running the surge in iraq. It is a cold difference in magnitude what these men were. Eisenhower again, eisenhower was so big. Both parties wanted him to run. Jimmy roosevelt, fdrs son wanted him to run as democrat. There was talk he could run with both parties and have different Vice President s. [laughing] he was beloved. So the sense eisenhower was almost oblivious in some ways to his effect on people and yet there was, some cases some deliberate cruelty. I think, and it started off in very bad way. Im sure you all know the story of the fun crisis, which began with this story in the New York Post saying nixon was supported by a group of millionaires, secret group of millionaires. There was a lot of pressure to get nixon off the ticket. Eisenhower in fact wanted him off the ticket. Long story short, nixon went on television, explained himself. Revealed all of his finances. Talked about a dog named checkers he wasnt going to give back and defied eisenhowers order to resign. Said right to the Republican National committee, basically circumventing eisenhowers right to remove him from the ticket. He won. From that moment on things were, in some ways things were never the same even though they became closer and they worked together. Eisenhower, what eisenhower did to him, nixon later wrote was a scar that never healed. Julie nixon in her book her mortgage, every september 23rd, was anniversary of the checkers speech. Her father said, you know what day it is . Anniversary of that speech. He never forget. Many, many episodes of cruelty. Tried to get him off the ticket in 56. Nixon fought back. He would do things, when nixon was finally getting a vacation in the summer of 58, off with his family and all of them were off in west virginia. Nixon, dick, i want you to come back to washington to fire sherman adams. There was never any rest from him. He was not a really kind boss. He really, wanted his own way. As i say, some of 2 was casual indifference to the feelings of other people. Were seeing, tonight, for some reason all of you decided not to watch the state of the union. But somebody in the country, some people are watching the state of the union. And were watching now of course, a dialogue between a resurgent, reelected president and a divided Republican Party. You wrote about a quite a different Republican Party. It was a different party. The, the there were sort of, there were, of course the party was totally different. It was, when nixon was and eisenhower was there it was civil rights party. It was really party of lincoln and democrats Jackie Robinson supported nixon. So did, and Martin Luther king was sort of a big nixon supporter until they had a bad moment in 1960 when nixon didnt come to his aid. No, and nixon and Eisenhower Administration and with nixon working in the senate, sort of lobbied for a stronger version of the 1957 civil rights bill which was considered a landmark bill at the time. So they were very different parties. The two wings of the Republican Party, there was a liberal wing and a conservative wing so to speak but the liberal, but conservative wing with people like robert taft, he was isolationist but supported old age pensions. Had a real social conscience and so on. There were outliars. Outlyers. There was senator mccarthy. They were outlyers. They didnt speak for the party. In fact though eisenhower was reluctant to take anybody on directly he really did want to get mccarthy excised from the party and put nixon up to it. One of the challenges for someone writing about Richard Nixon i think, i like to know if you share this view, is that we have an ocean of information about him as president , largely because he decided to leave it for himself. He didnt expect the public to have access to it. And we dont have as much about him as Vice President. And how, how easy or hard was it for to you get to the inner nixon when you wrote about him in the 50s . I give a lot of credit to timothy, who was the director of the Nixon Library. A lot of stuff was open. You could go down there and go through this, go in the archives and find, the more time you spent, sort of more things you would discover. I began, fascinated by the notes that nixon wrote on the famous, yellow pads and he would write down, almost, he was like a a student. Everything he did and saw would take moats. When he, eisenhower did him a big favor of fall of 53 sending him all through asia. See his notes. In the vietnam met the emperor. Simply only ones, commies could run the country. He saw the future in a way. He didnt like it. He was a cold warrior. You could see nixon reflecting and being, one time being resentful when he saw that eisenhower was really trying to get rid of him in 1956. He was writing down things, it is president s choice. For good of the party. Writing his own sort of death speech. He never said it but you could find all these things. It is all there but you got to keep looking. The other thing that is so important, and tim can talk about this, theres a barrier between the Nixon Library which is run bit National Archives and Nixon Foundation which is far more celebratory part. I had to work with them too. They were terrific to me. They decided they were going to trust me to be fair. I hope i was fair. And they put me in touch with one person in particular, talking to tim about it earlier, a woman named marge actor, assistant to rosemary woods who was with him from congress and marge r marge was with him during that time. Nixon was on a train going from Northern California to oregon and marge actor was there, talk about what it was like. Talk about what it was like when they flu flew to wheeling to meet general eisenhower. Things were important from the foundation side. Library while tim was there they were alter risk. They were open to us. Profession archivists. There was high standard. I couldnt remember, i was tell taking eight or nine trips to yorba linda. Had enough of the olive garden. Other places other than there were. There were. There is very good sandwich shop. Stefanos, very good sandwich shop. Spent a lot of time there. 15 minute walk. For a celebrant of nixons career, historians are problematic. You did a very, very good job of navigating the shoals and talking to everybody. I noticed in the book, you interviewed a number of polks who would have been interviewed by the library in the first year or two but after a while decided they didnt really want to talk to us but they talked to you and that is what is important. I would have to say that standing brac, the, the darker side of Richard Nixon that we know from the tapes, do you see hints of that in the 50s . Do you believe there was a change, that this man was actually traumatized . I thought about that a lot. I think im one of those who believe there was a change. I dont know where it dates from but i think it probably dates, probably dates from the very beginning of his relationship with eisenhower. I think he was under constant strain and constant security. He was very much like any employee hired by a sort of really top Level Corporation and really didnt know whether his job is safe. It wasnt until the 1956 election when nixon realized he had what you call tenure. There was nothing to be done. Except eisenhower still had a thumb on his. He needed eisenhowers support if he was running for president. After eisenhowers attack in 1955, we can talk, first time people talked about nixon as an heir to the presidency. This is unusual. Vice president s were not considered heirs to the presidency. No one thought as harry truman to the presidency. Roosevelt didnt think of truman as heir to the presidency. He didnt tell him anything. Vice president didnt have a office in that era. Didnt in the nixon era. Eisenhower did a great favor keeping him informed. Attended cabinet meetings. When eisen hauer wasnt there he ran them. Same thing with the National Security council and eisenhower sent him abroad on trips all through asia. 1957, nixon became close to secretary of state John Foster Dulles after eisenhowers heart attack. He suggested nixon visit the gold coast after africa got their independence. No, no. [laughter] no, we were talking about that. The wonderful line we thought he was under the influence of dick cheney but it was, in fact, lucian freud. [laughter] but, yes, i agree with him, the 1960 election was hugely traumatic on all kinds of levels. One, i think nixon who had always regarded kennedy as a friend, he liked kennedy. One of the things i found, after mix sops Nastiest Campaign nixons Nastiest Campaign which sort of a democrats forever turned against him, but shortly after that kennedy spoke to kids at harvard and said im really glad mrs. Douglas lost, i wouldnt have wanted to work with her in the senate. Nixon supported kennedys membership application to the burning tree country club. The kennedys, jack and jackie invited the nixons to their wedding. When jack kennedy was laid up with a bad back injury, nixon sort of help protect him, and mrs. Kennedy wrote to him and said, thank you, jack thinks youre one of the most wonderful people. So i wont call them friends, they were politicians who no ones really friends in this business. Well, tip oneill and Ronald Reagan must have been friends. Yeah, right. [laughter] but they were friendly. They were colleagues, they were roughly the same age, and suddenty kennedy suddenly, kennedy was really playing rough. Nothing was held back, and he felt he was being roughed up by the kennedys. They were saying terrible things about him, it was a really rough campaign, and furthermore, he thought when it was all over, he thought it had been stolen. He thought he had won it. And people are still arguing about that. I mean, dont forget, if he had won illinois and texas, he would have won. So it was and he felt, he always felt that he was, that he really got royally stiff inside that election. Stiffed in that election. There was a renaissance of interest in Richard Nixon, and i caught some of this when i was at the library because of george w. Bush. Because people were looking back to Richard Nixon and saying you could have a Good Government republican. You could have a republican who actually wanted the government to be efficient. It didnt necessarily have the grow, although under nixon it did grow to some extent, but the Republican Party so different now this was the argument was theres no room for Good Government republicans like nixon. And so there was much more interest in Richard Nixons domestic agenda. Everybody had been interested, obvious, in the Foreign Policy side with the opening to china and the war of the end in vietnam. But in the, i noticed this in the second term of the bush administration, there was more interest in Richard Nixons domestic policies. Its a real problem for historians because on the tapes Richard Nixon is not always very happy about his domestic policies. I was wondering, since you were back looking at the concern. [inaudible] period for rich adder nixon Richard Nixon, where would you put him visavis the new deal in the 1950s . Has he begun to doubt the new deal . What role does he see government playing in society . I dont yeah. I think he certainly had no desire to undo the new deal. He was a congressman, he was very much in favor of some sort of Catastrophic Health plan. Dont forget, when nixon was growing up, his family wasnt poor, but he had two brothers who died of tuberculosis, so there wasnt very good health care. One brother was 7 years old, and then harold, his older brother, died when he was 25. And so he was, um, so he was very much, he was an interarablist when he was a congressman internationalist. Nixon was a big supporter of the Marshall Plan and voted for it, and as president , yeah, a lot of his domestic even if he didnt love some of them, he certainly supported the Environmental Protection agency began under nixon, he brought in pat moynihan to try to [inaudible] this idea of a negative income tax. And even nixon backed away from it, certain standards were set about the welfare system in this country that you have to give nixon credit for. Other things, too, the philadelphia hiring plan for minorities and so on. So he was a pretty good domestic president. I talked to a guy named Paul Musgrave who worked with timothy at the library, and he sort of said the fist three or four months of the nixon presidency were like a golden age. It was kind of amazing, all this stuff was going on, and nixon, it was interesting, if you read some of the new republic pieces, nixon had all these domestic policy meetings and would sit around for hours looing it. So loving it. So that was a whole other side of nixon. Then he stopped it. Are then it all stopped, yeah. He stopped it. Yeah. He lost interest in it. Thats what makes him is such a puz