Where 26 years later we opened the new nixon library, already visited by more than 25,000 people since their opening in less than three months. I would be remiss if i failed to inform each one of you that our work is far from over. There is still money to be raised. Every campaign, right, would say that . I urge each and every one of you to sign up for a membership in court today or contribute online. I also invite you to stay connected with our emails. There you can dive deep into president nixons life and times and learn more about our mission and our goals. Our speaker today is the most famous economics teacher in america. Praise where praise is due, right . His comedic role is the economics teacher on Ferris Buellers day off is the most widely viewed scene of economics teaching in economics history. Office the cohost along with jimmy kimmel of the path Comedy Central game show win ben steins money the call for the American Spectator and noouz max and is a regular commentator on fox news and on cbs sunday morning as well as a frequent commentator on cnn. He is also written or cowritten roughly 30 books. Perhaps less known is that ben effectively got his start in politics working in the nixon administration. Bens father, herb stein, was chairman of president nixons counsel of economics advisors, one of the most senior members in the nixon administration. He wrote, among other pieces, the message to congress outlining president nixons proposal for Health Care Reform in 1974. There is no more a loyal friend around. Were luck kbri to have with it today. Ladies and gentlemen, ben stein. Thank you very much. Ive been in this room so many times. If its possible, i dont know if it is or not, but if its possible to not have those incredibly bright lights shining in my eyes. I was being given the third degree by the Chicago Police if they do that anymore. I start out every thought about Richard Nixon well, first of all, thank you so much to the people from the foundation and the library. Thank you very, very much. God bless you all. Maureen, gra et to see you. The thought that always goes through my mind very first thing, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of god. Let me tell you why i love Richard Nixon. Not like. Not admire. I do like him and admire him, but love him. So did my mother and father. In our household nixon was god. In my heart Richard Nixon started when i was 7 years old, and he was running for Vice President with dwight eisenhower. I read a childs biography of Richard Nixon, and it said he was always being picked on and teased in the school yard when he was a child, and i identified with, that may be every child. There were lots of old comys that loathed him. Even at that age i plait made a vital. They liked to pick on him because he was sensitive. He was a vulnerable human being. He wasnt tough like ike. He wasnt tough like mr. Trump. He was a typical he was not a typical politician with the thick skin. He was a poet. A sort of artist. Intellectual. At every stable of his life, he was a sensitive boy on a school yard, and i identified. There was something about Richard Nixon that i for whatever reason, Richard Nixon was a born peacemaker. It started in a big way after, not before, when Richard Nixon was Vice President you should dwight eisenhower. Its little talked about. It was wildly off the rails. The main instrument that divide eisenhower used was his Vice PresidentRichard Nixon who did the job with extreme finesse. Nixon was a peacemaker even when he ran for president in 1960. There are many people historians way beyond my league, and mr. Nixon won that election, and it was simply stolen from him in illinois and texas. He mr. Nixon declined the amount of jobs at jfk election in order to avoid a conflict during the difficult cold war. Its hard to imagine a modern day candidate doing that. It happened because Richard Nixon, the peacemaker, refused to make his own ambition more important than his love of country and peace. Learning about war and peace, much later, he said that he learned especially large amount from Charles Degaul who he loved, and he was a very impressive guy. He thought of degaul in some ways like him. He had come to office during greatly tumultouss times. Sham bells. Country in conflict in the streets. Need for peacemaker. He learned how to make peace and pull the country together. Thus, it was that one two one in 1968 against hubert humphrey, who was a genuinely great man. A genuinely fine man. Not a bully like politics today. He wrote me this. You and i were emailing back and forth about this speech. Riots and walks. The Chicago Democratic Convention in the state. Sorry. And the accompanying riots. Riots at berkeley with the National Guard in the streets. The peoples park up in San Francisco. The riots at San Francisco state. The riots of my undergraduate all matter, columbia. Riots over school butting in boston. Still one of the absolutely worst ideas in the history of american education. The assassination of martin loourter king jr. And robert kennedy. The war in vietnam and its escalation. A gift from the two preceding democratic president s and their liberal think tank advisors, the smartest of the smart and the best of the best gave us this endless war in vietnam. In fact, on the streets and in the living rooms this revolutionary turmoil really felt like flesh and blood. The country seemingly was running out of control, and it was in this situation that the American People hired Richard Nixon to make peace and despite the near total hostility of the National Media and the liberal left that ran the university, thats what he did. Thats from john coin. Again, that was Richard Nixon, the peace maker, making peace at home. He slowly but surely end the the war in vietnam. Its hard to believe this. At the time mr. Nixon took office, 300 americans were being killed per week. 300 per week. There was no end in sight. Through skilled negotiation and the willingness to reluctantly use the stick as well as the carrot, Richard Nixon brought the north vietnamese people to the table and got our prisoners of war home and ended american combat in vietnam. There are many people who wonder why it took so long. The answer is, please dont record all of this mess if i may ask. There. Good. Just some of it. The answer was what nixon said himself. That the u. S. Effort totally sabotaged by the congress after Richard Nixon left office showed the world that the u. S. Was not pushed around once it had made up its mind to fight and there we were until congress plooufd otherwise a trustworthy ally. Saigon fell. Absolutely true. No doubt about it. The u. S. Had put up a heck of a fight, and the communist would have to pay a huge price if they ever wanted to fight us again. A generation of peace. A generation of peace. Thats what was nixon wanted to bequeth to the United States of america. He loved so very, very much. That is what you get. For the real stars and their families, the real stars were the ones who fought in vietnam and their families because the military families, the military wife, is the backbone of this whole cult. Is. He made peace with china. He was showing the russians that they could not win the cold war, and, thus, made possible the end of the cold war and the end of the soviet union under two truly Great American president s, Ronald Reagan and george h. W. Bush. He crafted the first strategic arms Limitation Treaty with russia, a treaty that no one would have thought possible during the height of the missile race. Only nixon could do that. Only nixon because no one doubted the hostility to expand communism and only nixon could do it because no one doubted his resolve, not to play politics with the survival of freedom. Nixon used to say over and over again, only nixon would go to china because and only nixon could end the war in vietnam and start strategic arms talks and treaties with russia. Richard nixon was also doing breakthrough domestic actions . Nixon with great unwitting help from the liberals and Democratic Party created a southern strategy which brought the Southern States genly into the gop camp by pointing out that the gop was for smaller federal governments and less federal interference with their lives. Rifd nixons Justice Department desegregated thousands. Not hundreds, but thousands of deep south School Districts that had been fought integration by endless delay. When our end took office after brown versus board of education desegregation was still very much up in the air. By the time he left office, there was no more segregation. Rn also created the philadelphia plan, which was the First Federal plan to have requirements for minority contractors, minority workers on u. S. Government projects. By his work, by his belief in terms of health and hospital admissions could bring every city in town. He started the Environmental Protection agency and the counsel and Environmental Quality and used them to start mammoth, mammoth work on creating more sustainable lakes and rivers and sea shores in america. He had other great initiatives too that never gotten acted, but laid the ground work for later enactment. He sent to congress in late 1973 and early 1974 the First ComprehensiveNational Health care plan. A plan that was greatly simpler and less expensive than obama care. His idea was really simple. It was baevgly to identify which americans could not afford Health Insurance and then send them a check to buy Health Insurance. This was a farreaching bill. As a young man, less than age 30, gichk the task of writing and sending it up to congress, it would have worked wonder and saved lives. Did he do anything else . Well, yeah. He had the First Comprehensive energy use and reduction plan. This was a plan that included every element of every plan that every other president has sent us since. Its so amazing to me when i see president obama several years ago saying weve got breathtaking independent new ideas. Were going to have alternative energy sources, wind power, wave power, conservation and tax incentives all to lead us off foreign independence after the horrific experience with the arab oil embargo. Every Single Initiative that every president proposed since 1973 was based on nixons proposals. He made mistake. Wage price controls and a complex and counter productive system on oil come to mind. They were serious mistakes. They were genuine mistakes. Very small mistakes in the currents of history. Now, heres the big question about nixon in my opinion. If all this was so great, if he did so many great things, why did so many people in the pundit and academic and media and hollywood world hate him . This is really the key question about Richard Nixon and the one that is most depressing about the human condition. I have a very smart sister. Shes three and a half years older than me, but she looks much younger. She said to me many years ago the simple truth about life. Your basic human being is not supper a hot item. Nowhere was this more true than in the context of the haters of Richard Nixon. Partly because he was the sensitive kid on the school yard and they could read his distress when they attacked him. His pain was like blood to sharks. To drove them wild with the desire for mo every more blooed. Some people say the hatred of nixon was about his anticommunism. It was a ceological phenomenon. His enemies hated him because they could hurt him. Every few months the New York Times will have on its front page a leak or something thats been discovered in the media, some snip et of tape of rn supposedly saying antisemitic remarks. From this goes the most vial myth of the president ial history that Richard Nixon was a racist antisemite. The truth is so completely different from that. Richard nixon surrounded himself with jews and appointed jews to high office ever since the earliest days in politics. He had a jewish General Council and was also a very good musician, by the way. A jewish top Foreign Policy advisory and the incomparable Henry Kissinger. Jewish chairman of the fed, arthur burns. What more do people want him to do . Convert or be bar mitzvahed . Its incredible. Yes, used a few country club cliches about jews in private talking to bob haldaman, but when it came to action, he was the very best friend to jewish people that theyve ever had. He was above all else the savior of israel. When egypt and syria had invaded israel in the young gipper war, they were caught in their own flatfootedness and the antiaircraft missile supplied by the soviets. Those missiles in their radars nullified the usual enormous israeli air superiority. The egyptian and syrian seem to be about to take jerusalem. Gold to my ear. Gold to my ear. Had already laid out suicide pills for her to take. Richard nixon left israels defense in a way no other president ever had acting with the brilliant help of dr. Kissinger. He airlifted to israel the most uptodate black box and rockets were jamming and destroying the soviet supplies radars. Within hours they started showing up on the battalions field. When the israeli crossed the are ed sea and surrounded cairo, the russians hinted that they were about to send paratroops in to fight the israelis. Nixon saw their bluff and went to def com 2 and told the russians we would use every means to stop them. Every means. After the only lasting peace treaty in the middle east, between israel and egypt was signed. No president has ever done more for the state of israel than Richard Nixon. Truman did not send arms to israel. Lyndon johnson did not lift a finger for israel. John f. Kennedy, darling of the liberal jews, did not lift a finger to help israel. Only Richard Nixon. His help to israel was on a biblical scale. Effects the best friend to israel. Then along comes watergate. It was an attempted and badly botched coverup. No doubt about it. We never ever have learned why the they were going into the Democratic National committee headquarters. There wasnt anything in there that wouldnt be on the front page of the New York Times next day anyway. It wasnt plotted to it wasnt bringing call girls into the white house. It was a coverup and lies were told. Compared with other mistakes, it was pretty small beer. Certainly was not enough to drive otherwise gifted peacemakers from office. Certainly was not enough to torment a man whose only goal was a generation of peace. Well, the real story of Richard Nixon, again, is not about what nixons psyche is like. He was a peace lover. Im going to have to do what my old friend jim how many of you remember the herald examiner . Yeah. He was the editor of the herald examiner. I on he used to say that you would give a speech by telling them what you are go going to tell them, and you tell them what you told them. Let me start with another avenue. I believed in him, and i loved him so much that i knew i would lose my job, and it didnt stop me from working there. The people i worked with at the Nixon White House were by far the smartest, funniest, most dedicated people i ever worked with, and i worked with some very accomplished people at yale law school, at the fdc where amazingly we all worked very hard at the wall street journal where i got to work with the genius bob bartley and his dear, Dear Colleague george malone, and the super smart brilliant comedy people i used to work with in hollywood who arent so funny anymore. The people at the white house were the only ones that i have stayed in close touch with over the years. My boss they dont make them smarter or with more writing talent than path. The handsomest, bravest man on earth, besides my inlaws, the denmans. Well, they were really amazing. The two brothers, both silver star. Pretty amazing. Longterm connection with rn has been all these people have been longterm connections. We had a Great Research star. You never hear about them, but there was a wonderfully lovely woman, intelligent. Became a very successful lawyer named ann morgan. Her boss whose father had been a german Rocket Scientist working on the v2. Maybe we wont talk about that. With tal incident exploding off his lips and finger tips, a super, super genius and much missed since he depart from this either several years ago from pancreatic cancer. There was my neighbor in california, and dear, dear friend. A genius and a man of startling loyalty and expert on politics. Still very mu