[ applause ] and im thinking that there are others here who served if you served in any of the administrations represented here, will you be known to us . Will you just briefly give us a little wave . [ applause ] and we say thank you. Thank you. Well talk about the whole relationship between the media and press secretaries. If there are any press secretaries here, whether you served on capitol hill or in the white house, elsewhere, can we make yourself and if you especially returned my phone calls, thank you. And if you didnt well, thank you anyway. Okay. Any press secretaries here . Thank you for coming. Thank you, thank you. [ applause ] its a little like the defendant thanking the prosecution but whatever. So anyway, now that weve gotten that out of the way, lets talk about what we really want to talk about which is all the things we wanted to know when we were sitting in those chairs that we didnt get to talk about then so this is our chanceing to spill it. So lets do that. So the first thing i wanted to know is did you actually want these jobs or were you did you get drafted or did you volunteer . Ron nevin, i ronness sen, il start with you because you were a correspondent. You covered the vietnam war. You were grievously wounded and almost died. You come back here and you reported on the administration. You reported on gerald fords inauguration and then you were reporting on the then press secretarys appointment and all of a sudden youre the guy. How did he talk you into that . Well as you say, i had been a reporter for a long time. I had also covered the white house for about two and a half years when Lyndon Johnson was president. And then i covered the first month of the ford white house. And i think what persuaded me to do, to take the job when he offered it was i wanted to see what it looked like on the inside. In fact, i wrote a book afterward called it sure looks different on the inside, because i had the sense as a reporter that i probably knew 10 of what was going on in the white house. And one of the reasons i took this job was i wanted to see what the other 90 was. That was one reason. I think the other reason clearly was that i really liked gerald ford. I covered him as i say as an nbc correspondent. And so that was the other reason for taking the job because i really did i really did like him. The third reason im ashamed to say is that i had a pretty large ego in those days. And i thought, hmm. Imagine that. Im moving up to a white house job. Is that right . Very satisfying for a guy with a big ego. Marlin fitzwater, you actually first went to the white house as a deputy, right . Right. I was in the civil service. And i was at the Treasury Department when jim baker caused and said we need a deputy for domestic policy. Somebody to take the heat for the president on the recession, which we were about ready to hit 10 unemployment. Would you be interested . I said sure. And so he said come over. And i went over spent an hour with him and he said you want the job . I said sure. And he said lets go see the president. We walked down to the oval office and president reagan was sitting there he said well marlin, jim here says youre willing to help out. I said yes, sir. That was it. How come . First time i ever met him and first minute id ever spent time with him. I immediately walked out the door and said mr. President , ill do my best. And i got outside the oval office into the secretarys area, and i went yes and she said what is that all about . I said history must always record that even if i get fired tomorrow, i for one day, i was a president secretary for the president. [ applause ] ing why did you say yes . You could have said no. I dont want that job. Why . Dealing with people like me every day, really . You know i was a professional Public Affairs person. Id been in government 17 years at the time i went to the white house. I worked in a lot of different agencies and so the white house was the pinnacle of our profession, a professional deal. The other thing was i didnt know what the white house was all about. I mean i remember walking in and seeing that press corps and helen thomas said what are you doing here, kid . And it was all downhill from there. [ laughter ] mike, what about you . You had come to the white house from the state department and youd been at the dnc. It wasnt a direct my story is a little different. I had been around in washington as a press secretary for 20 years. And i had worked for im sure everyone remembers the administration of president john glenn, president bruce babbitt. President mike dukakis. And i had worked for not to be president bob kerrey. So it was actually probably because i have an unfailing ability to pick the losing candidate. I had worked against bill clinton in the primaries so my thought was, i was not likely to get a job and George Stephanopoulos took pity on me and said this guys been around a long time, he worked at the Democratic National committee for a long time. So he can probably do the job. Luckily, warren christopher, secretary of state, hired me to be a spokesman. But after two years working at the say the department and doing the job there and maybe something well talk about later being on television because at that point the state Department Briefing was televised, the White House Briefing was not fully televised. I caught the notice of some folks at the white house and they invited me to come over. I dont know that i ever kind of angled for it, but it made sense because had i, obviously, worked in president ial politics for a pretty long time. And it made some sense that that would be the trajectory that i wound up in. Did you have a yes . Did you feel do that . No, because it was if you remember, were in the aftermath of an election now that is not to be called shellacking i guess, but in 1994 at the end of that Midterm Campaign things were pretty grim at the white house. And i moved to the white house in 1995 as a result of what was then a pretty large shakeup in the white house staff. Leon panetta came in as chief of staff. So i was part of a transition that happened in the aftermath of what was a pretty bruising political midterm. And not clear that thing were going to get soared out anytime soon. So it was not a happy moment that you would celebrate. Why did you do it . Because it was an honor to be asked to work in that place. I think all of us would say its the coolest place on the face of the earth to work. Even though i had had a great time, i had never been outside the country very much and i had just worked for the secretary of state and been all over the world, that was pretty exciting. But the opportunity to work in the white house you know to drive up that little west executive drive and say ive got my own parking place right here right outside the west wing, its an honor even when the subject matter you have to deal with becomes fairly zesty. Lets talk about that in a minute. But before we do robert gibbs, what about you . If youre on a campaign, isnt kind of the working assumption if your guy wins youre going to get the job or gal eventually . I think in most instances by the time you get to the end of the campaign you have a fairly decent chance or decent sense of if this person wins, who is likely to be the press secretary. I think mikes absolutely right. I think the you realize pretty quickly how great an honor and great a responsibility it is when you doll drive into that white house, a lot of days when its dark. And you realize sitting in that oval office throughout the week what youre witnessing, what youre trying to describe and what youre part of. Know, i think its truly an amazing honor. I do remember pretty early into my first briefing and i was listening to a question and it was about ten minutes in and i remember this voice in my head saying i cant believe youre here doing this. And theres another voice saying Pay Attention to the questions. [ laughter ] i thautd thought it would be amazingly embarrassing to somehow miss an entire question in your first briefing. So but i think thats, you know, you understand that however long youre there, youre just youre going to get to witness and see things in a seat that very, very few people have. And its remarkable and its amazing. So lets keep it going because for those of you who. Its au good times. Just keep going. Well get to some of those. Well start it out soft. So you know, the post has a feature which called date lab which thankfully as a married person i dont know about. When theyre trying to fix people up they have this thing caused brag a little. So brag a little. Like what was your best day . What was your best day . Robert, you want to start . I think the our best day was probably signing health care. Im starting with you because i dont know that youre going to get too many more questions like this. Not for a few more years thats for sure. No, i think i just think the sense of accomplishment and the euphoria of you know walking into the east room and having the president sign that and now, you know, you have people come up to you and say you know, i have had a condition for 15 years. I could never get health care, thank you for being part of Something Like that i think was that was probably it. Plus also that day is you know, thats when joe biden said into an open microphone just how big an accomplishment that was. Exactly. He did. [ laughter ] and i remember i went back to my office after the signing and you know, when youre in the east room the microphone is connected to the which goes into the camera. Its not audible. I couldnt hear it and im there and somebody. Comes running in and said you should just know the microphone sort of picked this thing up. And so were talking about it and one of my other deputies rushes in and says i dont think he said that. I said yeah, im pretty sure he said that. And im sure well get some of the technology of this, but i remember i was on twitter and i thought, you know, let me try to sum this up. So i remember i sat down and im like and so i wrote, yes, mr. Vice president it really is. And i hit send. I think my phone is demerit. Interview demerit. So so two minutes later my assistant comes in and says the Vice President s chief of staff is on the phone. Damn, i should have checked with them before i tweeted. And it was one of those things, and again, sometimes in even in politics honesty is the best policy. And ron called in and i picked up up the phone saying hey ron, trying to pretend like nothing was going wrong. He just said thank you. He said we were over here trying to figure out what the statement would say and we read your tweet and it was like yeah just sort of own it. So that was a good day. All right. Can you turn your phone off, though . Good point. Thank you. I just have the to find my phone. Who is next . Mike, what was your best day . Much more mundane than that although i loved that story and thinking of that you know, you were the only one of the four of us that had to worry about tweeting because a whole other conversation. Its a whole different job. I think the job that you ended up having to do just because of the changes in technology and media went by so quickly. But mine was okay. Very mundane but it captured as i think back on it what i think the best of what the press secretary can do was. And it was a day that we announced in the Clinton Administration that we were promulgating a very complicated federal regulation to regulate tobacco for the very first time. It was premised on the theory that a cigarette is a delivery, medical delivery device designed to deliver a dose of nicotine to the body which was stretching things as the Supreme Court later concluded. But it was the regulation went on 30 pages in the federal register. And i stayed up a good part of the night to read it even though i said okay the briefing the next day were going to bring in Donna Shalala the secretary of health and Human Services david kesler, head of the fda, and theyll do the briefing but i want to make sure its a big deal and make sure i know whats going on. Well donna and david kesler got up there. It was so complicated. They instantly got way down into the weeds. And you guys all know terry hunt from the associated press. Hes standing there looking up. Going and it was clear to me watching the reporters that we were losing the story because they were having a hard time explaining it. And i so i got up and elbowed Donna Shalala out of the podium which is a very difficult thing to do if you know her. And i kind of took over the briefing. And got the head of the food and drug celebration administration the secretary of health and Human Services there and looking at them saying am i explaining this correctly. But i had to simultaneously translate that complicated language and vocabulary of government to something that would actually get through and help the reporters write the story. A couple of them came up and said boy you saved your buns there because we were not getting any clue what you were talking about. Thats the best of what the press secretary can do. I mean, we get accused of being spin doctors. We probably sometimes get a little angry at the press corps. But at the heart of it is trying to take the work that the white house does the president does, and the federal government does and help the American People understand it. So i mean, you know, it was not the most dramatic day. I had plenty of those. But it was the day on which i felt like i really did my job. Ronnie, want to go next. Just to follow up on that one of my best days in the white house was when is i smoked when i first went to the white house. And a bunch from the press office went to these decided to join this class called smoke enders. And we went. I think its eight weeks or so. And i stopped smoking. So but seriously my best day in the white house clearly was when i had to stand up and announce the end of the vietnam war. And i had as i say as an nbc correspondent had covered the war. I did five tours there as a correspondent. Got wounded almost died. And then im the one who had to go over into the Old Executive Office building and read this statement from the president saying for us the war is over. And ive got an Old Fashioned ca set tape of that at home. My voice is about five octaves higher than normal, very quavery because of what vietnam had meant in my life and here im the one who has to stand up and announce the end of the war. Did you want to cry . Yes. Did you cry . Not in public but in privatedy. How about you marlin . What was your best day . Im thinking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall this week and i remember i shouldnt admit that i remember that. What about you . Well, theres so many days and events that you run through your mind. Whether its the fall of the berlin wall or the invasion of kuwait liberation of kuwait or panama or those kinds of things. But i think the most special day memorable for me was the first day of the Reagan Gorbachev summit in 1987. And everyone was anticipating an end to the cold war and gorbachev had never been to the west. Everybody in the world wanted to see how had he would get along with the guy who said it was an evil empire over there. And we had 7,000 correspondents credentialed to attend the up mit. So we moved the White House Briefing room to the ballroom of the jw marriott hotel. And we also renovated half the Commerce Department or at least the first floor for overflow crowd. And we got all 7,000 people packed in there. And i explained for several days why we were accommodating these people and also that i had invited my counterpart to brief with me. My rationale was if they were both there on the is taken, we wouldnt get in an argument across town which is what normally happens in these cases. I figured neither one of us wanted to upstage our principles or create a war. We would be very careful. And he and i talked about it. We were going to be careful. So we got to the podium and we walked up kind of on the stage like this and we were about halfway across and Sam Donaldson was sitting in the front row and he said 50 bucks, marlin takes him. [ laughter ] my first response, well, thats sweet. But my second one was, he just destroyed every purpose i had for their entire show. But nevertheless it was a memorable five days. But why was that your best day . Was it because of what it meant or was it because of your role in it. No, i think partially because of what it meant to the world to us. It was the beginning of the end, the unveiling of the Reagan Gorbachev relationship and all the arms control agreements that went with it. At the same time, it had this kind of very exotic and credible surrounding where access hollywood was sitting in the front row and entertainment tonight was tops on my phone list and things like that. So it was a great show great pavilion. Last of all, it was fragile. And the mistakes could have been disastrous. I had kind of underestimated all that. So but anyway, you put it all together and it was really a series of experiences you dont very often get. When you have an awesome day like that, does the president ever come say, good job . Almost every briefing i gave. He had a squawkbox on the gave. He would call me immediately i got back to the office. Sometimes he would send a note down while im briefing. Wow. He almost said good job but sometimes he would say a criticism was, far lynn i might say that a little differently. Anybody else . Arent you going to ask us what our worst day was. Im getting there. Im just letting you ace into it. Go ahead. What was your worst day . Well, i think clearly my well, the worst day was when ford lost the election to carter i think. But i think one of the most difficult days was when betty ford went out to beth they das Naval Hospital and had a mammogram and discovered she had breast cancer. And she underwent eighta mastectomy. Ill never forget the look on fords face. They had been married for 30 years. They were so close and so in love. And you know, he was in danger of losing her. And she wanted to put out the news while she was still in the operating room. Sent a message out. And i think by being so open about this it resulted in a lot of women going and having mammograms. And Hap