Resignation. This is about an hour. A testimony to the job they do and the reverence for books books that we all share. Richard nixon is a hard man to let go of. By first i remember as a child in black and white fuzzy television seeing this odd man, he was on a good ticket with general eisenhower and there was some problem taking money from a secret fund. And i thought this is interesting. He never stopped being interesting. Richard nixon was never boring. David mentioned he was probably as interesting in his after presidency as he was during his presidency. I chronicle in the book beginning with spiro agnew. Remember spiro agnew being in some trouble and i said to my editor at the new yorker, thought lamented and just the legendary William Shawn saying what are you thinking of writing next . I dont know. I have a feeling we are going to change Vice President s and president s within a year. This is labor day of 73. A way out there kind of wild thought at the time. We agreed i would write a journal, not a diary but watch the events and interpret and talk about them. We didnt know where it was going and as he said at the time we dont know how to change Vice President s. That would be the First Quarter of business. We didnt know how to change Vice President s, we didnt know how to impeach a president , we didnt know how to get another president. It was all kind of made up as we went along. One of the most distressing things about now is the loose way we use the word impeachment which time they are may not get to this later because i have so much to talk about the affairs such a thing the way Richard Nixon was almost impeached was the model. It came from the center. It was bipartisan, it was the country could accept it because it was arrived at in a very fair and methodical way. Richard nixon had no choice but to resign. He held out and help out but mainly republican senators, they didnt want to conduct a trial. They wanted to get this thing over with and journey forward before the election so we had this iconic nixon goodbye as he got on to the helicopter to taken to the plane to go to san clemente his western white house where he would retire and never be heard from again. So we thought. That is not my nixon. When he got to california he was understandably deeply depressed. He had worked for decades to get to the highest place he possibly could, than anybody in this country possibly can in this country politically, and it was all gun. He knew in his head he had done a fair amount to bring a non but he always believed people were out to get him. This was what brought about his downfall. He could not distinguish between opponents and enemies. And this became a big problem for him but he was the press, he was not well. She had phlebitis from a trip to the middle east that he took for the end but he was not going to give up. He had never given up all his life. He had always seen himself as being treated as lesser and lower than others. He was for. His family, dysfunctional was not a word fin but this was a really dysfunctional family. Usually they dont grow up to tear up the constitution. He had been looked down on as a kid. He was awkward. He read a lot, he was not popular. In never really had friends. Strange person to go into politics but he was so determined about everything. He was determined, this was not going to be the end of Richard Nixon. He was going to work his way back into respectability. Imagine, this is a situation which would have crushed most people and yet he was determined so he drew up a plan. He always had a plan. Some aides were sent to california with him at government expense and they drew up a plan called a wizard and this was to be the resurgence and reemergence of Richard Nixon as a statesman. He was smart enough to know that how do you get to be a statesman. They are going to listen to you on foreign policy, education or environment for these things, those issues board in any way. Is great triumphs, work with the soviet union and the opening to china. China was the one dearest to his heart. He began to make speeches, began to take trips, and he should pronouncements as if he were still president or thought he was, our nixon never quite he would write a secret memorandum to the president on his trip course some issue and you leak it to the press and it would be in the papers and he had the famous interviews with david frost which were not as portrayed in frost nixon, you can look it up. He does not confess, they just left out a few words that were inconvenient to the story. He then began to get bored in san clemente, moved to new york where he had been before after he lost the california governorship, lost the presidency in 1960 when everyone thought he was gone but he was never gone. I wish he were back now because he was so much fun. And so interesting. Any event he moved to new york. He and pat nixon, she was thrilled to be out of politics at last, she hated it and they were vetoed at various kelloggs of course, and he decided he would have a series of dinners with new york publishers, bankers, almost all sides. These dinners are discovered in the last few years i discovered his post presidency which i found as interesting as the presidency so he would have these dinners and everything was clockwork. At 7 00 he met people in the front door. He went upstairs, mixed drinks, he prided himself on the dry martinis he may. This was not a man who was very good at small talk. He subtlety was not his long suit. The house was up, the appetizers were chinese, the waiters were chinese, the dinner was chinese, and after dinner is they would go upstairs and there was an organized subject at the dinner and afterwards they would go upstairs and more chat. And it was 10 30 and i promised i would get david code into a house of prostitution so we have to stop now. And everybody wanted to come. He became a celebrity. After a while he sought new york he doted on his grandchildren. In moved to new jersey, but he wasnt chase. There was another generation to cultivate. He had a series of dinners in saddle river where he would roger stone you may have read about, they invited journalists too young to have been of age during watergate. No one knew watergate was to be around and he could be very impressive. He spoke with a microphone and was named dropping foreign leaders, everybody was very impressed. In this end he won on his own terms. He would have loved three expresident s came, Henry Kissinger sort of choked as he gave his little talk, bob dole had a tear coming down his eye. He had been asked would you like him to make an appearance in kansas and bob dole said a flyover would do. 9 nixon would have seen straight through these guys. The new Henry Kissinger was bad mouthing him with his friends in cambridge and that the georgetown parties. He understood everything that was going on. He was done to them but he would have been pleased with his funeral and i have to say i kind of miss him. He was so interesting. Why did i write this journal in the first place . When i spoke to a mr. Shaw about this idea about keeping the journal at the time, we didnt know where it was going. I came back to washington and this is also why we are here again. My mentor at the time also happened to be david, john gardner said to me elizabeth, write it so that 40 years from now people will know what was like then. It cannot be recaptured. I dont know that i wrote it any differently with that in mind. I didnt know where i would be in 40 years. It just happens that 40 years from now, this is not an anniversary book, the book was written as a print and i wrote to peter mayer of overlook press who has a very distinguished book lists. He rode back and said it is idiotic for that book to be out of print. They will be issued in hardback. My heart leapt needless to say and i said all right, i will write and afterwards to clear things up and then came the afterward, at 10,000 word addition of new material, part of which i told you but also look back on what was watergate, what was it really . It wasnt tweet to reporters doing outstanding reporting, that wasnt it. It wasnt petty crimes or a breakin. The breakin that was caught, by the way, i learned this as i was doing my reporting many years later, it was the fourth attempt of these burglars to get into watergate. The first time theyd plant a grand dinner inside watergate that would get them in the building and get to the Democratic National headquarters, there was this one thing, one thing led to another and ended up locked in a closet. Next time they went up they went up and got their but they didnt have the equipment to pick the locks. One of the burglars went back to miami to get a good lock pick and came back and they went in and actually got in over the memorial day labor day weekend, memorial day weekend that summer. As is often the case, part my english, they screwed up and they put the cap on the wrong phone and took the pictures and the pictures were all blurred and one of the burglars took this to John Mitchell, former attorney general who was then head of the committee to reelect the president. And the reporter said these sting. That is not the word used. Go back and get better pictures and fix that. Then they went in and they were caught. The thing about watergate, we had a white house where the president came in with a lot of people he hated and a lot of people he assumed were enemies, so he on his wish, they hired a rash of strange people, a former cop from new york whose first job was to tale ted kennedy because he fought nixon thought ted kennedy would be his opponent in 1972. He wanted to get the goods on him. He was always wanting to get the goods on people. The main person you want to get the goods on was dan elsburg to have leaked the pentagon papers. Henry kissinger was very worked up about this and it got nixon all worked up. There was actually then committed probably the most dangerous, nixon understood this. Was more concerned about the fall and having been found out, then the watergate breakin and that is the burglars, the plumbers, they were called, they were planning for leaks. They went out to california and they raided the office of dan gelber ags psychiatrist to get his psychiatric files. Imagines that. The white house sending somebody out for somebodys psychiatric files. There was just one problem. They had case it. There were no files. A broken okay and they had their picture taken, they were so proud in front of the Doctors Office door and they were using c i a equipment, cameras, voice changers, wigs, so the cia got these pictures and said what is this . This is a violation of Fourth Amendment beyond anything we could imagine. That is what the coverup was really about. Fortunately for the country the plumbers messed up everything they did or we would have been in far deeper trouble. Living through watergate was an amazing time. Things were coming at you all the time. All do respect, we didnt have cable or would have been total chaos. We had a morning paper, the radio as an occasional bulletin, and the evening papers and evening news and gossip, if have you heard this . You wont believe what we just heard and it was just like that all the time. That was the famous saturday night, the saturday night massacre. I refuse to call it that. I was actually on a Television Program at the time, we were sitting there, it was like being in that banana republic, the blossoms kept coming in. The president has ordered the attorney general richardson to fire Archibald Cox who was demanding the president turned over the tapes. Rich edson refused and he has been fired. Next up, the Deputy Attorney general refused, he was fired. This went on through the night and the bulletins were coming in and do was banana republic, downtown san diego. It was very disturbing. We didnt know where were. The fbi surrounded the headquarters of the independent counsels office. So you never knew what was coming next. I did reflection on this later about what kind of people worry fees and how did this happen and i would say we didnt have time to even think about that then. I tried to and i have various reflections through the book about what we to draw from this and what kind of country in this, how could this be . Too much is going on. We are absorbing events that run our imaginations and trying to prepare ourselves for months of bitter struggle to come. Some close to the administration said the story of the Nixon Administration is one of people who were in over their heads. That might be true but that does not explain it. There was a fanatic quality to some of the nixon men. There public piety had and their venom which may have deceived even them. One cannot escape the thought that the president set the tone. My feeling throughout this, you can lookmany situations and say you dont have to know who knew what when, who set the tone . How did this come about . One cannot escape the fog that the president set the tone. A man with a striking lack of deep feeling and connections, seems to have gone through life as if in constant combat. He confused legitimate opposition and so did his staff. Most of us have an inner jury. People whose judgment we trust, whose opinion matters to us and to we count on to level with us. Nixon does not seem to have an injury. He was all so he was very interesting but very strange. Just to give you the flavor of what was like to follow nixon and see what he is trying to tell us there was a rather famous event when he spoke in orlando to group of editors and just to give you the sense of the language of this man tele when it is time to pull the plug, we were in disclosure stage and we have learnt the breakin was june 17th and nixon came back from florida where he also had a place in the keys in key biscayne near his one friend, he came back and had meetings that day with colson, we know that he calls John Mitchell but this is when the coverup began but we didnt quite know that zen because the tapes had come out yet, the transcripts to come out until later that summer, that told a lot but there was more to come and still more than i learned in the last couple years. Tonight the president disclosed tical John Mitchell on june 20th, 1972, in order to cheer him up. Goes on in detail why the tape ran out. We discovered 18 minutes missing on the tape, so they tried to pin it on his secretary, rose mary woods, trying to figure out how to answer the phone and putting your foot on the panel but it didnt work, he couldnt do it. In the end it was nixons sitting at camp david running the machine and racing 18 minutes from that day, from the coverup conversation. That is not anywhere except what ive put altogether later. He goes into detail about why the tape ran out and we are farther from the point. He explains it was a little funny. A little funny that they had. He robbed the flag in his lapel. It was nixon starting the business as a flag and a lapel. I remember john garner saying we should all wear the flag pins, we shall put the flag on our cars. Dont let them take it from us. The democrats and liberals were at that spot so they have appropriated that symbol to this day so he runs the flag in his lapel and says with a smile the equipment president johnson had was incidentally much better material. There have been reports kennedy and johnson had the phones. He adds i am not criticizing him, you see, far be it for me to do a thing like that, that would be wrong, that is the way he would talk. An editor asked his reaction to the discovery of the tapes, the conversations, and mitchell didnt exist and the president replied, one of the great disappointments because i wanted the evidence out, he said there were established to stop leaks of information that endanger national security, one says series that senator and and senator baker agreed it should not be disclosed. What with the pentagon papers, critique of the johnson administration, management of the vietnam war but the Great Questions about the vietnam war which nixon and Henry Kissinger continued for five years in the end got the same deal they could have had when they first came in but dont ask Henry Kissinger about it or be prepared to sit for quite a while as he explains that is not the case. Ask how watergate could happen, the president replied 72 was a very busy year. By doing measures had been taken to hold down the consumption of fuel in his trip to the south, he was in disney world and he said the backup plane hadnt been brought down so they hadnt used up as much fuel. We did have a fuel crisis at the time. He answered it his own plane goes down it goes down. Then they dont have to impeach me. He talks about his vicepresident ial papers which he had held out from the government and finances and said this. I want to say this to the television audience. I made my mistakes but in all my years in public life i have never profited, never profited from Public Service. I have earned every cent, questionable, and in all my years of public life i never obstructed justice, then came the famous immortal line, he said he welcomes this kind of examination because people have got to know whether their president is a sucker truck. I am not a crook. This is the president of the united states. Remember dignity . It was a period when it was funny. We were laughing in the same way. It was scary. We did note, some peoples phones work half, some journalistss phones were tapped. A friend of mine, the wife of a columnist, learned her very intimate conversations with her very close friend, ted kennedys wife were being listened to at the Justice Department or in the white house. This was not funny. A friend of mine went out sunday morning and the paper had come and they said they stopped the papers. Nothing became preposterous because it was all so preposterous but also scary. The president suggested to some aides that they blow up the Brookings Institution because he believed, he was told 5 these peoples that some papers leftover from the pentagon papers were still in the office and they should set afire and in the confusion go in and get those papers. The president suggesting they block the Brookings Institution. There was somebody on the staff with the sense to stop it but that was rare so you also have one island later, the preside