The war changed the economy tremendously from long beach and the rest of the United States. Long beach was experiencing a depression but we were lucky we discovered oil in 1921. The town was booming from the oil industry at that point. What was happening was also we were seeing the development of aviation in long beach. In 1911, cal rogers flew the first flight from new york and stopp stopped in long beach and made history in 1911. When the u. S. Army was looking for a place to build a plant to produce aircraft, which they thought we would need in world war ii, they picked long beach because steps away we have a wonderful airport founded in 1923. It was one of the first airports with a take off and landing in Different Directions which the army loved. When the plant opened in 1941 in october they thought well, we will produce the a26 but on december 8th we had pearl harbor and a couple things happened in long beach. Most of the ships that were destroyed in pearl harbor had been anchored here in long beach. So the families left behind were long beach families. That is not a wellknown fact about how much long beach was connected to pearl harbor. Douglas went into full production mode and was turning out planes 24 7. It then needed a lot of people to work here. The men went off to war and the women, for the first time, were brought out of the house and into workforce. Douglas was employing 4500 people a day in the long beach area and about 48 of these people were women. The women were trained immediately on whatever kind of job they came in to take. The reason they had to is because a lot of these women never worked outside of the house. It is funny when you look at the training material from douglas they were doing explanations of what a screw driver and a wrench was and how to use a hammer properly and how to read a bl blueprint. The most important thing they had to be caught cause safety. We didnt have a lot of safety regulations but we had women coming in with long hair and they were told immediately to pull it up because it could get caught in machines and several women were scalped. So you see womens hair being smoothed out and put into a smood that would protect you from dirt and was a safety regulation. There was a lot of practical training that went on when women took their job. The most important learning lest n is having to stand and do repeative, dirty, exhausting work for 1012 hours. Douglas hired matrons who worked in the restrooms and had women counselors that could help women who had difficulties. A lot of women have menstrual problems because of having to stand 1012 hours. A lot of people developed what was called a slouch because of bending town and constantly riveting they hurt their shoulders. They put in the ad if you can iron clothes you can rivet. There is not a lot of connection other than saying the iron you use to iron clothes was heavier than the rivet gun which is true but women became back and blue because the rivet gun was constantly hitting them. This was a new experience for a lot of people and especially women. It was a kind of labor most women had not been allowed to and now they were expected to do everything a man would do on the job. Women at douglas aircraft were doing everything. Riveting lots. They would work on the outside. You would have someone who would drive the rivet. And they needed someone inside and particularly needed smaller women. Douglas hired men who were referred to as midgets unfortunately but they were small sizes and could be there to push back and flatten out the rivets. They did everything. They put engines together and made sure the sights for the bomb bombers were accurate. Anything you can think of that requires to be done to get an airplane done the women did it. There is no you cnot do it because you were woman. They were expected to do everything a man did. In that aspect, they learned things do to they never expected to have the skills. When they went home they were skilled in repair and handy work. It was a real change for these women. The other side of the women in long beach wasnt just rosie the riveter but the Women Air Service pilots. Those were the women once the planes were manufactured they were flown off to different locations by women pilots. And we had one of the largest groups here at the Long Beach Airport. That was another aspect women got to do. Soldiers and sailors did know what their wife was doing. It was political rhetoric like the women are helping us win the war but there was a negative side. There were people opposed to women welding the ship and there was propaganda saying these ships will sink because they were made by women. Women had to fight that prop propaganda. On the airplanes, one of the reasons the memphis bell was shown all around, it showed the resilience of the b17 but it was because the b17 was called the ladys airplane because women put it together here in long beach. Rhetoric was going around in congress and other places that women were producing it and this isnt a safe airplane and it should be put together by men. There was a tug and pull. They heard what their wives did in the factory. The movie swing shift is based on a douglas plant in santa monica which is almost identical to here. There were a lot of divorces in world war ii because they decided they could be single and independent and they formed other relationships in the workplace. It had an impact on the sail sa and soldiers. There were still young men working in the factories or maybe they had a deferment. Once the war was over, propaganda shifted in the magazines and movies. You were expected if you were a woman to go home and give the job to the gis returning. After the war just a handful of women remained at douglas. When the korean war broke out there was an uptick but it never got back to the levels of world war ii. There was some resistance from society and also employers who wanted to employ the veterans coming home. It is interesting to watch the movies and magazines and suddenly your place was back in the home not the factory. I think this period in history is important because i think people need to understand how war has changed in the society. When world war ii was happening every person in society was involved in some aspect. The women were working in the factories, the kids in the classroom were encouraged to do things to support the war efforts, the men were off to war. Everything was about the war. We dont have that anymore. We have a silent war going on and very few people even know we are loosing men and women still in the service of our country. That is a big difference. The other thing is it did change the role of women. It was the event that said we can do it. Women can do everything if they are given the opportunity to do it. Once they open the door, it was very difficult to close it. It is the women whose mothers in the 40s became the most feminist in the 70s because their mothers told them look, we did all of this stuff, and a lot of people didnt believe women did all of this. We opened the mark in 2008 and invited anyone who had been a rosie and a woman came up with a scrap book and had many items a and she had tears in her eyes and said i didnt think anybody would remember what we did. There are many people that dont understand who these women were and the sacrifice these women did during world war ii. I think it is an important period in history. I think it is so important to the city of long beach. It boosted our population and put us on the map and we had a Naval Shipyard disability built as a result. It grew our economy and we need to be grateful for the men and women that gave their life and worked on the hom homefront to do that. This weekend, we are in long beach, company with the help of our cable partner, charter. Next, president ial speech writer for gerald ford, craig smith, shares his time in the house and the importance of speechwriters during president ial elections. How did you get started in spee speechwriting . I was a high school debater, and debatered in college and went to double my major from history to Communication Studies and went to graduate school for communication but i never thought speechwriting. When i was at the university of virginia i was asked to give a guest lecture at the university of North Carolina chapel hill. I went down to chapel hill and talked at 10 oclock and president ford was speaking at noon and all of us decided to go over and hear him because how often do you get to hear a president and the president gave a speech that wasnt very good. It was disorganized. Rambling. My colleagues kidded me how can you be a republican and support a man who cannot give out a speech. I went back and wrote a five page critique of the speech and mailed it to the white house. A week later i got a call and was asked to interview for a speech writing job that was open. They had checked me out with people that knew me in the debate world. I was a debate coach at the university of virginia. I came up, went through the interview and got the job. It was just amazing the first time i was writing a speech for anybody was was the president of the United States. Making match between the writer and the client happens after you are hired. Some of the best speechwriters in the world didnt get along with their clients. It is when you find a match and you only learn that through the process. John kennedy went through a number of speechwriters before the aid from nebraska became his and then it clicked. Kind of hazing for me, i think. The first speech was the peach for the Southern BaptistConvention Meeting in norfolk, virginia. You had a catholic writing for an episcopalian writing for the Southern Baptist. We were running against jimp jimmy carter who was a born again and loved by the Southern Baptist. We went down to norfolk. The president got up with my speech which are gone through ten drafts. The art of writing is rewriting. He was about a minute and 30 seconds into the speech and interbankrupt interrupted by applause. It didnt happen much. He was interupted 15 more times. The Washington Post wrote up the speeches as the best speech ford written. We went on successfully together from there. Why did that speech resonate with the crowd . I think it was because i understood audience analysis is critical to giving a good speech. The strategies used in the speech should come out of the audience so i did advance work on the audience. There were a lot of evangelical ministers there. I think adapting to the audience was the first step. The second step was the organization of the speech. He knew where he was going. Speeches are invisible and not like writing. People only retain a third of what they hear. You have to tell people here is where we are now, here is where we have going, now i am moving into the my conclusion. It makes the speaker and audience comfortable. After we lost the presidency, i lined up a job at the university of alabama birmingham. While teaching at birmingham, bill harris, the new head of the Alabama Republican Party came to me and said would you help me out i have to sell republicanism to alabama. Then we asked George Walker bush and come and we went to the civic center and i was sitting there and i said why dont you tell us what you think of george bushs speak. And when the speech was done, the young man turned to me and said what did you think . I said he is a nice man, sensitive and very bright but he Needs Organization and a sense of style. It is obvious that speech wasnt rehears rehearsed. The young man said my name is karl rove and i work for him. How would you like to meet him . I went upstairs and shook hands with mr. Bush and he invited me to houston to meet him and his wife in january of 1978. I flew to houston in a threepiece suit. Mr. Bush came to the door in a tshirt and he said if you get out of that silly vest i will make you breakfast. He is cooking eggs and hands me coffee. Barbara bush comes in and says that man is standing there a cup of coffee and no saucer. I said with all due respect, i came in a three piece suit and i will not spill a drop of the coffee and she laughed and george laughed and he hit it off and are friend. I became a consulting writer for bush. We won the iowa caucus and lost in new hampshire. The battle went all the way until june before bush pulled out and reagan became the nominee and put bush on the ticket with him. Then i continued to consult with mr. Bush, vise president bush, and into this next president ial run. The biggest challenge for writing speeches for bush senior was he didnt like rehearsinreh. I had to convince him Ronald Reagan rehearses and others i worked with did. He was terrific when he rehearsed. We republicans want a leader to win our party to the polls. The american people, regardless of party, want a winner in the white house after four years of jimmy carter fumbling . We have stuch such a winner and his name is Ronald Reagan. The best speech in the world delivered badly is a bad speech. And sometimes a bad speech delivered very well is good speech regardless of how bad it is written. Delivery is a bottom line when i work with clients. I deliver the speech to them before letting them look at it. So they can hear it first and then look at. They can see the rhythm and phrasing because that is really important. When do you know when a speech doesnt work . It is pretty obvious. I am lucky it rarely happened. My speeches generally went well because i monitored and rehearsed with the client. When i was working with president ford, the representatives of boys nation came to the rose garden to give him an award. I wrote a speech on cards, he delivered it beautifully, and everything went well. The next week the mormons came to give him a statue reminiscent of the mormon statue in salt lake city. He went out and kind of stumbled and i thought what happened . What was wrong . We were walking back from the rose garden to the oval office and i said mr. President , with all due respect, the boys nation speech went terrific and today not so much. What happened . He had they had a Motion Picture camera going and he said it makes me nervous seeing the Motion Picture camera. He was a man who gave 550 speeches and no determined he was camera shy. When he went to kansas city we rehearsed in front of five cameras and kept going through the speech and by the time he got up to deliver he was over his camera shyness and gave a great speech. Tonight i can tell you straight away this nation is sound. This nation is secure. This nation is on the march to full economic recovery and a better quality of life for all americans. The speech i wrote that received the most attention was when i was a consultant for governor pete wilson. He had a short campaign, he had lost his voice, we had trouble fundraising but his announcement of running was given in new york harbor in front of the statue of liberty. He talked about law and order, how much he supported police, we talked about illegal immigration which was one of things he was trying to shutdown. The speech made the front of the New York Times and that is the best reaction i have had to any speeches i have written. The bisentan ial speechest got a lot of press going into the the race we were 33 points behind jimmy carter and everyone had written off ford in the campaign. By the time we finished those speeches were we were only 10 points behind and at the end of the exceptance sheet ford was five points behind and after the debate ford was dead even. So if you can make a difference with the speeches you deliver. Debates are tricky and we have far too many in my opinion that it is difficult for speechwriters to do as difficult as they can. I felt so bad for senator marco rubio who they gave him a line and he kept repeating it. It was the beginning of the unraveling of his campaign. You also have someone who is ignoring his speechwriters. Somebody like donald trump making fun, as if he were in junior high, of people saying women dont look very good. Referring to Carly Fiorinas face. A speechwriter would never write that. You dont see the opportunity to write the good speech as much anymore. Marco rubio has given good acceptance speeches on Campaign Days so there are exceptions. Hillary clinton has gone from a wooden speaker in 1996, if you look at her victory speech after the South Carolina primary that speech is well written, well rehearsed and well delivered. It is the best speech i have seen her give. Instead of building walls, we need to be tearing down barriers. Yeah we need to show by everything we do that we really are in this together. There is a place for the speechwriters. They are working and doing things. I know that jeb bush called in some people to get some help. On the second debate, we knew it was foreign policy, it was at the palace of the arts in San Francisco. Poland is not dominated by the soviet union. And they asked a followup did i understand you to say the russians are not using Eastern Europe and occupying most of the countries there and making sure with their troops it as a communist zone . On our side of the line the italians and french are still flirting i dont believe, mr. Franco, that the yug oh slavians consider themselves dominated by the soviet unions or the romanians or the polish consider themselves dominated by the soviet union. We went up to the advisor, drew spreencer, we said you misspoke yourself and you will have to hold a press conference und immediately. He said what did i say . And he said you said the soviet union doesnt dominate the soviet people and he said i said the soviet union doesnt dominate the people in their hearts and minds and we listened and he said oh my god. Kissenger said you cannot say that. It will insult the soviets. They debated it for five days. During those five days, the election slipped away. People remind the president had tripped and fallen and made fun of the president on surveillance Transparency Act night live. All of that came back and he became the mistake prone president. It was too late after he corrected the record. Debates are dangerous and scary. Speechwriters are important to current campaigns to start by saying that bottom line. Speechwriters are incredibly important in term of getting the phrasing down so it means