THE NIXON/GANNON INTERVIEWS

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Transcript: Richard Nixon/Frank Gannon Interview, September 7, 1983 [Day 9 of 9]

interviewer: Frank Gannon
interviewee: Richard Nixon
producer: Ailes Communications, INC.
date: September 7, 1983
minutes: approximately 237
extent: ca. 306kb
summary: This interview, comprising four video tapes, or just under 4 hours, is the ninth and final in a series of taped interviews with former president Nixon. The primary focus of this conversation is Nixon's political career up through his election to the presidency in 1968, including why Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election, the impact of the loss on his family, the 1962 California governor's race and Nixon's subsequent move to New York, the political climate following John F. Kennedy's death, the 1966 congressional elections, Nixon's decision to run for president in1968, the campaign, and his eventual victory. Other topics discussed include Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the John Birch Society, the 1983 World Series, the death of Nixon's mother, Japanese political leaders and the possibility of Japanese rearmament, and the difference between public and private behavior by leaders. Nixon's political speeches, the fairness of his treatment by the media, and liberal bias in the media are also covered. He discusses Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, Charles DeGaulle, Ronald Reagan, Bebe Rebozo, and Spiro Agnew. They also discuss the attack on Nixon's motorcade in Caracas, Venezuela. Nixon gives his opinion of the way his presidency, and those of Kennedy and Johnson, will be evaluated by future generations.
repository: Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries (Main Library)
collection: Richard Nixon Interviews
permissions: Contact Media Archives.

Day Nine, Tape one of four, LINE FEED #1, 9-7-83, ETI Reel #62
September 7, 1983

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:05
[Richard Nixon]

--silly damn thing, anyways.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:07
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Frank Gannon]

It is interesting, though. I mean, it's--it's as vivid as that, the--the light suit, and even--your suit's in shadow, but even not in shadow how much he stands out with the--how much the dark [inaudible].

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:14
[Richard Nixon]

You see, the other point is that it was--if it'd been in color it would've been different.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:19
[Frank Gannon]

Mm-hmm.

[Richard Nixon]

The light suit in color is fine.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:20
[Frank Gannon]

[Inaudible.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:21
[Richard Nixon]

It's--

[Action note: Picture fades to black and returns.]

[Richard Nixon]

--in black and white--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:22
[Frank Gannon]

It just fades into the [inaudible].

[Action note: Picture fades to black and returns.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:23
[Richard Nixon]

In black and white, always wear a dark suit. That's something we should--

[Action note: Nixon laughs.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:27
[Action note: Tone sounds.]

[Richard Nixon]

Oh, well, hell.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:28
[Action note: Tone sounds.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:32
[Offscreen voice]

Stand by, studio. We go in ten seconds.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:34
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:43
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:45
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you lose in 1960? Was it--was it the debates?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well, when you lose an election by the closest margin in history, where a difference of just twelve--let's start again. Uh--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:00
[Offscreen voice]

Let's take it from the top. Keep rolling tape. [Inaudible.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:02
[Frank Gannon]

Can we--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:03
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

When I--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:04
[Action note: Screen goes black. Sound goes off.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:08
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:12
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you lose the presidency in 1960? Was it--was it the influence of the Nixon-Kennedy debates?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:21
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the debates certainly had some effect, as all observers have pointed out. But when you lose an election by a margin of only twelve thousand votes scattered in three critical states, where that many would have made the difference, then any number of factors could have done it. With regard to the effect of the debates, it's interesting to note that the polls between the time before the first debate and between--and then on Election Day remained relatively the same. Kennedy was ahead, actually, fifty-one-forty-nine, according to Gallup, before the debates. He won by approximately fifty-and-a-half to forty-nine-and-a-half. So, when you put all the debates together, assuming that the debates only were affecting the result, you can't say that they were critical. It's a myth to suggest that I was way ahead before the debates and that the debate turned it around. It just didn't happen. I think, of the factors that might have made a difference, and any one could have made a difference, these were the ones that come to mind. One, we were outspent. Kennedy had a lot more money than we did. We were well-financed, but we didn't dream that he would be able to do as well as he could. Second, the media was very, very strongly against us, by a margin of five- to six-to-one. That has been since pretty well documented. Third, there was the economy. Unfortunately, a recession occurred--a very small one, it was true--i--in that year, 1960. And it reached its depth in October, the m--worst possible time, when four hundred thousand more people became unemployed. And, fifth, in the big states, i--it was the fact that the Catholic vote was so overwhelmingly for Kennedy. I got the lowest percentage of Catholic votes of any candidate in history, lower even than Herbert Hoover did against Al Smith in 1928. A--and that made an enormous difference in the big states, like New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania. So, under all these circumstances, then, you would have to say that any one of those factors might have made the difference. But I would also say, in fairness, that John Kennedy was a very good candidate. It was a good contest. It was tough right down to the end. Who knows?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:03:40
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think it would have been different if you had had a different running mate, if you hadn't chosen Henry Cabot Lodge and/or if Eisenhower had campaigned more for you?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:03:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I wouldn't knock Lodge, in the sense that I think Lodge did the best that he could in the area that we had chosen him for. His expertise was in foreign policy, and he was extremely effective in that respect. I do think, in retrospect, that a better running mate would have probably been Thruston Morton, because of [inaudible].

Day 9, Tape 1
00:04:10
[Frank Gannon]

The senator from Kentucky?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:04:11
[Richard Nixon]

The senator from Kentucky, who, incidentally, became national chairman for that very campaign. Morton would have helped in the states that could have made the difference. He would have helped in downstate Illinois, where Lodge could not help. He would have helped in Missouri, that we lost by only twelve thousand votes. He would have helped in South Carolina, that we lost by only twelve thousand votes. When you add up those votes, you have a net change of twelve thousand over--overall that would have made a difference.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:04:41
[Frank Gannon]

How about the Eisenhower involvement, where not only didn't he campaign for you much, but there was the--the gaffe at the end, or the statement, at a press conference that if they gave him a week he could think of something you'd done in the administration?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:04:55
[Richard Nixon]

I don't think there's anything that has ever embarrassed Eisenhower more than the way that so-called "gaffe" was played. He pointed out to me afterwards that he was just leaving the press conference--he had one every week--and somebody gr--asked a question, as they often do Ronald Reagan as he's walking out of a press conference--you know, he puts his hand to his ear--I hope with a hearing aid he won't have to do that again--and tries to answer them. Well, Eisenhower, in this instance--usually didn't try to answer them, but one of them shot at him, "Can you name any single one der--one--any thing that Vice President Nixon has contributed to?" and he said, "Well, give me a week and I'll give you an answer." He said what he meant was that, "Next week, ask me the question." He just didn't want to answer it then. Well, be that as it may, it had--it did have a detrimental effect, because it was a highlight, one of the highlights, of the first debate, when [Sander Vanocur], who was working very closely with the Kennedy group, we found later, asked me that question. Kennedy was prepared to answer it, and I was not. The second point is that I suppose that many people have the impression that Eisenhower was reluctant in supporting me. That was not true. Exactly the opposite was the case. He wanted desperately to get in that campaign. He was insisting, for example, in the last three weeks, particularly because he didn't like what Kennedy was saying about the missile gap. Eisenhower was a military man. He was very proud that the country was strong, and he didn't like this "upstart," as he often called him, who knew nothing about military activities, or at least in the sense that Eisenhower knew about them, to criticize what he had done militarily. He knew that instead of having a missile gap that it was a missile gap for the Russians, that we had about a fifteen-to-one advantage, which of course Kennedy had to admit at the time we had the Cuban confrontation, after he became president. But, in any event, why then didn't Eisenhower campaign? And the reason was that none of us could really talk about. It hasn't come out. It's come out only lately in books. The problem was that he had had, of course, a heart attack. He had also had a stroke. He had high blood pressure. And Mrs. Eisenhower, after talking to his doctors, called Mrs. Nixon on the phone--had her on the phone for a half-hour before the decision was made as to whether Eisenhower would campaign in those last two weeks and how much and begged with--she said her--Mrs. Eisenhower--Miz Eis--Mrs. Nixon told me that Mrs. Eisenhower's voice was choked. She says, "It's going to kill Ike. He just mustn't do it, Pat. He just mustn't do it." And she, of course, told me that. That was not all. Eisenhower's doctor talked to me before I went in to see him about the balance of his schedule. And he said to me, "Mr. Vice President, I want you to know that I think it would be very detrimental to the general's health. It might risk his life. He wants to do it. Don't let him know that I have said this." So I had to go through and--to see President Eisenhower when he said, "What can I do?" And he laid out the schedule, and I had to make all sorts of lame excuses about why he shouldn't do it. But actually the reason he didn't do it and the reason I did not agree to his going forward and doing it as he wanted to was because of those personal considerations.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:08:17
[Frank Gannon]

How did it feel on election night to--as the results began to come in, or as--as trends began to emerge, to realize that at best you were losing and at worst, because of the substantial vote fraud, that you were possibly, literally, having the election stolen away from you? How did--what was that night like?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:08:37
[Richard Nixon]

Well, election night's--after all of the regulars of the campaign and I hadn't slept for about forty-eight hours before that election night, because we'd had telethons--we'd flown in through Alaska and Detroit and Chicago and so forth. As a result, you're physically drained, emotionally drained, mentally drained. And so you're just numb. The only thing that'll pick you up--if you win. And when you lose, you become more and more numb. And as a matter of fact, insofar as the election fraud was concerned, it didn't really come home to me that night, except for one call I got from Everett Dirksen's administrative assistant. He called and got me on the phone--it was the only call I think I took that night. He begged me--he said, "Don't concede. Don't concede in Illinois. Downstate we're coming in right on schedule, and they're not going to be able to override it in Cre--Cook County." Well, by that time that I decided to go down and make what was interpreted as a concession statement, then that apparently did have a detrimental effect, because I understand that at that time the people downstate quit counting. They quit watching the polls. And the people upstate, of course, were under the control of Mayor--Mayor Daley. So we lost it by eight thousand votes. So, under the circumstances, I was not aware that night of the immense fraud. I had ideas about it. That came later. The second point, however, I should make, is that what goes through the mind of a losing candidate--and I'm an expert on this, having lost a couple of them--is primarily thoughts not about himself, but about his family, the impact on them, his workers, his supporters, everything that he has done. You just really have a feeling. "What can I do to justify what we've been through?"

Day 9, Tape 1
00:10:35
[Frank Gannon]

It's almost painful, looking at the film of that statement when you went down early in the evening, of Mrs. Nixon trying to control her emotions.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:10:44
[Richard Nixon]

[Inaudible.]

[Frank Gannon]

How did she and Tricia and Julie take the impact of that loss?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:10:50
[Richard Nixon]

Well, for her, because she had campaigned so hard herself--she's one of the great troupers. She's the better campaigner of the two, all of my even most passionate admirers will admit. And so it was a terrible disappointment for her. She didn't want to go down to concede. She says, "I don't"--and--and one of the reasons she didn't was that the--the media had been very much against us, she thought. She says, "I'm not going to go down there in front of those people after what they have done and said." And, of course, they were against us by a margin of at least five or six to one. "But," I said, "we've got to do it for our supporters. They're out there, too." And so, being the good trouper that she is, she agreed to go down. And it was a brave thing for her to do. Tricia came into the room at a time that we had decided that we’d have to make the concession statements, and--and she bursts into tears, and she said, "Oh, Daddy." She said, "I'm not crying for myself. I'm crying because you and Mommy have worked so hard." And I thought that was a very touching thing to say. Julie was not up at that time. She was only twelve years old. And it was the next morning--I had gone to bed and--hoping, perhaps, that the same thing would happen to me as happened so many years ago, when Charles Evans Hughes went to bed and woke up in the morning and found that he had not been elected president. I felt hope that it'd be the other way around, although I didn't expect it. In any event, somebody--I was in a dead sleep, I'd only slept about four hours--was shaking the bed, and it was Julie. And she said, "Daddy, how did the election come out?" Well, that was about as tough a little speech as I ever made. I said, "Well, this is the way that it happened. It was very, very close. We--we think we may have even won it, but under the circumstances I'm afraid we've got to lose--we have lost." And she tr--started to cry, and then she said something which I thought was quite profound. She said, "Well, we may have lost the election, but we won in the hearts of the people." And that, of course, was Julie. From then on, she never gave up--Julie, like her mother--like Tricia, too, but even more so--is a fighter. After that, I recall often s--talking to her. I'd go in to kiss her good night, and she would say, "Daddy, can’t we still win?" And this was months later. Even a year later, she said, "I still think we've got to have a recount in Cook County." That's Julie.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:13:29
[Frank Gannon]

How did it feel in January of 1961 to stand on the platform and watch John Kennedy take the oath of office as thirty-fifth president of the United States?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:13:42
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I suppose one who had lost a very close election, and particularly under the circumstances where there was strong evidence that he might not have lost it, but that it had been stolen that you're supposed to feel rather bitter and all that. I didn't really feel that way. Inaugurations are, for me, and I think for most Americans, almost a--a religious experience. Here, the change is occurring. It's a changing--change occurring peacefully in a great democracy, the greatest in the world, and so one feels, as I did, that you're just fortunate to be th--there, to see and to participate in a moment of history. I must say that, as I heard John Kennedy's speech, I thought it was very effective. And he delivered it as he--as I would have expected--very, very well. It had a great impact. But as far as the content was concerned, may I say, I could just hear Eisenhower's teeth gri--grating--grating because President Kennedy--President-elect Kennedy was saying, "The torch of leadership has passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, and with the promise of peace," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And when he went on to say that--"let the world know that we will fight any place, any time, in defense of freedom," I thought back, as I'm sure Eisenhower did, to the fact that during the campaign he had urged that Eisenhower apologize to Khrushchev for the U-2 incident. He had urged Eisenhower not to defend Quemoy and Matsu against the attacks of the Chinese Communists. So, under the circumstances, those thoughts did go through my head, but, on the other hand, they were overridden by simply the feeling almost of awe of being in the presence of such a great moment.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:15:45
[Frank Gannon]

How did--do you remember how you spend your last night as--in Washington as vice president?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:15:53
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I remember the day, and the night, as well. Right after the inauguration there was a delightful luncheon at the [F Street Club], given by Admiral Strauss, Eisenhower's close friend and his nominee for secretary of commerce, who had been rejected, much to Eisenhower's displeasure, by the United States Senate. After that luncheon, we went home. I don't remember too much what happened then--had a very light snack at--at night. And then I decided to take a last ride around the Capitol, because I knew the next day I wasn't going to have the car. You see, a vice--former vice president at that point--when he leaves office, he doesn't have a car, he doesn't have Secret Service, et cetera, from that moment. But they did allow it for the--the balance of the day. So John Wardlaw, our driver, drove me through the streets of the city. I'd said, "Take us up to the Capitol." And as we drove through the streets of the city, it was really an eerie sight, a--almost like New Year's in a way, because it was snowing, and as the flakes of snow began to come down I saw the ladies with their marvelous ball gowns trying to get through the snow, stepping over the gutters with the help of their escorts, all in white tie and tails and so forth. You could hear the singing and the noise. It was a great celebration, after all, and I understood that. I would have celebrated, too, if they had been part of that campaign and had won. And finally we got up to the Capitol, and I got out of the car, and I walked into the Capitol Building, which was totally deserted at the time. The guard was very surprised to see me, but nevertheless I went on. I went up to my favorite place in the Capitol for what is my favorite view in the world. It's on the balcony looking down from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Memorial down through the mall. And this was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. It's always beautiful. We used to put it on our Christmas cards that we sent out as vice president. The snow on the mall--mall--the snow was still falling and hanging on the leaves at this time. I looked out--out across there. You could just see the Lincoln Memorial far off. Of course, the Washington Memorial you could see quite clearly because it was closer and, of course, taller. I stood there for about five minutes, and then--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:18:34
[Frank Gannon]

What were--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:18:35
[Richard Nixon]

--some way--

[Frank Gannon]

What were you thinking?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:18:36
[Richard Nixon]

I--I s--stood there for about five minutes, and then suddenly a thought just rushed into my mind--not consciously, but then it seemed almost to overwhelm me. And it was, "I'll be back." And as that thought came into my mind, I just turned on my heels and walked very quickly away, back to the car.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:19:04
[Frank Gannon]

What were the--what were the options that you saw for yourself as you prepared to leave Washington after so many years and become a private citizen again?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:19:15
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the options were, frankly, very enticing, particularly from a financial standpoint. As I was leaving Washington, despite the fact that I had been in the House for two years--for four years--no. As I was leaving Washington, despite the fact that I had been in the House for four years and the Senate for two years and served as eight years for vice president at a very handsome salary--which was handsome then--of thirty-five thousand dollars a year, my net worth at the end of all that service was only forty-seven thousand dollars and a--a battered old Oldsmobile which needed some repairs. So, consequently, the financial rewards that might be available for our family--the girls were going to be ready for school very soon--was, I must say, somewhat enticing. And they were several. Jack Dreyfus, who had been one of our strong supporters during the campaign financially--I didn't know him well. I'd only met him very briefly after he had made a very big contribution--just rode downtown with him once in New York when I was there to make a speech, and he told me that he was particularly supportive of my foreign policy. And he came to see me in Florida. I can remember him to this day. He had an open shirt on, very informal--this very, very wealthy, brilliant man. And he said he thought I should come to New York. He offered me the position of chairman and chief executive officer of the Dreyfus Corporation. Salary seemed very handsome then, tremendously handsome--even now it sounds pretty big--two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, stock options, et cetera. If I had taken it, I would have been a very, very wealthy man at the present time. But I knew that if I did that, that I in effect would not be able to continue to injustice--do justice to him and to do anything in the political arena, although he had assured me that he wouldn’t object to that, particularly if it were in the area of foreign policy. Then there was another offer that appealed to me, I must say, a little bit more. I'm somewhat of a baseball fan, as most people are aware, and Del Webb, who was the owner of the New York Yankees, was a little dissatisfied with the leadership in the commissioner's office, and he came to see me in California when I was out there on a trip determining what I was going to do. And he asked if I would mind if he submitted my name as a candidate for commissioner of baseball. I'm sure if I'd said yes I would have gotten it, because he was a very powerful man. Well, I must say, that meant a lot to me--first, to be offered it, and second, just the idea of being able to spend time going to the baseball games, even traveling with the teams and so forth. But I knew that that wasn't for me, and so I said no to that. And then there were, of course, the offers from law firms and so forth and so on, and I finally decided that I would take an offer, not from the biggest law firm in Los Angeles--the biggest one did make me an offer, a very handsome one--Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher--but it would have required full time with no time off for any political activities. So I went with a smaller firm, the firm which I felt was better suited for what I was going to do.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:22:43
[Frank Gannon]

We agreed that because of time constraints there would be no digressions today, but I can't resist a quick one just to get you on the record. Who is going to play in and who's going to win the World Series?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:22:54
[Richard Nixon]

Well, this year, of course, as far as the American League is concerned, Chicago will win the West, a--and I have a feeling that Chicago might beat Baltimore. Baltimore will probably win the East, although you never discount Baltimore. It's going to be Chicago or Baltimore--a slight to Chicago because they’re the new boys in town. In the World Series, it'll be probably the Dodgers in the West. I can't even guess as to the East. I hope it's Montreal. I'd like to see the Canadians have the W--World Series. But, in any event, I will predict that the National League, if Chicago wins the American League, will win the World Series, because this year the National League rules, which do not allow for a designated hitter, apply--Chicago--one of its major threats is [Luzinsky], who can only hit as a designated hitter. He can no longer field. His legs are gone, but he can sure hit the ball. So he'd be sitting out except as a pinch hitter. Without [Luzinsky], the Chicago White Sox would not be able to beat the Montreal Expors--Expos, or the Los Angeles Dodgers, if they should win it.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:04
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--do you ever regret not taking the baseball commissionership if you had developed that and it had been offered?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:11
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. I regret that. You--I regret, for example, maybe not bec--not having become a baseball writer or football writer or commentator and so forth. it's an interesting life, a fascinating life.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:26
[Frank Gannon]

It's never too late.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:27
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it's a little late now.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:29
[Frank Gannon]

Never too late, though.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:31
[Richard Nixon]

No. They should have a younger, non-controversial person in that job.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:35
[Frank Gannon]

Someone like Howard Cosell.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:38
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, he would--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:39
[Frank Gannon]

[Inaudible] both.

[Richard Nixon]

Well, I'd like to get him off the air, but that'd be something else again. Now, I don't mind him for boxing, but, my God, when he gives his opinions on baseball--huh!

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:52
[Frank Gannon]

Do--when you moved out to California then, did you have--you still had political ambitions?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:25:00
[Richard Nixon]

No, a th--not really political ambitions. As a matter of fact, I moved to California not for the purpose of staying in politics or engaging in politics but perhaps to keep my options open. I would put it that way. I knew that going to New York--that I would be foreclosing political participation. I felt that as the titular head of the party that I should continue to speak out on issues. I would continue to make speeches around the country and so forth. And I felt, because I had a huge number of invitations to go around and do that sort of thing--I thought I owed it to the party. And, consequently, I felt I should take a position which was afforded to me in the Earl Adams fum--in the Earl Adams firm, Adams, Duque, and Hazeltine, a position that would provide adequate income for me but which would allow me the freedom, which they gave me, to participate in political activities. That's why I went to California.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:26:01
[Frank Gannon]

Did you see it as a viable option, then, that you might run, or--or would run, against Kennedy again in '64?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:26:07
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. After that--after the closest election in history, there was no doubt that I saw it as a viable option, and--and there's no doubt, too, that the Kennedys saw it as a viable option, because they continued to harass me once they got into power. Most things you forgive in politics. You do if it's aimed at you personally, but, on the other hand, when it's y--aimed at your family it's very hard to forget or forgive. And Bobby Kennedy, for example, initiated an investigation of my mother and my brother with regard to the [Hughes loan], which she had satisfied, of course, with property that was worth many times--that is worth today many times more than the loan. And they were going to have a criminal investigation. That was revealed in 1972, when some of the Kennedy papers began to come out.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:27:03
[Frank Gannon]

Did you know it at the time?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:27:04
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, of course not. I knew nothing about it. I did know something else, though. The Internal Revenue Service three times audited my income tax returns. And I wondered, "What in the world is this all about?" This was in 1961 and 1962 as I was preparing then to run for governor. And we learned later from a letter that was written by the one in charge of the audit in Los Angeles, who wrote to Rose Mary Woods--said that he was the one who three times messaged Washington, "I have examined this. I have conducted a full field audit. There's no change," because there was no--no money owed. And he said, "Three times I got orders from the very top to continue the audit and try to find something that they could ask for more money." That kind of harassment, I thought, was a bit beyond the pale, particularly because the election was close, particularly since I did not contest it. But, on the other hand, they play hardball. They had me down, they knew I wasn't out, and they wanted to put a couple of nails in the coffin. They almost succeeded.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:16
[Frank Gannon]

Could it be argued that your--that the investigations of Ted Kennedy in--during the first several months of your administration were really an equivalent of that?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:27
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I would say that they having done what they had done--we certainly were motivated, I would say, to a certain extent, to investigate what we thought were activities which were politically detrimental as far as they were concerned and not let it be covered up. And certainly that is one of the reasons that--that when we talk about the investigations of Ted Kennedy--what we're talking here, assume, is the Chappaquiddick--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:56
[Frank Gannon]

Chappaquiddick, yes.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:57
[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:58
[Frank Gannon]

Do you consider running for governor of California to be your greatest--looking back now and--and given that you were--looking back now and, as you say, you were considering running against Kennedy again in '64--do you consider running for governor of California in 1962 your greatest political mistake?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:29:20
[Richard Nixon]

Yes and no. And I--this is not an equivocal answer, because it is a yes-and-no proposition. From a personal standpoint, yes, because we lost the election. On the other hand, if you look at it historically, if I had not run for governor, I then would certainly have probably been drafted to, even though I had not wished to, to run for president in 1964. And I would have lost. I would have run better against Johnson than Goldwater did. But nobody was going to beat Johnson in 1964. Having run for governor and lost, I was dead as far as 1964 was concerned. Now, let me say, I didn't plan it that way, because I didn't plan to go in and lose so I wouldn't have to run for governor. I didn't plan to go in and be governor so that--I--I didn't--I--I s--lost my train of thought there. I didn't run and lose because I didn't--I--I didn't run for governor and--and--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:30:23
[Frank Gannon]

Let's strike that, and we'll start again.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:30:24
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah. I didn't run for governor and then lose because of my concern that if I didn't lose I'd have to run for president in '64 because I had every i--every view that perhaps I would be the strongest candidate in '64. But that's the way the thing happened. And so, while I don't go along with the Pollyanna-ish idea everything happens for the best, in this case it did happen for the best for me politically. I would have been--because if I had run again in '64 and become a two-time loser for president, as Dewey had been after losing in '44 and '48, I would have been kaput as far as '68 was concerned. Now, on the other hand, running for governor was not something I wanted to do under any circumstances. I didn't want to be governor, and, incidentally, my best friends--not all of them, but some of my best friends felt it would be a great mistake. I remember Herbert Hoover and General MacArthur, who lived about five floors apart in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel--when I went to see them prior to making this decision on a visit to New York, I asked for their advice. Each of them, independently, without having talked to the other, said, "Don't go to California." They urged me to run for Congress, as John Quincy Adams had over a hundred years before. He said--and both of them said this, MacArthur first and then Hoover, whom I saw later in that same day--they said, "You should be in Washington, not in California. California basically is a great state, but it's quite parochial. You belong on the national and international scene. You can't do that in California." On the other hand, my political friends--like Len Hall, Cliff Folger--said, "You've got to go back. You've got to run." Len Hall's argument--he said, "If you don't run and somebody else does and somebody else wins, who's Dick Nixon going to be? He's the guy that lost for president. You've got to run in order to have a new base." So, after all those considerations and the feelings also expressed by some of my California supporters, I finally decided to run. Cap Weinberger, incidentally, the--now the secretary of defense, was then the young chairman of the Republican Party, a moderate Republican in a relatively conservative state at that point. And he was the one that told me I was the only one that had a chance to beat Pat Brown. And Dwight Eisenhower--President Eisenhower, after talking to his friends, wrote me a long letter saying that he had finally determined that I should run. Incidentally, in that respect, one other intriguing possibility that was raised for me before I came to California was raised by [Raymond Mulley], the columnist. Raymond Noley--Mulley had followed politics for years in Britain and the United States, and he urged me to become chairman of the Republican National Committee. He said, "There you'll have a forum. You can be the head of the loyal opposition. You're a great organizer. You can organize the party and strengthen it." That also was a proposition that I considered but did not follow through on.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:33:41
[Frank Gannon]

Coming just two years after this searing defeat for president, how did--and--and presumably enjoying the life back in California--how did Mrs. Nixon and Tricia and Julie feel about your re-entry into the political arena?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:34:00
[Richard Nixon]

Not enthusiastic, if I c--may use British understatement. Tricia and Julie, to an extent, were more resigned to it, because they were--they were still quite young. But as far as Mrs. Nixon was concerned--she was adamantly against it. She said, "We've just been through a campaign. We're just getting back on our feet. We owe time to the girls," which we did. "We owe time to ourselves. We just can't go through this again so soon.' She knew very well sh--what she was talking about.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:34:35
[Frank Gannon]

How did you--

[Richard Nixon]

She knew it was tough.

[Frank Gannon]

--break the news to her?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:34:37
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I had th--we had a family conference. I mean, you have that when you're a candidate for president, or governor, or vice president, whatever the case might be. And in this instance, I went over the pros and cons. And she said, "Well, let me just make one thing clear. If you decide to run, you're going to run on your own." She says, "I'm not going to be there campaigning with you as I did when you ran for the House and the Senate and vice president and president." And so she left the room, and the girls were in tears. So I went up to my study in our place and sat down in the easy chair, as I usually did, with the yellow pad, and--because I had to have a press conference the next day to announce what I was going to do. I had already indicated that I would. And I was making notes as to why I would not run for governor of California. The light was rather dim, and she came into the room. She came over, and she said, "You know, Dick," she said, "I've been thinking about this thing. I think it's a terrible mistake for you to run, but if you decide to do it," she said, "I'll be there with you." And she leaned down and kissed me on the forehead and left the room. Well, since she had agreed, I went ahead and did it. But she was right, because we, of course, did lose.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:35:57
[Frank Gannon]

We have some film of a famous event in Richard Nixon's political career.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:36:09
[Action note: They watch film of Nixon's 1962 concession speech.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:36:33
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you hold your last press conference?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:36:38
[Richard Nixon]

You know, my main regret, and, frankly, only regret about that conference, curiously enough--I didn't do it sooner. Those of us, particularly on the conservative side, in politics--we take so much crap from the media. And w--we hyp--hypocritically go through this charade that we think the press is fair, that they're just doing their job, and so forth. They're not fair. They're deliberately unfair. When you--when you look, for example, at the polls taken of Washington correspondents in terms of 1960, they were in the neighborhood of four to five to one for Kennedy. In the case, for example, in 1968, when I was running against Humphrey, the top Washington correspondents, the two hundred--this is in television and also among newspapers as well--the top Washington correspondents were for Hubert Humphrey by eighty percent to twenty percent. In 1972, when sixty-one percent of the people voted for Nixon, the Washington and national correspondents in television and the media were eighty-two percent for McGovern. Well, that's got to tell you something. And so I had been going through this through all these years. Oh, I don't mean that I didn't have good friends in the press. I did have some. I don't mean that--too, that all of them were against me all the time. I think particularly when I went to Moscow in 1959 that I got a relatively good press. But, on the other hand, generally speaking, they're just against me--against me because they didn't agree with me. And so I understood that, but, on the other hand, I was not going to continue to go through the charade that I felt they were fair. And so now--in the California campaign it was worse than ever. I made a number of--of what I thought very constructive speeches and proposals about government in California, what we would do about crime, what we would do about jobs, getting more jobs into the state, a better industrial climate, and so forth and so on. Didn't make a blip. Just couldn't get it covered. All they wanted to go into was to whether or not I was running for president again, and particularly badgering me about the Hughes loan--other things which they knew were phony issues--political issues raised by the opposition. Well, in any event, that morning it was all over. I had made a concession statement--in other words, sent out a written statement, congratulated Brown and so forth and so on-- by wire, and I happened to tune in the television, and here was Herb Klein, one of the kindest, most gentle men who's ever been a press secretary--he's really too good for them. He never criticizes them. He never talks to their publishers or their editors or bitches about them in any way. He's always trying to be nice to them, thinking that if he's nice to them, they'll be nice to us. I don't mean he's a soft man, but I mean that's just his way. He's a gentleman. He's a gentleman in a business where there are damned few gentlemen. And so, in any event, here they were, badgering per--poor Herb Klein, saying, "Why doesn't Nixon come down and conc--concede?" I said, "Fine. I'll go down and concede," but when I conceded, I was going finally to tell them exactly what they'd been up to. I have no regrets about saying that, and, incidentally--one of the best things I ever did politically, because from that time on, and I think perhaps for the first time, the press began to respect me a little more. They were afraid that maybe I'd crack them again, and, believe me, I would have if they'd come at me.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:40:27
[Frank Gannon]

There--there are some, perhaps many, who will watch and hear you say what you've just said and say that this is a classic expression, casebook quality, of Nixon media paranoia. How do you--are you aware of that, and how do you respond to this--this continuing response to your claims, or to your objections, that you are unfairly treated by the media, that this is--that you just have a paranoid blank on this subject?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:40:27
[Richard Nixon]

No. I'm not paranoiac about it at all. I just say let's look at the record, and all the media has to do is to look at its record in 1960, look at its record in 1962, 1968, 1972. And they will find that they have been very heavily prejudiced--I'm speaking of "they" in the broadest sense, the majority--that they haven't given me the same fair treatment that they have given to some of the candidates on the other side who support their political views. It's only a honest statement, and--and anybody who sits there and says, "Well, really, they're all very fair, they're treating us objectively," is just wrong. I think the problem is this. The media constantly harps on credibility--are political figures credible. Well, I think the media's got to look at their credibility, and, as I say, when you look in 1972 and find eighty-two percent of the media, the top honchos, going for McGovern, and only thirty-eight percent of the people going for him, I don't know who's out of sync here. But for me to sit here and say, "Oh, in spite of that, the media were very fair to me"--that's just not true. They aren't. And weren't.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:42:21
[Frank Gannon]

Why do people put up with this? Because if--if reporters are as liberal as you say they are, that certainly doesn't represent the mass of public opinion. Why does the average person sitting at home who is not that kind of liberal accept this kind of liberal treatment of people like yourself, or of news in--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:42:40
[Richard Nixon]

[Inaudible.]

[Frank Gannon]

--general? Doesn't the market establish itself and demand more neutral or, indeed, right-of-center news coverage?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:42:46
[Richard Nixon]

The market does. For example, my famous "Silent Majority" speech in 1969 proved that. The media was about ninety percent to bug out of Vietnam, and yet we went up to sixty-eight percent in the polls when I came out strongly for the silent majority to stand up rather than to bug out. The people are smarter than you think in this thing. I think, too, though--let's look at politicians. Why don't politicians speak up as far as the media are concerned? I mean, those that think they're getting a bad rap? And the reason is the same reason that I--that motivated me up until that conference in 1962. They got the whip hand. You try to answer them. You try to defend yourself, and they'll write it, or they'll go on the air and--and come back at you. They have the last word. And so, under the circumstances, and this is where Herb Klein, professionally, was probably right when he advised, "Well, there's no use to take them on, because they'll be even worse." That was his view. My own view is--in retrospect, though, as far as I was concerned, they couldn't have been worse, in my opinion--more unfair. At least I got some degree of respect, because, basically, deep down, they're not the bravest people in the world when they write these words. And if you take them on, they then have got to show a little bit of deference--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:44:25
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think--

[Richard Nixon]

--to your views, at least.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:44:27
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think it's possible for a conservative commentator or reporter or analyst to rise through the ranks of network news as it now exists--which is another way of saying, I guess, do you think that there's any hope that the situation you've described, as you see it, will ever be changed?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:44:44
[Richard Nixon]

None at all. It's a fact of life. It's something that commentators have got to recognize as a fact of life. There is not a conservative commentator on the air today. There's nobody that I would even put in the center at the present time. I don't mean by that that Howard K. Smith was not a very responsible man. He's now off the air. John Chancellor at times can be very, very fair in the field of foreign policy and so forth. And I don't mean that they're s--all unfair all the time. I'm saying that deep down, as the [Rothman-Lichter polls]--and they basically are not conservatives--as they've all indicated, the overwhelming majority of the media feel that way. L--let's look at the polls, for example, of the top media people in television and newspapers in the year 1980. Reagan wins by a landslide. As far as those commentators were concerned--you know how they came out? Carter had over fifty percent, about fifty-one percent. You know who was second? John Anderson. Reagan ran a poor third. In other words, if the media was going to determine who was president, Jimmy Carter would be president today, and the country would be in a terrible shape. Now, my point is this--it isn't going to change, but political leaders like Ronald Reagan who can fight against this thing effectively and go over the heads of the media are the only hope to appeal to that silent majority that is still out there. I still insist that it's very important for anyone who is in politics to recognize that if he filters all of his views through the media, assuming he's a conservative, he's dead. Therefore, he must find ways to go over them and around them, and that's what I was trying to do as president.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:46:47
[Frank Gannon]

Do you have a twenty-five-word-or-less assessment of Dan Rather's credibility as a reporter-slash-anchorman to fill Walter Cronkite's shoes?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:46:58
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think Dan Rather is perhaps the most effective anchorman of all at the present time. He's intelligent. He's tough. He's considered pretty credible. After the rough edges that he had at the beginning, he's gotten a little bit more of the soft-shoe manner that Walter Crankite--Cronkite used so effectively over the years. He comes on with that good automatic smile at the end, when he says--when they usually put one of those softline things on at the end--and it's rather endearing, as I'm--I'm sure that he hopes it will be. Now, as far as his credibility is concerned, it isn't as high as Cronkite's because of his background of having been more partisan. Cronkite was partisan. There isn't much question about that. I think he'd be the first to admit it, because he's an honest man. But, on the other hand, Cronkite was clever enough to know that he didn't want to be--appear to be that way, and Rather is beginning to learn that. I think that he is smart enough and, after all, when he's earning up to two million dollars a year, he isn't going to throw that baby out. So I think he's going to be smart enough to keep his ratings up by not going too far overboard in not providing balance. But, believe me, though, if Ronald Reagan's possibilities of being reelected president depended upon what kind of favorable treatment he's going to get in C.B.S., he might as well go back to that ranch right tomorrow. There's no way that he'd make it. But I think he's going to override them.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:48:39
[Frank Gannon]

What kind of person do you think becomes a reporter?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:48:43
[Richard Nixon]

Very intelligent people, people that are publicly oriented, people that want to be in public life, and people that are willing to make great sacrifices in order to succeed.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:49:00
[Frank Gannon]

On--right after your 1962 election, A.B.C. ran a network show called "The Politch--Political Obituary of Richard Nixon." How did it feel to sit in front of the tube and watch your own obituary?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:49:15
[Richard Nixon]

Well, neither you or our listeners will believe this. I didn't see the program. I don't look at programs of that sort. I got reports, of course, from the family, who did watch it, because it had been well-publicized. Incidentally, Howard K. Smith had been the man who presided over that first debate with Kennedy. He did it very fairly. And during my presidential years, I found him to be one of the most responsible reporters, particularly on Vietnam, that we could possibly find. I consider him objective, a good friend at this point. At that time, I think he thought it was news to put Alger Hiss on a program which was entitled "The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon." I learned later, too, however, that he had put Jerry Ford on to defend me, and, I understand, Jerry Ford did a very good idea [sic]. So I was pleased to hear that. So my reaction was, "Well, what's new? So now they've trotted Hiss out." And I thought that's just an indication of how low my fortunes were. But all hell broke loose as far as the networks were concerned. I guess A.B.C. got more wires on that than they've ever gotten before that time, objecting. Eisenhower was furious. He got some of his friends to become motivated on it. And Howard Smith wrote me a letter years afterwards and tried to make it clear that he hadn't done the program simply as a hatchet job. And I don't think he had intended that. He had done it because he thought it was newsworthy.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:50:52
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you move to New York after your defeat in the California gubernatorial race? Wasn't that burning your--not only burning, but sort of mining your bridges and blowing them up in terms of a political future?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:51:06
[Richard Nixon]

It was time to move--time to move because, had I stayed in California, I would still be this titular head of the Republican Party. Now, being titular head is about as useful as being the fifth tit on a cow. But, on the other hand, it is a responsibility that you have, and I didn't feel that I could do a very good job on that. The second thing I think was that I--I was tired of campaigning, really worn out from it. I'd been through it in '60. I'd been through it in '62. That year, for example--in '62--that I ran--'61 and '62--one of the hardest of all my life, because I wrote a book, Six Crises, I worked in my legal activities, I made speeches around the country, and, of course, did the campaign. So you just get bushed, and at that point I decided that it was time to leave California--get out of the political arena. I know that--I felt that coming to New York there'd be no problem being involved in the political arena, because that was Nelson Rockefeller's turf, and I know that--that he didn't play softball either. So that motivated me. I think another motivation was the family. It was very hard for our two girls out there. You see, in that primary campaign in California in 1962, the right wing was out after me--the John Birch Society, for example. I was heckled at stop after stop. I mean, heckling me as being soft on Communism!

Day 9, Tape 1
00:52:42
[Frank Gannon]

Why were they after--why were you considered--of all people, considered to be soft on Communism--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:52:46
[Richard Nixon]

Even--

[Frank Gannon]

--by the John Birch Society?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:52:47
[Richard Nixon]

Even after Caracas, after Khrushchev and the kitchen and so forth--because I had been part of the Eisenhower administration and so forth--because I had been part of the Eisenhower administration, and the John Birch Society had criticized Eisenhower as being soft on Communism, and Foster Dulles was a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy, and I defended both. And so they raised the devil about that. And so, under the circumstances, I remember that it was pretty tough in that campaign, because when--when you--when you look at how it happened, I started out with a lead of about ten points over Pat Brown, and Pat Brown was a--was a genial--I thought rather ineffective but not too controversial governor. So that helped him on that side, because there are more Democrats in California. He was not considered to be on the left. If he'd been on the left, he would have lost for sure. But, in addition to that, in this primary we had the problem that we were split, and Shell, from the right, got a third of the vote in the primary. And in this case, many of them did not come back. They thought I was too left-wing, which I think is perhaps a pretty good indication of where I stood as well.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:54:04
[Frank Gannon]

Did you ever--

[Richard Nixon]

And let me say that, as far as the Birchers were concerned--many of them and their children--children can be very cruel--had been--made it pretty rough on Tricia and Julie at the private school they were attending. And so when I announced that I felt, after talking to Pat, that I thought we should move, they jumped up and down. Tricia went in, I remember, and got all of her homework out of the drawers and threw it away in the wastebasket. She thought we were going that very day. Of course, we didn't. We went toward the end of the year.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:54:37
[Frank Gannon]

Did you ever support the John Birch Society and/or do you--do you feel that it did any good or does any good today?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:54:46
[Richard Nixon]

Well, far from supporting it, I would say that I was perhaps its most effective opponent. I did so certainly with a great deal of concern, because some of my friends were in it--Edgar Hiestand, a former congressman from California, Johnny Rousselot--two of my strongest supporters. They joined the John Birch Society, but I could not do anything but take on a society that had called Eisenhower soft on Communism and John Foster Dulles a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy. That was the nuts. I mean, you could just hear them crackling there in the head. They were scary. Matter of fact, I remember one time a lot of the far right had infiltrated the Young Republicans. The Young Republicans are supposed--the young are supposed to be liberal. But not in the Republican Party--they're very, very conservative. And I was speaking to them in San--in Sacramento at their convention, and they began to heckle me about something I was saying on foreign policy and so forth. I brought them up a little short, though. I said, "Just remember--I've been heckled by experts." That quieted them down fast. It reminded them of the fact that at one time they had supported me in the kitchen, in Caracas, and so forth. But be that as it may, as far as the John Birch Society is concerned, I would have to say that in their hearts, their motivations, nobody can quarrel with them. I mean, there is a Communist conspiracy. Our policies have not been effective. I think, however, they've done more harm than they've done good, because they overstated, like McCarthy who overstated his case. He had a very good case about the State Department having people who belong to Communist front [sic], but when he went so far as to say they're--there were sixty-one card-carrying Communists, he overstated it, and as a result that cleared the rest of them as well. And so it is with the John Birch Society. They give sort of a kooky feeling to the responsible conservatives--responsible hawks--and that doesn't help us at all.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:57:08
[Frank Gannon]

After you--after your move to New York, you began a fairly extensive series of foreign trips that--that went on from then up until your campaign--you began your campaign for president. You saw--as you traveled abroad, you saw business leaders, political leaders, everybody from President Nasser to Paul Getty. Was this part of a--a conscious plan to keep your political options open, or indeed to build political bases?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:57:38
[Richard Nixon]

No. That foreign travel was due to two things. It was due, first, to the fact that the law firm I was with, a very fine firm, had some international clients. And so it fitted in with my legal responsibilities. The second was that I was very interested in foreign policy, and I welcomed the opportunity to travel abroad. And I think there was a third factor as well. I received a lot of invitations to come abroad from government leaders that I had known over the years as vice president. And so I welcomed that chance. For example, I went to Europe several times during that period. I was in Asia six times. There were six trips to Tokyo. There were five to Vietnam. The purpose of it was not to travel, until the 1967 trip, for the purpose of simply becoming a candidate again. But, on the other hand--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:58:38
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 9, Tape 1
01:02:00
[Action note: Time coding ends.]

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Richard Nixon]

--all of that foreign travel helped me enormously, not so much in getting publicity, and I got some, but more in terms of learning what the world was all about, how the world works. So that by the time I ran for president again, in 1968, I was far more experienced, had a better understanding of the world, all the world, than I had in 1960. So I was better qualified in '68 to be president than I was in 1960.

[Frank Gannon]

What did you learn about the world from J. Paul Getty?

[Richard Nixon]

Well, J. Paul Getty is a fascinating man. I mean, he's the richest man in the world, and so obviously I was--

Day Nine, Tape two of four, LINE FEED #2, 9-7-83, ETI Reel #63
September 7, 1983

Day 9, Tape 2
00:00:00
[Richard Nixon]

--happy to see him. He had been a contributor--not a heavy contributor--to our campaign in 1960, and so I wanted to express my appreciation, and when he invited us to come to his famous place in London, outside on the outskirts of London, this huge mansion and so forth. Mrs. Nixon and Tricia and Julie and I welcomed the opportunity. And I remember he was very gracious. He had a very, very deep voice. He used to sit and say very, very little. He was kind and well-mannered and the rest, but when he went in to lunch one thing impressed me enormously. It was a magnificent room. We were served on gold plates, gold silverware--ware--it wasn't just gold-covered--gold--solid gold silverware and gold goblets. A gourmet French chef prepared beautiful delicacies. There were vintage wines. So I looked up at the head of the table, and here sat J. Paul Getty, the richest man in the world. You know what he had? Graham crackers and milk. And so I realized that there are other thing [sic] than being rich. We were fortunate to have our health, despite those defeats.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:20
[Frank Gannon]

I think we’ve come to the end of an hour. We'll take a short break. Have some graham crackers and milk.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:26
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Offscreen voice]

We'll take a ten-minute break here. And everybody back [inaudible].

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:31
[Action note: Picture fades to black.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:33
[Action note: Color bars appear on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:36
[Action note: Picture appears on screen; tone sounds.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:38
[Action note: Color bars appear on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:19
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

--in the end that's the way it happened.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:20
[Frank Gannon]

Hm.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:21
[Richard Nixon]

The campaign didn't change that much.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:22
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't change that much, yeah. Or--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:24
[Richard Nixon]

But on the other hand, who is to say, for example, what could happen when you stop [inaudible], stop looking for the--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:31
[Action note: Picture fades to black.]

[Richard Nixon]

--Catholic vote, you stop looking for the recession--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:37
[Frank Gannon]

Just a cyclical--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:43
[Richard Nixon]

[Inaudible.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:44
[Offscreen voice]

Five.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:52
[Frank Gannon]

Did President Kennedy's death make you reassess your own political situation in terms of running in 1964?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:58
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, it did. And in part it did because many of my friends talked to me thereafter and said, "Well, now, it's very important for you to consider running again." I considered it, but only briefly, because when I analyzed the situation I could see that Barry Goldwater was way out in front. He had done a superb job, and his supporters had done a superb job, of mobilizing the party faithful across the country. It seemed to me that it was his turn and that he was going to get it.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:03:31
[Frank Gannon]

Who else was in the field then?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:03:33
[Richard Nixon]

Well, of course, Governor Rockefeller. Nelson Rockefeller was still in the fields [sic], and the possibility--remote possibility--that George Romney might get in, and, of course, Bill Scranton made an abortive push right at the last. But any realist would know there was no way anybody was going to get that nomination from Barry Goldwater. I knew it. What I felt was important, and President Eisenhower felt the same thing--that he not get it without having some kind of a contest. We felt he sh--we should have interest in the campaign, and also enough of a contest that some of Barry's rougher edges might be tempered a bit before he got into the final campaign. We didn't do a very good job at accomplishing that, however. He rolled over the opposition so easily at San Francisco that he just got more the way he was. Let Goldwater be Goldwater.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:04:28
[Frank Gannon]

You wrote in your memoirs that you were almost physically sick as you sat on the platform, having introduced him to the convention in San Francisco in 1964, and listened to his acceptance speech. Why was that, and--and why did you then campaign up and down the country for him right through November?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:04:47
[Richard Nixon]

Well, you have to know the background. I introduced him. That was the role I had at the convention. It was only a twenty-minute speech, and I would rate it probably the best political speech I ever made. Every line had been written out, carefully crafted. I remember the peroration very well. I said to the audience out there, because I knew that Goldwater had gotten a very, very bad press--I said, "You've heard about this man. You've heard that he's an extremist," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. "Listen to him. Judge for yourselves." And then I said, "Now I present to you the man who, by his work in the vineyards over the years has earned the title of Mr. Conservative, who, by the action of this convention, is now Mr. Republican, and who, with your support, will become Mr. President--Barry Goldwater." The place came apart. Goldwater came in and got a huge, huge ovation. And we sat down and waited to hear this man that I had urged the w--the nation, as well as the delegates, to listen to. He started by reading out of the party those that didn't support him, after I in my speech had tried to bring Romney people and Scranton people and Rockefeller people in behind our new candidate. He said, "Those that were not for us, we don't want you." And then he made a very famous statement. He said, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." Now, you take those two sentences and read them. They're okay, but not from Barry Goldwater, because they were nailing him with the idea of being an extremist, of being a little kooky on foreign policy, and domestic policy as well. Now, he wasn't a kook, but, on the other hand, every time he opened his mouth he proved their point. And so I sat there and listened to that, and I knew it was down the tube. I th--thought there was very little chance before that, but he had split the party. He was appealing to his own constituency only, and he had given Johnson and the Democrats the opportunity to tag him with the extremist label.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:11
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't you know what he was going to say?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:12
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, my, no. I didn't see the speech.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:15
[Richard Nixon]

Weren't you part of the--didn't they show it around to leaders of the party and--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:18
[Richard Nixon]

Didn't show it to me. If it--if they had, it would never have been in that speech.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:25
[Frank Gannon]

In the wake of the Goldwater debacle, did you--how did you assess your political chances in terms of coming back and running in 1968?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:38
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I should first point out why I campaigned for Goldwater after that. President Eisenhower, with whom I was in very close contact, and I met with Goldwater and other Republicans at Hershey, Pennsylvania. We were attempting to get him to moderate some of his positions--not to become a mushy moderate, which is the worst thing. Far better to be a liberal or a conservative than to be a mushy moderate--stand for nothing. We didn't want him to do that, but we wanted him at least to be responsible. And so we had a long talk with him. Eisenhower particularly really read the act and said, "Barry, you've got to quit saying these cockeyed things," and words to that effect, and so forth, and Barry said, "Well, that's the way I am, but I'll try to." So we all went out and had a joint press conference, and Barry made it worse than ever. They asked some question about what he would do insofar as the use of nuclear weapons was concerned in Europe. He said, "Well, I think we ought to give the responsibility and the power to launch those weapons to our commanders in the field." Well, Eisenhower just practically cringed, because he knew that was, first, politically inadvisable, and also militarily the wrong decision. You can't leave that decision, one that would bring nuclear war, in the hands of a field commander in Europe, no matter how good he is. Afterwards, I rode from Hershey back to Gettysburg with Eisenhower in the car. He gritted his teeth. That's-that's what he usually did when--he just gritted his teeth, and his forehead would get all flushed up. He said, "You know, before Barry met with us today, I thought he was just stubborn. Now I think he's just plain damned dumb!" And--which, again, was only his immediate reaction. Goldwater wasn't dumb. It's just the way he is. He's irrepressible. He says anything that comes to the top of his head, and, consequently, it was not easy. Now, as a matter of fact, in campaigning for him I did it for a number of reasons. One, I knew the party was in trouble. I knew we were going to lose, but defeat is not fatal unless you don’t fight. It was very important to fight. Rockefeller wouldn't help. Scranton couldn't do very much. Most of the other moderates "stood it out"--so-called. I was the only one around that could help, and the candidates around the country--people in the Senate and the House--were begging me to come in. I'll never forget, though--it was pretty tough to come in. I'd go into campaign in this state or the other, and the candidate in advance would get the word to me. They'd say, "Please, please, when you endorse Goldwater, could you put it in another part of the speech? Don't put him with me." So, the way I did it--I worked it out that at the very beginning I would endorse all the local candidates and the candidate for the House and the Senate. And then in the peroration I'd go all-out for Goldwater. That seemed to cut it all right. In any event, I drew huge crowds in that campaign--actually made more speeches for Goldwater than he made for himself. But I have no regrets about it. It was the right thing to do. The party was still alive, although weakened as a result of the campaign. And from a personal standpoint--and I didn't do it for that reason--but from a personal standpoint, it proved to be indispensable to my winning in 1968, because that hard core of Goldwater people, with Rockefeller deserting them and others not supporting them--they felt a debt to me. So when we came to '68, I had the support, not only of Goldwater personally, but of those workers out there, because they felt I had stood by them when others had not. In other words, the old saw "This is the time for good men to come to their [sic] aid of their parties"--that was the time to do it, when the party is down. Easy to support the party when it's on the way up or going to win.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:11:31
[Frank Gannon]

You say that that 1964 convention speech was, y--as you look back on it, your best political speech. Do you have a memory of one that you consider to be your worst, or least best, political speech?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:11:45
[Richard Nixon]

No, I--there would be too many candidates there for me to select them out. I have never made a speech that I considered to be basically perfect. I've never felt one--I've never made a speech that I felt could not have been improved upon. I felt, for example, that my 1960 acceptance speech was better than my 1968 or '72 acceptance speeches, although each was quite effective. But, on the other hand, in 1960, if I had it to do over again, I would have perhaps cut three or four minutes out of it--out of the early part, so that I could have greater impact at the end. But who knows?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:12:21
[Frank Gannon]

Do you have--or maybe it's a busman's holiday for you to go to speeches like this--but do you remember a--a speech that you heard that--that you considered to be the best, that you found moving or inspiring or persuasive?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:12:33
[Richard Nixon]

Well, there's no question about the first candidate there. That's MacArthur. MacArthur's famous speech--"no"--"old soldiers never die"--when he came back from Korea was the most moving speech I've ever heard. He was a master.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:12:52
[Frank Gannon]

In the wake of the debacle, the Goldwater debacle in 1964, did you reassess your own position in terms of running in 1968 for president?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:13:05
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, I did. I first, incidentally, read Nelson Rockefeller out of the party. It wasn't personal, but what really got me down--after Goldwater lost, Rockefeller proceeded to kick him, and he tried to read Goldwater out of the party. And so--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:13:23
[Frank Gannon]

How did he do that?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:13:24
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he just had a press conference, and he said that this election had been a rejection of Barry Goldwater and everything he stood for and so forth and so on. Well, now, you don't do that--particularly not then. Let the election speak for itself. So I had a little press conference, and I said that Rockefeller had not supported the candidate. He was therefore the last one that should speak out now, the last one the party would turn to, and I said the party was not going to turn for new leadership to those that had not supported the candidate in 1964. I also used a rather colorful phrase. I said, "He's had his pound of flesh. Let him subside." And so that handled that problem. Then in 1965--I guess it was my birthday, 1965--I began to reassess my situation. I have a sort of an old--a quaint old custom on birthdays. I used t--always sit down and make a list of things that I might like to do in the next year. And so I listed various things I would hope to do in the year 1965. And as I did so, the thought occurred to me then that everything that I should do or would do between 1965 and 1968 had to be done in the context of the possibility of running again. I didn't decide to run then, but I opened my mind for the first time to the possibility thereof, because after 1962, for example, the defeat for governor of California--the idea never occurred to me to run again. I thought I was dead, and I still thought I was dead after 1964. But after the Goldwater defeat, after Rockefeller had sat it out, I realized there was the possibility that I might be the one that could bring the party together and possibly win. But I didn't cross that bridge then. I just felt, however, that everything that I would do then had to be--had to fit into that particular pattern.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:13:34
[Frank Gannon]

What was--what was Rockefeller like? One--one gets the sense that he didn't sit around just crumbling up graham crackers into milk, with all his money and power and ambition.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:15:48
[Richard Nixon]

Rockefeller was a--a--a very attractive individual, attractive in the sense that he not only was rich, but he--very gregarious. He'd usually come up--"Hiya, fella!" That's the Rockefeller trademark and so forth. It turned some people off. It didn't turn me off. But he--he--you could have a good talk with him. He could be very candid at times, and at other times he could be perhaps a bit on the devious side. He was a good politician, no question about that. I remember very well how blunt he could be. He lived, of course, in the same building that we did. And in 1967, after the 1966 elections, I remember that he talked to me about the possibility of his running in 1968. He made a very interesting point. He was very direct. He said, "Look." He said, "In 1968, it's got to be certainly somebody other than Goldwater." He said, "You know, Goldwater isn't too smart. He only went to college for two years." I was almost tempted to s--ask him, "How many years did Lincoln go to college?" It was a little bit arrogant and so forth on his part, but he--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:17:07
[Frank Gannon]

Was he a snob?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:17:08
[Richard Nixon]

Subconsciously, yes. He'd--not consciously, but when you're that rich and have had everything on a silver platter all your life, it's very difficult not to show just a little bit of that arrogance. It's the subconscious, or even, I should say, unconscious arrogance of unlimited wealth. And he said, "Well, Scranton is waiting for a draft, and there's no draft around with his name on it." He says, "Only you or I can do it." And he said, "You aren't going to run, or shouldn't run, because you're too smart to do that right at the present time." I said, "I will run, and then if I can't make it, I'll support you." Well, we didn't make any deal.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:17:50
[Frank Gannon]

You--you say that Rockefeller was a good politician and therefore partly devious. You are a past master politician. How devious are you?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:01
[Richard Nixon]

Well, when necessary, one has to be devious. President Eisenhower, I think, is the best example of that. He--he was devious himself. He used others to do things that he did not want to do himself, and he respected that quality in others as well.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:19
[Frank Gannon]

What is your definition of "devious"?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:21
[Richard Nixon]

It means not doing directly something that may lose you support when you can find some other way to do it indirectly that will accomplish the end.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:36
[Frank Gannon]

As you looked at the political landscape from '64 to '68, what use did you consider making, or what use did you see to be made, of the 1966 congressional elections?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:52
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the 1966 congressional elections were vitally important to 1968 for a fundamental reason. In 1960 when I ran, I knew that one of the reasons that I lost was that the Republican Party was so weak. After the 1958 elections, we only had fourteen Republican governors out of the fifty. We only had thirty-four Republican senators. We had only a hundred and fifty-five members of the House. I had to run five percent ahead of the ticket in 1960 if I were to win. I did run five percent ahead, but I still lost by that minimal amount. So I realized that in 1968 we had to close that gap some, because after 1964 the party was down to the same level it was in 1958. So we had to increase the number of governors. We had to increase the number of senators, increase the number of congressmen. It wouldn't be equal to what the Democrats had, but the Republican candidate for president wouldn't have to run five percent ahead--maybe two to three percent ahead. And that's exactly what we accomplished in that 1966 campaign. In that campaign, I was pretty perceptive. I must say I didn’t have any polls to base this on. I just sensed this as I campaigned around the country. But a month before the election, I made the flat prediction that we were going to have a great victory. Somebody said, "Well, could you give us the numbers?" I said, "Sure." I said, "We're going to win forty new members of the House. We're going to elect three new members to the Senate. We're going to elect six new governors and seven hundred state legislators." Everybody thought I was crazy--that it wasn't possible. Well, as a matter of fact, after the election was held, and we got the returns that night, it was even a little better than I had expected. We had actually won a hundred--we'd actually won forty-seven new House seats, three senators, eight governors, and a great number in the state legislatures. So that gave the party the new life. It created a new plateau, a higher plattoo--plateau for the president campaign--candidate to pole-vault from in order to win in 1968.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:21:10
[Frank Gannon]

Towards the end of that campaign, President Johnson in a press conference dropped what turned out to be a--a bombshell, and it turned out that he dropped it directly on you. We have a film of that.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:21:26
[Action note: They watch film of Lyndon Johnson.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:22:11
[Frank Gannon]

How did it feel like to be called a "chronic campaigner"?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:22:14
[Richard Nixon]

Well, first, I must say that President Eisenhower called me after that, and he said, "You've got to answer this." He says, "Every time anybody raises that goddamned 'Give me a week' thing, it just raises my blood pressure." He was really t--pretty teed off by it. As far as being called a chronic campaigner by Johnson--he could have called me a lot worse. He knows a lot worse words than that.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:22:37
[Frank Gannon]

What did you do to capitalize on the positive results, t--to get a--get a--a running start on this pole vault that you described, as a result of the results of the 1966 elections?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:22:50
[Richard Nixon]

Well, w--we should first understand why Johnson said this. He doesn't use such rhetoric unless something had been effective. And what had happened there is that he came back from Manila, and there was a communiqué about the Vietnam War, which, in a public statement, I just tore to shreds. Bill Safire was very helpful in preparing that statement, incidentally. It was reprinted in full in the New York Times and across the country. And that just sent him right up the cotton-pickin' wall. That's why he responded as he did. But after that, I got national television time and made what I consider to be one of my top two or three best television addresses--again, totally without notes--in which I said, in effect, to President Johnson--I said, "If you're listening"--I said, "I want you to know that I know how tired a man can be when he's done all this work in the office. And I know--I--I realize that you're one of the hardest-working men that has ever served as president. And when that happens--that maybe you say things that you might not really--should n--you shouldn't say, you wouldn't have said if you weren't tired," and so forth. Well, of course, I figured that'd drive him up the wall a little bit more. I understand that it did.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:24:11
[Frank Gannon]

How did--

[Richard Nixon]

But the broadcast was very effective and may have helped get the margin up to what we had hoped--the great gains and the victory of 1966.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:24:23
[Frank Gannon]

How did you use the combination of the publicity from this broadcast and the results of the '66 elections to--to sort of give you a--a r--a running start for that pole vault towards '68?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:24:36
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I--I did something very unique and very unexpected. Everybody after the '66 elections assumed that now the race for the roses begins, or the brass ring, or whatever you want to call it. I remember that the news magazines had on their covers the winners of 1966, and there, of course, were Romney and Scranton, et cetera, et cetera--others who had won--the new faces, particularly. And then I remember one commentator in particular--and I think other columnists may have made the same point--said that the big loser in 1966, ironically, was Richard Nixon. "He, after having labored for the candidates across the country, probably more responsible than anybody else for the great victory, has, in effect, weakened his own chances because there are so many new faces on the scene." So I read that. I didn--incidentally, I didn't consider that to be unfair reporting, because I think it was quite accurate that that was the case, because Romney--unless he'd have won as he did in 1966, he would not have been a national figure. And so, under the circumstances, I had to determine what was I going to do. Now, my friends all urged me, when we all sat down for--at El Morocco that night in 1966, after midnight celebrating the great victory--we had spaghetti, incidentally, and red wine, and--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:05
[Frank Gannon]

Why do you remember that?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:07
[Richard Nixon]

Because I didn't go to El Morocco very often. I think that was the only time I went there while I was living in New York.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:12
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you have spaghetti at El Morocco?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:14
[Richard Nixon]

Because late at night it didn't seem to me that anything more exotic would go down. And I like spaghetti.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:21
[Frank Gannon]

Two good reasons.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:22
[Richard Nixon]

That's right. And I thought--and I think it goes well with red wine. In any event, my friends then--"Now you've got to get in. You've got to announce for president. and so forth, and get the ribbon clerks out." I said, "No, I'm going to think about it." And the way that I made the decision is very interesting--a decision that shocked all of my supporters, and also my opponents as well. I had to go on Meet the Press or Face the Nation, one of those talk shows, and, I--as usual, I was preparing the q's and a's that I thought might come up during the program. And I knew the inevitable question is, "Well, now, Mr. Nixon, what are you going to do? Are you going to run for president?" or what-have-you. And I tried to think--"How in the world can I answer it?" And then the thought struck me--this is one of the advantages of preparing things yourself, because it forces you to think a problem through, and the best strategy comes from getting the mind engaged in dealing with a problem. And the thought came--came to me, "I'm going to answer that question, 'I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to take a holiday from politics--a holiday for six months.' Well, I announced it on the program, to the consternation of everybody, because I didn't inform anybody in advance. Some of my friends thought, "All is lost. The guy's out of his mind," and so forth. But I knew exactly what I was doing. I did it for several reasons. One, Tom Dewey, years before, had given me very good advice. He said, "There are times when a person in public life should get out of the public view. People get tired of hearing their politicians over and over again." Now, I know this--this isn't something that will be accepted by the pipsqueaks that advise most of our political leaders today. They think unless their man's on the evening news and the morning news and the radio or what-have-you twenty-four hours a day--that he isn't dominating the dialogue. They don't realize that people sometimes would prefer not to have the man on, to go away and then come back in--back and forth. To engage in the great rhythm of politics is very, very important to know. So, first, I knew that it was well for me to get offstage for a while. Second, I was tired of campaigning, of making speeches and so forth. Third, I thought people might be tired of me because I'd been out there so long. And then another reason was I wanted the opportunity to think things through. By that I meant that if I had the chance to travel abroad--and I announced at that time--shortly thereafter--that I was going to make trips around the world, to the four big areas of the world--a trip to Asia, a trip to Latin America, a trip to Africa, a trip to Western Europe. I found that after six months of traveling, I would refurbish my foreign policy image--call it what you like, but particularly what I knew about foreign policy. I knew that if I were going to run in 1968, I wanted to be the best prepared candidate in history in what I thought was going to be the major issue, the issue of foreign policy. So all of these reasons certainly motivated me in--in making that decision. And another reason was that I felt that it was probably, from a political standpoint, advisable to let the new men in town--to get out and show what they could do, to see whether they, after hitting in the minor leagues--they could play in the big leagues. And very few could, just as George Romney discovered. He was a fine governor and an excellent candidate at the Michigan level, but he turned out to be a flop at the national level. So these were the reasons that motivated me, and, as it turned out, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:30:13
[Frank Gannon]

Some analysts say that you--you did--you did it for precisely the reason of sort of forcing--flushing out the potential opposition before they were ready, in the same way that some analysts have applied the same analysis to what Senator Kennedy did recently by taking himself out of the race and thereby forcing everybody else in prematurely, at least by what they conventionally would have expected to be their timetable. Did you have--did you have that in mind then, and do you think Senator Kennedy may have had that in mind now?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:30:46
[Richard Nixon]

No. My primary reason was not that. My primary reason were [sic] the ones I mentioned first, the idea that I was tired of campaigning. I thought the people were tired of me. I thought I should get out of the public scene for a while. And, second, I wanted to travel abroad. I wanted to find out more and more about how the world worked, so that I would be thoroughly prepared in a foreign policy issue. I think all of these were the circumstances that motivated me. The other one was a secondary motivation, which turned out to be very effective. As far as Senator Kennedy is concerned, if he had asked for my advice as to what he should do, I would have told him to do exactly what he's done if he wants to be president--president--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:31:28
[Frank Gannon]

Are you saying that he doesn't ask for your advice?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:31:31
[Richard Nixon]

Not lately. But, in any event, in this particular instance, the best policy for him is to allow his potential opponents to get out there, cut each other up, and then to have the party come to him. He has been seeking it for some time, and under--and he has some liabilities. He's completely aware of that. But if the party has to come to him, that would have a much greater effect. That probably isn't going to happen, although it could happen, but only if it appears from polls that are taken about six months from now, or, I would say, just before the Democratic convention, that he and only he could beat Reagan. If the polls show that, watch out. He'll be the candidate.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:32:23
[Frank Gannon]

Was this a--a real holiday from politics in terms of everything that was being done to further or develop your candidacy?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:32:31
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, by no means. As a matter of fact, prior to taking off on my trips I got together with some of my closest friends and political associates, people like [Bob Hill] and John Lodge and others, in the Waldorf Hotel in New York. We had an all-day session. I said, "Look, I'm not going to play any games with my closest friends here. I think it's time to start an organization for the presidency in 1968. I want you to do everything you possibly can to develop the--the funds, to raise the funds, to develop the organization, to get the commitments that you can, so that when I do make a decision--that the game play will be there ready to go into force." And so, consequently, that's when it all began. The amazing thing, incidentally, in retrospect--I think the remarkable thing, in retrospect, that happened in that year, 1967 and 1968--that we were able to do it with so little. Rockefeller had unlimited money. He had hundreds of people--not just ten, not just twenty, but hundreds of people, paid people, on his staff--pollsters and speechwriters and political operators and local people and the rest. We had four. We had Rose Mary Woods and Pat Buchanan and Ray Price and Dwight Chapin, and Bob Ellsworth part-time. That was it in the year 1967. We had no money. Al Cole, of Reader's Digest, went out and raised money, enough to finance some of my foreign travels. I financed a lot of it from my writing and legal activities and so forth and so on. But with very little money and very small staff throughout that year, we were able to stay even with the Rockefeller forces and so forth. We did it through volunteers. Let me say this. It's very important for candidates to realize that a big staff is not always an asset. The bigger the staff, the less the candidate does his own thinking. The smaller the staff, the more dedicated, first, they will be. But even more important, the more the candidate is going to have to sit on his fanny and do the hard work to think the problem through. And that's what it forced me to do, so that by the time 1968 came around, I was ready. I was ready not simply because I could have a staff to give me this paper or this paper or that paper, or put something on the TelePrompTer for me to read. I was ready because I had it all up here in my head. And so "being poor"--quote, end quote--at that particular time politically turned out to be an asset, in my view.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:35:22
[Frank Gannon]

Wasn't it at this time that your mother died?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:35:27
[Richard Nixon]

She died in September of 1967. That was right after I finished the fourth of my trips. In fact, the trip was to Africa. The African trip was the last one. And I--I remember very vividly how I got the news. I was in the office, actually, doing--working on some legal work, and I had a call from Rose Mary Woods--buzzed me. She said, "Your brother Don's on the phone." And I said, "Well, tell him I'll call him back," and--"because I've got some people in the office with me right here." and she said, "No, you'd better take the call." She said, "Your mother just died." Well, it was not a surprise. She had had a stroke about a year or two before, but it's always a shock. And the worst part of it, of course, was telling Mrs. Nixon on the phone, and telling Tricia and Julie. So we got on the plane and we went out to the funeral. Funerals are always difficult, but, of course, in this case, it was perhaps the most difficult one I've ever attended, because I was so close to my mother, and my father as well. The funeral was held in the little church where I used to play the piano in Sunday school and where we used to go, I remember, with my mother and father twice on Sunday and even to prayer meeting sometimes on Wednesday. So there was a very closely-knit group of friends and family. The--however, the church was simply thronged with people, and there were scores outside, because my mother was one who had no enemies but had--tremendous number of friends. She--she was a very, as I have remarked on occasion, quite remarkable woman, as are most of our mothers. But she was very special. I know, for example, one thing that's rather amusing. My grandmother, her mother, lived two miles up the road from us on Whittier Boulevard--that's now Route 101 [he pronounces it "one-oh-one"]--and my grandmother and my mother were alike in one respect. In the Depression years, in 1934 and '35, '36, '37, the tramps would come along. And they'd have, I understood later, a piece of ribbon hanging on a tree bef--in front of those houses that were soft touches. My grandmother's house always had the ribbon, and no tramp ever stopped that didn't get a meal there. And no tramp ever stopped at my mother's place that didn't get a meal, as well. But that was only one--only part of it. I remembered particularly vivid memories of what she did when my brother Harold was sick. She went to Arizona with him, and in order to make ends meet she took care of him, another boy by the name of Leslie, another one by the name of Larry, and another that we called "the major." He was a Canadian major that had been gassed in World War I, as a matter of fact. And all of them were there with tuberculosis. Three of them were bed patients, not ambulatory. And she took care of all four--cooked for them, gave them their alcohol rubs in the morning and at night, changed the bed linen, and did it by herself for two whole years. And then, as each one of them died, she'd get the news. It was if her own child had died. Harold died last. But, in any event, we got there to the church, and there were no tears up to that point, because I'm not given to outward displays of emotion too often. But as I came through the line at the end, the ministers were at the door, and Billy Graham had flown out. He had admi--had liked my mother, and she had admired him. She had heard him and admired him when he was just starting, and he never forgot that. And when I saw Billy, it all--it all--all the emotion just came flowing out, and I started to cry. It's only--that's one of three times that I can remember ever crying in my adult years. The first time was after the fund crisis when Bill Knowland congratulated me for my speech. This was the second time. The third time was when President Eisenhower had died. But in any event, the emotion poured out. We followed the hearse out to Rose Hills, and she was buried there in the same plot next to my father and Harold and Arthur, my younger brother. And so we get on the airplane, and we start to go back, and I--I just thought back over the years--that's the kind of thing that runs through your mind, you know--that we'd done, and a lot of memories came back of my association with her--how close she was to me and to the rest of the family, and how much she had meant to us. And I remembered particularly, and it sticks in my mind now, the last time I really ever had a conversation with her. This is before she had her final stroke. She'd had a terrible operation. She'd had gallstones all her life, and for a long time couldn't afford an operation, and then wouldn't get it--didn't want to pay for it, and so forth and so on. So finally she had the operation. And I remember visiting her there at the hospital, and she looked so tired and so dispirited, and her arms were so thin. I remember out of her nightgown as I looked at her--she lost an awful lot of weight. And I could see that she was depressed, which was unusual for her, because she never shared her problems with anybody else. And as I was getting ready to leave, I said, "Now, Mother, don't you give up." And all of a sudden this spark came into her eye. She raised up on her elbow, and she looked up at me, and she says, "Don't you get up--give up. Don't you give up. Don't let anybody ever tell you you're through." And as I left, I wondered why she had said that. And I saw a copy of the Los Angeles Times out in the reception room, and there was a column in it where a columnist had said that "President Nixon is"--or "Vice President Nixon is through. He--there is no way that he can ever recover from his defeats in California a--and for the presidency earlier." She apparently had seen that, but I was just thinking very few people in politics have a legacy like that. "Don't you give up. Don't let anybody ever tell you you're through."

Day 9, Tape 2
00:42:42
[Frank Gannon]

You've talked about your--the--the emotional reticence in your family, and your own. Did--did you ever tell your mother that you love her--loved her?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:42:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well, we don't do that.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:42:53
[Frank Gannon]

Did you ever--

[Richard Nixon]

No.

[Frank Gannon]

--looking back, do you ever wish you had--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:42:55
[Richard Nixon]

No.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:42:56
[Frank Gannon]

--been able to express it more?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:42:57
[Richard Nixon]

No, she'd--and--and she didn't engage in that either. We--the affection, the love we have for each other was not--it was not expressed that way. Like, as I've often said--I think most people are aware--my--my mother always stated things in a very low-key way. Now, these days, if you're a good churchgoer and so forth, you're supposed to say, "I'm praying for you." She never said that. If I was going to make a speech or going through a real difficult crisis, she would write me a note, or she would just say on the phone, "I'll be thinking about you." Now, because she said that, some of the critics would say, "Well, why didn't she say, 'I'm praying for you'?" That was not her way. Love, I think, can be expressed in different ways. And I don't object to the way people today slobber all over everybody else. "I love ya!" "I love ya!" Like--like Johnson would, and so forth, and many people in and out of public life. I understand that, but we're all a little different. In our family, we expressed our love through our deeds in a quiet way, rather than feeling that we had to burp it out every time it came into our minds.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:44:23
[Frank Gannon]

What effect did your mother's death have on you?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:44:28
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it was an emotional experience that was very substantial, but I think the major effect it may have had was the memory of that last conversation. "Don't ever give up." I think that's what it was.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:44:48
[Frank Gannon]

Do you remember, if there was a moment, how and when--at what moment you decided to run for president in 1968?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:44:58
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I remember it very well, because that's something--you don't do that very often--run for president, that is. Well, Harold Stassen does, but, on the other hand, in this case it was only the second time I had determined to run for president. And the way it happened was this. I had been thinking about it, of course, and the program was underway in late 1967. Money was being raised. People were being organized. I had been calling on governors and senators and congressmen and so forth and so on--never, incidentally, asking anybody to support me, however. I didn't do it that way. I don't believe in going in to a governor or a congressman or a senator and say, "Look, will you support me?" I always believe in presenting what I stood for, and then saying, "If you feel that I can provide the best leadership to accomplish that particular goal, I would appreciate your support." But, in any event, after having gone through all that, I decided to go to Florida and make a final decision, to consider everything, because I--I didn't run for president lightly. I knew what an ordeal it was to go through, and so, under the circumstances, I didn't want to do it again, and I particularly didn't want to put my family through it again.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:46:24
[Frank Gannon]

How did they react even to the possibility?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:46:25
[Richard Nixon]

Well, under the circumstances, the reaction was quite different from what it had been when I decided to run for governor in 1962. I remember we had dinner at our apartment, and Julie, with her typical fighting attitude--she said, "You've got to run! You've got to do it for the country!" And Tricia, approaching it in a slightly different way, said, "You have to do it because otherwise you'll have nothing to live for." And Mrs. Nixon, Pat, was--put it a little different way. I knew that she wasn't very enthusiastic for it, but she said, "Just be sure that whatever you do, we love you, and we'll support you." And so I took off from Florida.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:47:18
[Frank Gannon]

Was Tricia right? If you hadn't run for president in 1968, would you have had nothing to live for?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:47:24
[Richard Nixon]

At that time, yes. Yes, because basically my orientation was to e--engage in political activities, and there wasn't anything else I could engage in at that point that would--that would really be enough of a challenge. You say, "Run for House, run for the Senate, run for governor, or be a columnist," or what-have-you--that wasn't enough. I think the only other thing for--I think--I think that many people would perhaps question as to whether there couldn't have been a challenge in another way. And I must say, my--my good friend Bebe Rebozo, who's very successful financially, particularly--he's a banker--said--often said--just wish I would be more interested in what I'm doing financially, to make some money. But--and I understand that for many people, that's the beginning and end of it all. But it just doesn't interest me. I--I want enough to be comfortable, but to make a great fortune is something that I'm not interested in.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:48:33
[Frank Gannon]

What do you have to live for now?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:48:35
[Richard Nixon]

Well, that's something we can come to when we get to the end of the program.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:48:41
[Frank Gannon]

What--why did you go to Florida to make this decision?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:48:49
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I wanted to be away from New York, away from telephone calls and so forth--be by myself, and my long experience in going to Florida with Bebe Rebozo and so forth was--he understood that. He was a very good friend. He's never one that wanted to sit down and--at the throne and have me confide in him as to what my decision was. I never discussed it with him, as a matter of fact. That's why he was such a good friend.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:49:15
[Frank Gannon]

Even when s--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:49:16
[Richard Nixon]

No.

[Frank Gannon]

Even when you were there?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:49:17
[Richard Nixon]

No. He's--he's the kind of a fri--a man--very, very unusual. Most people that--that you know, that politicians know--and I understand this--they want to sit with the man and help him decide. But Bebe knew that I was somewhat of a loner--that if I wanted his opinion I'd ask it. He never raised a question about it. If I had asked him, he would have given his opinion. But I knew before, without asking him, that he thought I should run. Particularly he--h--he felt that way because he was pretty bitter about what happened in 1960. He wanted to reverse that situation. The other one that was down there was, however--and I didn't know he was going to be there before the trip was scheduled--was Billy Graham. He was recovering from a long bout of some pulmonary infection--had a terrible cough and that sort of thing. And we had a long, long walk on the beach, I remember, about a two- or three-mile walk. He was so tired at the end that he had to sit down for a while and rest. And he was one who always gave me his best advice. And in this instance, he was very strongly of the opinion I should run. He had just come back from a trip around the world. He said, "Every place in the world, the U.S. is in trouble. Every place in the world, it is essential that the U.S. provide better leadership than is being currently provided." He said, "If you don't run and provide that leadership, I think the world is going to be in deep trouble." That had considerable impact on me.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:50:59
[Frank Gannon]

We know the end of the story, because we know you decided to run and--and won. Was there a moment at that time in Florida--that weekend, I guess, in Florida--that tipped the balance, or that you finally decided, "This is it, and from now on I go direct"?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:51:15
[Richard Nixon]

I would say that the moment really was the Billy Graham moment, if there was any one. I don't mean that I was asking Billy Graham to be the judge on high to decide it, but when he talked about the people around the world, when he talked about his own huge constituency--not that he was going to deliver it, because he would never try to do that--the need for the leadership that I might provide. That made an impression on me. In other words, the idea that I would be running not just for personal purposes--that wasn't going to be enough--but for a cause. The important thing to bear in mind here is that for--for one to succeed in running for the presidency, he must, above all, want to be president to do something, not just to be somebody. I had already been somebody. I'd been vice president, and I didn't--wasn't going to get any more out of being president, in my opinion. But the important thing was to have a cause and to feel that you are best qualified to bring about the answers to that particular cause. That was really the thing that motivated me.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:52:32
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you win the presidency in 1968?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:52:37
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I won, I would say, first, I think, because I did have a cause, the cause being the need for new foreign policy leadership in the United States and in the world, leadership that only the United States could provide in the world. Second, as far as that need was concerned, I in 1968--I think I can say somewhat objectively now, in retrospect--was the best qualified person. I didn't go out telling people that, but most people were aware of that. I had traveled broadly. I'd had a lot of experience as vice president under President Eisenhower, and there was no one else on the scene who had that kind of qualification. And, third, I had a hard core of supporters. All of that helped me in terms of winning.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:53:29
[Frank Gannon]

By the end, it was razor-close. Did you think you were going to win as--as election night arrived, and--and, in view of what they'd gone through in 1960 and 1962, how did you prepare Mrs. Nixon and Tricia and Julie for election night?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:53:48
[Richard Nixon]

Well, what had happened was that right after our nomination and after the nomination of Hubert Humphrey, the polls showed that we were going to win very, very handsomely, or decisively. But I knew that wouldn't last, first of all, because Hubert Humphrey was a very good candidate. My, when you compare him with the likes of Mondale and Glenn and--and these other fellows that are running around looking for the Democratic candi--it's just too bad Hubert isn't alive today, because he can make the eagle scream. But Hubert Humphrey was a good candidate. Second, there are a lot more Democrats than Republicans in the country. Third, I had the additional liability of George Wallace running on the third-party ticket. Now, he was a Democrat, but, on the other hand, all polls indicated he was drawing two votes, because I being a conservative and he being a conservative--two votes from me for every one that he was drawing from the Democratic candidate. And then, fourth, of course, they still had the White House, and that White House almost finished us off with the bombing halt which was called just three or four days before the election. But, be that as it may, I still felt we were going to win. But I must say, I--just before getting on the airplane which was to take us from California back to New York, I got a shock, because somebody came up to me at the airport and stuck a microphone in my face and said, "What do you think of the latest [Lou Harris] poll?" which had been taken that morning. This is the election morning and--came out election morning, I should say--it was in the Los Angeles Times. "It shows Hubert Humphrey winning fifty-three to forty-seven." Well, that was a shift, because no poll had ever shown Humphrey winning yet. The Gallup poll still showed me slightly ahead. That, incidentally, would mean Humphrey winning by a majority of five million votes. I said, "Well, I'm not going to comment on the poll." So I had that in the back of my mind. Well, I climb on the airplane, and it was a festive occasion. The staff had balloons around, and placards--"President Nixon"-- and I said, "My God, I hope they're right." So I decided that we ought to really have a--a little family conference, and so I got Mrs. Nixon and Tricia and Julie together, and I said, "Look, I think we're going to--

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Richard Nixon]

--make it, but more important, I think we can assured it will not be a long evening like it was in 1960." I proved to be a very poor prophet in that respect. But I said, "What we have to be prepared for is the possibility of an upset, because, you know, they've been coming on hard--been outspending us in these last two weeks, the bombing halt, and all that. I still feel we're going to make it." And, incidentally, I was confident to the last. I felt even then--thought it was going to be close, because even though the polls had narrowed, as I looked at the critical states, I didn't think there was a way Humphrey could win an electoral college vote. I was particularly interested then in being very sure I didn't win the electoral college vote and he got a majority, or at least, I should say, a plurality of the popular vote, which, of course, he didn't. We finally won the popular vote by a half-million.

[Frank Gannon]

In the end, do you think Wallace helped him or you, because the argument is that the people that voted for Wallace turned out--although they were conservatives, they were Democrats, so that in the end they siphoned more people from him than they did from you?

[Richard Nixon]

No, that is--there's no question about that, because all the pollsters--Gallup and others--who polled after the election found that the Wallace vote would have twice as much for Nixon as it would for Humphrey. In other words, the Wallace vote was an anti-administration vote--an anti-Johnson vote, an anti-Humphrey vote. And if Wallace had been out of it--I think Gallup reported that it would have been a landslide in a magnitude of about fifty-six to forty-four--

Day Nine, Tape three of four, LINE FEED #3, 9-7-83, ETI Reel #64
September 7, 1983

Day 9, Tape 3
00:00:58
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:01:05
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

--about the same as the Eisenhower landslide of '52, if Wallace had not been in. And he got twelve percent of the national vote, as we know.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:01:13
[Frank Gannon]

At what point on election night, or election morning, did you finally feel confident that you were the thirty-seventh president of the United States?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:01:23
[Richard Nixon]

I felt confident about three o'clock in the morning, and that was before some others did, because, again, I looked at the state-by-state analysis. And a--at three o'clock in the morning, when I'd heard that we'd won Missouri, I thought we were going to win. Kevin Phillips was one of the few people who predicted we would win Missouri, and that was somewhat of an upset, but we did win it, because I knew that we felt--or felt that we had California for sure, and it--we did with that by a quarter of a million votes, which was pretty--pretty good under the circumstances, with all the tough campaigning that had taken place in California in those last few days. But I had--had it figured out that with Missouri and New Jersey, these are the second states, that, in addition to that, we would win California, we would win Ohio, weena--win Illinois. We had to win three of the "big seven," as they were called then. That would mean we could lose Texas, lose New York, lose Pennsylvania, and still win the election. That was my strategy. And as I looked at the results at three in the morning--I went over them with Murray Chotiner, as a matter of fact, the shrewdest observer we had. I said, "Well, we've got it made." I told my staff, "I think it's made." None of them disagreed, although I think some of them were really worried.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:02:43
[Frank Gannon]

Did you tell Mrs. Nixon?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:02:45
[Richard Nixon]

Not then. No. No. I didn't want to tell her and then have it be--have her be disappointed at a later time.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:02:50
[Frank Gannon]

When did you tell her?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:02:51
[Richard Nixon]

Not till the next morning. The next morning--it was around six in the morning, or seven in the morning. I was still--we'd stayed up all night. I was hoping to be able to go down and tell her much earlier, but I knew the traumatic effect that 1960 had had on her, and 1962, and I thought, "My God, I don't want her to get her hopes up and then have them dashed." That's the worst thing you can do. So she was down in another suite with Helene Drown and Tricia and Julie, and I was in this suite with all the political people, and I kept waiting. "When can I go tell them?" And so, u--until I felt we'd got it a little bit more nailed down, I shouldn't do it. The real question at that point--we knew we had California by seven in the morning. That was clear. We knew we had Ohio by a hundred thousand votes. That was clear. We needed only one more state, and it turned out to be Illinois, of all states. And we were ahead in Illinois by a hundred thousand votes, but Cook County wasn't all in. And so, under the circumstances, I couldn't be sure. But Dwight Chapin, I remember, burst in with the news. "A.B.C. has just conceded." I said, "What about C.B.S., N.B.C.?" "Not yet." "Well, maybe that's it." But I still waited. Finally N.B.C. conceded. And then, finally, C.B.S. It was the last. I'll never forget Walter Cronkite. You know, I felt a little sorry for him. I don't have any hard-on against him, because we've had some pleasant times together, particularly at the space splashdowns and so forth. But he was obviously, of course, pro-Humphrey, which I understood. And I've never seen a man look so sick. I thought he was going to cry. He did wait an hour after N.B.C. and C--A.B.C. to make his announcement. But I didn't care. It was done. So I went down, and I saw Mrs. Nixon. And I said, "Well, we've got it." She says, "Are you sure?" I understood that that night she had been sick to her stomach because she heard that the--Illinois was still in the balance, it--and the commentators were pointing out that it had been lost in 1916--60 because of hanky-panky in Cook County. And I said, "Yeah." She said, "What about Illinois?" I said, "Look, we're ahead by a hundred thousand votes. There's no way they can steal a hundred thousand votes in Cook County." "Are you sure?" I said, "Yes," and she started to cry again, and so that was--and threw her arms around me--said, "Oh, thank God. I hope you're right." Well, we were right.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:05:27
[Frank Gannon]

How did it feel, after all that time and all those years, to be the president of the United States?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:05:36
[Richard Nixon]

Well, you didn't get the lift out of it as if we had won it in '60, I think. But having gone through the trauma of coming so close and losing and then becoming prepared and feeling quite sure that I was going to win--I wasn't overconfident. We campaigned hard throughout that period. I mean, the--the--the--the mythology to the effect that--that we just sort of dogged it and didn't campaign hard in '68--that's just nonsense. We went on with two o--three-hour telethons from California the day before the election, just to be sure that we didn't have the thing taken away from us in the last few minutes. But, under the circumstances, it was not, therefore, that big a surprise to me. In other w--I--I think when you say how does it feel--if something comes almost unexpectedly, then it has a great--a greater lift--gives you a much greater lift than if it comes when you do expect it. I was--I don't mean I was overconfident, but I was inwardly pretty confident and pretty, frankly, fa--fatalistic about it. If we had not won, I would have taken it reasonably well. So, under the circumstances, I would say that I was prepared for it, because I thought we were going to win. And so we got underway.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:07:01
[Frank Gannon]

What did you do? What was your first morning as president-elect like?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:07:05
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it's--it--it should be, I suppose, some mountaintop experience, but never is that way. It th--turns out to be something very--that--something that everybody can relate to. We went back to our apartment on Fifth Avenue, and I said to Pat and the girls--I said, "Look, you know, I think we really ought to go out"--this is election--the day after the election day--"I think we ought to go out to lunch." And they said no, that we really couldn't go out to lunch. I mean, after all, by that time hordes of reporters were around, and the Secret Service was there, and all the rest. We just couldn't do it. Well, unfortunately, in the department [he may mean "apartment"], we didn’t have any help. I didn't find out later as to why--what--what became of all the help--were they dogging it or something--because this was the day after the election. And what had happened was that Manolo and Fina Sanchez were of Spanish background. That was the day they went down to be sworn in as citizens of the United States, and they were down getting sworn in. Later, they came back and very proudly, they said, "Next time we can vote for you for reelection as president." They were proud. But, in any event, we didn't know that at the time that we were trying to find out what to have for dinner. And so Pat and the girls got some sc--eggs, and they scrambled some eggs, and they made some bacon, and so we had bacon and eggs as our victory feast there in our apartment on Fifth Avenue. And so, after that, I was pretty tired, because I'd been up all night the night before, that everybody else--everybody went to bed. So I went into my library and built a fire and got out one of my favorite records, Victory at Sea. I don't know why I picked it, but I--I've always liked the record. And so I put it on the machine, I tuned it up, and opened the window so that everybody on Fifth Avenue, five blocks below, could hear it. And it blasted out Victory at Sea. That's the way I celebrated.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:09:13
[Frank Gannon]

Roger Ailes, always a legend in his times, and our times, always tells everyone--as a matter of fact, as early as this morning he was telling me that without him you couldn't be president. Do you want to comment on that?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:09:25
[Richard Nixon]

Well, if I had to pay everybody that says that, I would be a broke at the present time, and I'm not that wealthy, in any event. But, in any event, I suppose what he's talking about are the--the campaign techniques of the man in the arena and that sort of thing. W--we developed a lot of very effective campaign--techniques in that campaign. And that was one of the best--where people get a chance to participate in it.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:09:51
[Frank Gannon]

At that point, we'll break for lunch.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:09:54
[Offscreen voice]

Unauthorized question, Gannon.

[Action note: Nixon and Gannon laugh.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:09:57
[Offscreen voice]

Okay, that's all.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:10:00
[Action note: Picture fades to black.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:10:06
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:10:07
[Action note: Color bars appear on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:11
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:15
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, but you've got plenty of time.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:17
[Frank Gannon]

Yes.

[Richard Nixon]

So we can do it. We'll make it. (Clears throat.) It'll move fairly fast.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:21
[Frank Gannon]

We'll get fairly fast through this--Japan and de Gaulle. That's not--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:24
[Offscreen voice]

Stand by.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:25
[Frank Gannon]

On a ten-point scale, that's of a lesser--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:26
[Offscreen voice]

Frank.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:27
[Frank Gannon]

Yes.

[Offscreen voice]

[Inaudible.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:30
[Frank Gannon]

Sorry?

[Offscreen voice]

Three-thirty?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:31
[Frank Gannon]

Three-thirty.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:32
[Offscreen voice]

You got it. Okay, here we go.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:34
[Action note: Picture fades to black.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:51
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:11:54
[Frank Gannon]

Henry Kissinger apparently had some difficulties, to put it mildly, dealing with the North Vietnamese--with the North Vietnamese in the negotiations.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:12:02
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, did he! I recall when he came back toward the end, just before we finally made the agreement, he said, "You know, the Vietnamese are just"--let's start again. I remember when he--I remember one occasion particularly, when he came back after a very tough negotiation in 1972, and he said, "You know, the North Vietnamese are just shits. They're just filthy, tawdry shits." He said, "They make the Russians look good, just as the Russians make the Chinese look good when it comes to negotiating." That's the other way around.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:12:53
[Frank Gannon]

What did you--what did you think of the--the recent Kissinger interview where he sort of backtracked on his opinion about the Pentagon Papers, where he said that at the time he felt it was wrong to publish them but now he feels, although it's wrong to take papers, that the media should not censor itself in terms of the publication of documents like that?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:13:13
[Richard Nixon]

I don't agree. I agree with Chief Justice Burger's dissent in that case, when he says that it is the responsibility of cab drivers, or the responsibility of el--elevator operators, of secretaries, and editors of The New York Times not to engage in such activities of this sort.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:13:34
[Richard Nixon]

How did you hear about Martin Luther King's death?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:13:39
[Richard Nixon]

I don't recall exactly how I heard about it. I think it was actually on a television. Wait a minute. Let's start again on that. I--let me see--I don't think I remember that. (Pauses.) I'll make something up. Go ahead now. Now.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:13:53
[Frank Gannon]

How did you hear about Martin Luther King's death?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:13:57
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I was in New York at the time. I heard about it on one of the newscasts. I think it was on radio--was--I was in the car. And when I heard about it, I just couldn't believe that it had happened, because, well, Martin Luther King has become, and was even earlier, controversial. I knew him quite well. I had met him in Ghana in 1957. I had seen him also in my office. I'd had long talks with him. I knew, of course, that he was a violent opponent of the war in Vietnam, as were many others. But I also respected him for the fact that there was no question of his not being a Communist. He was pro-American. And also I considered him in terms of the black movement as being what I would call a moderate. At least he wasn't advocating burning down the buildings and raising all the kind of hells that the Black Panthers and others were. So, therefore, I thought he was a very important voice in that black community.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:15:03
[Frank Gannon]

Did you go to his funeral?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:15:05
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, I did. As a matter of fact, one of the things I particularly remember about Martin Luther King and the enormous hold he had over the black community was a rather interesting incident I had with our driver, Geor--John Wardlaw, during the vice-presidential days. This was right after the election. We'd returned to Washington from California, and John was driving me down to the Capitol, and he was very emotional because he was a strong supporter. He said, "You know, I listened to the T.V. and heard about all of my people voting for Kennedy." He s--"I want you to know I just can't understand it"--said, "because all that I knew were going to vote for you," because I had had a very strong civil rights record, better than Kennedy's. Jackie Robinson and others in the black community had supported me. But he said, "You know what did it? They were all for you until Bobby Kennedy called the judge in that Martin Luther King thing, and then they turned to Kennedy." So I realized that Martin Luther King had a [sic] almost religious effect on millions of black Americans.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:16:11
[Frank Gannon]

When you were in that car in Caracas and the f--windows finally started breaking in and the rocks coming through, did--did it occur to you--or a--a--at what point did it occur to you that you might not actually get out of that alive?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:16:28
[Richard Nixon]

Well, we have to understand the background of how we got there in the first place. Revolution was sweeping over Latin America at that time, and we were on a trip that took us to most of the Latin American countries. There were demonstrations in Uruguay. There were demonstrations in Argentina. There were demonstrations also in Peru--a very violent one there at the University of San Marcos. There were demonstrators out also in Bogota, Colombia. What had happened, though, is that the demonstrations up to that point had been ones that I had been able to handle, according to reports at the time, quite effectively. We routed the demonstrators usually by just handling them firmly but yet in--in a very effective way, and consequently they began to get rougher and rougher. And we got reports as we were flying from Colombia on to Venezuela, through the C.I.A., that plans were underway to murder the vice president of the United States when he visited Caracas, Venezuela. They came to me--my staff did--said, "What should we do about this? Should we change the plans?" And I said, "Well, let's check." So we checked with the State Department. The ambassador said no, he didn't see any significant problem. There were a few demonstrators and so forth, but he urged that we come forward because if we didn't keep coming it would be a very great blow to the prestige of the United States. So I said, "Okay. C.I.A.'s been wrong before. Maybe they're wrong this time." So we flew on in. We knew almost from the time we landed that we were in trouble. I recall the airport was totally cleared. They were afraid of the demonstrators. I remember that after we finished the welcoming speeches, I walked with the foreign minister, with Pat by my side. We walked into the airport terminal. A--there was a balcony immediately over it, and we were showered with spit. Frankly, it was tobacco juice spit, too, tobacco juice spit that just covered our clothes. She had on a very bright red dress that I always liked, and it just splotched it beyond repair. My suit was done in pretty good. We got into the cars. The foreign minister was very apologetic. He says, "You know, they're just children--just kids." I said, "Well, they're pretty tough." He handed me his handkerchief--"here"--so that I could wipe the spit off. I said, "No way." I said, "I've got to burn these clothes when I get into the residence." So we began to drive into the city of Caracas. It was ominously quiet. The streets were all cleared again and so forth. And then we seemed to be hitting some--what I thought were potholes--thud, thud, thud--and what it was were boulders, rocks, landing on top of the limousine. Now, of course, the limousine was very heavily armored--it weighs about four-and-a-half tons, and it had glass, which w--of course, was supposed to be nonshatterable. But as we drove on in, the--the rocks continued to fall. Several of the windows were broken, and at--at two points we had roadblocks, which we were able to evade. But finally the whole motorcade came to a screeching stop because they had stopped a truck and put it cright [sic] across the two lanes of traffic that we were going down. So we were stopped there. A--and once we were stopped, it was right in an intersection. My Secret Service man, Jack Sherwood, said, "Here they come," and then just coming out on either side, down the alleys, down the streets and so forth, were hundreds of people throwing rocks and stones and carrying clubs and rushing at our car--a pretty ominous sight. They came in, and they started to pound on the car, and a great big guy--several of them were young, student types, but several of them had been out of college or university for a great many years. They were the leaders. And this one fellow had a great big steel pipe, and he began to bash in the window on my side, trying to get at me. Incidentally, he knocked the window in so strong it shattered. Some of it got into the mouth of my interpreter, Leonard--I mean, General Walters. And I said, "There goes my interpreter." But, be that as it may, as he was pounding on this window, Jack Sherwood, my Secret Service man, was sitting right in front of me in the jump seat, and he started to grab his gun from the holster, and he says, "Let's get some of these sons-of-bitches!" I said--I grabbed his arm quickly. I said, "Don't do it." I said, "If you do, they'll tear us to pieces." And then, as we sat there, all of a sudden the car began to rock--back and forth, back and forth--and then I knew what was happening, because I had seen enough movies and read enough about it to know that that's the tactic of a mob--turn a car over, burn it. And just when we were tilting almost to the point that we were going to turn over, a miracle occurred. Right in front of us in the motorcade was a flatbed truck with the cameramen on it. The driver of the truck, very intelligently, finally was able to maneuver his truck, turning it to the left out of the two lanes of traffic into the oncombing--o--oncoming traffic, into the other lane. And we followed him. He was the blocking back. We were the running back, and Mrs. Nixon's car right back of us, as well. We followed him around and came roaring on down the street on the wrong side of the street. Fortunately, nobody was coming up the other side. What should we do then? I ordered the driver, "Go directly to the embassy." The foreign minister objected. He says, "Oh, you can't do that. We'll get off of our schedule. We've got to go r--lay a wreath." I said, "We're not going to lay any wreath right now." It turned out later that that's where w--where we really dodged the danger, the major danger, because there, where we--where we were supposed to lay the wreath, a number of bombs--homemade ones, as a matter of fact, but effective nevertheless, were found. They would have been exploded had we gone. So we went on up to the embassy. But that was as close as anybody wants to get. I must say, incidentally, as far as that particular incident was concerned, I was hoping that one of the results would be to get a more consistent U.S. policy toward Latin America. I came back, and I said, "The trouble is ind--in the United States press, the only Latin America makes the front pages in the United States is when there's a revolution or a riot at a soccer game." I said, "We've got to have a consistent policy that they understand, or otherwise the Communists"--and this, of course, was a Communist-inspired mob. Radio Moscow was inciting it all the way along the line. "Otherwise they're going to take it by default." Well, of course, there was some interest immediately after the Caracas incident, and then it went down. But politically it helped me, I must ts--must say. For that time--from that time forward, whenever I'd meet people who are of--from Latin America or who had connections with it, they would say, rather admiringly--they'd say, "Well, whether we agree with you or not, we like you, because you have cojones." I said, "What's cojones?" They said, "Balls."

Day 9, Tape 3
00:23:51
[Frank Gannon]

Did you think--were you scared?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:23:53
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I was certainly concerned, but what happens in cases like that is you don't get scared. You tend to get cool. I became--in fact, I was pretty cool. I--I was able to restrain Sherwood. I was able to give the order to move on, and so forth. I--I think it's just something you almost inherit, or you learn into it. What happens is that if you go through enough crises, you're prepared when you face a big one. And I had been through quite a lot before I ever got stoned in Caracas.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:24:23
[Frank Gannon]

Did it occur to you that you might not survive--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:24:26
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes.

[Frank Gannon]

--that you might die in that car?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:24:27
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, certainly, particularly when the car was rocking. Then I knew that if something didn't happen, that we may have had it. Oh, yes, that was the danger point. But before I had a chance to think about it, then we were gone.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:24:44
[Frank Gannon]

What--was Mrs. Nixon in danger?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:24:48
[Richard Nixon]

She was. She was right behind us. I remember Alice Longworth had a marvelous comment about her afterwards. She said, "I saw that picture of Pat"--"dear Pat," as she called her--"and there she sat, talking to the wife of the foreign minister"--she guessed that's who it was--"and she just was--seemed to be talking about what they were going to do at the afternoon tea, absolutely cool." And, of course, that was the way she was. And she was naturally more concerned than I, I'm sure, because she was behind us, and while they hit her car a couple of times, too, she could see all of these goons around us, smashing the car with their clubs and everything. And naturally she got a little concerned.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:25:31
[Frank Gannon]

What did she say to you, or you to her, when you finally met--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:25:33
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the w--

[Frank Gannon]

--after [inaudible].

Day 9, Tape 3
00:25:34
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the way it worked is that we--we roared out of there on our way to the embassy and finally stopped so that she could catch up. And she didn't--she didn't go into any great, you know, flights of--of hysteria or something like that. She says, "Thank God that fellow had the good sense to move out." She saw it better than we did, because she saw it in perspective from the car right behind. And afterwards, I must say, I was never more happy to be inside an American embassy than on that occasion. And, incidentally, I did finally burn that damn suit. And I don't--I--I d--I think she never was able to wear the red suit again, one of my favorites, because it was so messed up. You know, spit is bad enough, but tobacco spit--that's the worst. That's the lowest.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:26:25
[Frank Gannon]

I--I'll accept that and--and hope I have no experience to confirm it. Many people f--felt, and, I'm sure, still feel that one of the worst crimes of Watergate was a crime of the heart, in that you let your daughter Julie go out and defend you for weeks--months--after it had to be clear to you that your case was indefensible. Why did you do that?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:26:54
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I actually didn't have much choice. I didn't want her to do that. I didn't want the family at all to do it. But Julie is a very--a--a very persistent person. Of all the--of all the people that I have known, I would say that she has perhaps the greatest aptitude for political leadership. I'm not surprised when people, after they've seen her on television, say, "There's the first woman president." I don't know that she'll ever go into politics, but she has the capabilities. She's effervescent. She's bubbly. She's intelligent. She has a big heart, a--and yet she has an inner strength which is very, very formidable. And she never gives up. She used to say over and over again after 1960, "When are we going to ask for a recount in Cook County?" She never gave up. And in this instance, I said to her, "You know, I do not think that we're going to survive." I said, "This is just too tough. I don't think you should go out there," because I didn’t want her to go through what she had to. I said, "Those press people are vicious, and since they can't get at me--I'm not meeting with them at the present time--they're going to take out [sic] on you." I'll never forget the way she answered. She said, "But, Daddy, we have to fight." So she insisted on going out.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:28:12
[Frank Gannon]

Moving on briefly to Japan, what's your opinion, your assessment, of Prime Minister Nakasone?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:28:24
[Richard Nixon]

He is potentially one of the truly great Japanese leaders. Now, incidentally, Japan has been very, very fortunate to have excellent leadership, better than average leadership, since World War II, beginning with Prime Minister Yoshida, Kishi, Sato, et al. But Nakasone is from a newer generation somewhat. He is a man who takes a higher profile than the others could take at that particular time in Japan's history. I think he's going to take the Japan today, which is an economic giant, a--and make it not a military giant, but at least see that it is no longer a military pygmy, not even able to defend itself. And also, I think very properly, he's going to have Japan play a higher "posture," as the Japanese would put it--role--on the world stage. And I think they should.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:29:21
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--do you think Japan should rearm?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:29:24
[Richard Nixon]

No question about it. I said that back in 1953. By rearming--let me be very precise--Japan should not acquire nuclear weapons. They shouldn't, for reasons that everybody can understand, having--having to undergo as they did the first, and, I hope, last use of nuclear bombs in warfare. But, on the other hand, Japan should acquire the ability to defend itself. It has armed forces about one-third the size of those in North Korea today. That doesn't make any sense. The Japanese should be able to protect its [sic] sea lanes. They've got to have land forces to protect themselves on land, rather than having the U.S. not only hold the rein against the nuclear threat from the Soviet Union but otherwise.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:30:08
[Frank Gannon]

How strong is the Soviet threat to Japan?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:30:10
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, it’s very significant. There are far more SS-20's, for example, aimed at Japan and at China than there are at some of the countries of Western Europe. And that SS-20--just a few of them could take out the whole island. Also, the--the Soviet threat is internal. Fortunately, the Japanese have a very strong political system. At the present time, the ruling party is in very successfully, and the socialist opposition party is also anti-Communist. But the Communists are always there. It is relatively small. They are suffering from a--a number of problems of their own doing--poor policies in the past. But Japan at the present time, for that reason, has to have a good, strong economy, because if its economy becomes weak, you open the door for more Soviet influence.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:31:07
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think the Soviets are behind the Japanese peace movement?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:31:10
[Richard Nixon]

No question about it. No question about it. The Japanese peace movement--let me put it this way. There would be some Japanese peace movement even if there were no Soviets, but, on the other hand, I think the Soviets play a greater role in the Japanese poos--peace movement than they do, for example, in the American peace movement, because it's much closer. And in--in that particular area, the--the--the Soviet [sic] have enormous influence.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:31:39
[Frank Gannon]

What do you see happening in Japan in, say, the next ten years?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:31:45
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think in order to understand what happens in the next ten years, you've got to understand why Japan has recovered as it has from World War II. Look at this country. It's a country with no oil, no significant natural resources--the coal is virtually gone. It has less arable land than the state of California. And yet today it is the second economic power in the free world. By the end of the century, it may have a per capita income larger than that of the United States. How does it happen? It's happened for several reasons--because of who the Japanese people are, highly intelligent, a passion for education, great abilities not only to copy but to innovate, as they are in technology and many other fields. A second point is--is the remarkable political leadership that they've had. Here, you took Japan--you talk about the miracle economically. That couldn't have happened without a m--a miracle politically. You took Japan after World War II. They had to change from a government which was a military dictatorship, in effect, a government in which you had the emperor as a religious figure. He had to get down off the throne and become a man rather than a god. And the Japanese, as a result of an odd couple in political leadership such as the world has never seen before--General MacArthur on the one side and [Yoshida], who was about half his height, on the other side--they created the constitution and the system which modern Japan enjoys today. And so, as a result, it--it is--it's a miracle to see what it's done economically. It's a miracle to see its political stability, and, looking to the future, it's only going to go up. Japan has to be concerned about being too good. That's their problem, because Americans are jealous of the way they've moved ahead. Europeans are jealous of the way they’ve moved ahead. But I would say it is in our interest to have Japan be strong, because when you look at the Soviet Union and Asia, China, with all of its people and all of its resources, is still weak economically and relatively weak militarily. Japan is indispensable to peace in the Pacific, just as China in the future will always be indispensable to it. Therefore, a strong Japan must be maintained if the Soviet attempts to move into China, for example, or other parts of Asia are to be thwarted. And in that connection, therefore, the Japanese-American alliance is absolutely essential.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:34:28
[Frank Gannon]

How do you see the development of Sino-Japanese relations in this ten-year period, say?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:34:34
[Richard Nixon]

Sino-Japanese relations are just as important as American-Japanese relations. For example, at the present time the major thrust of American policy toward China should be to help it develop its economy, because without a stronger economy it cannot afford a stronger military. And until it has a stronger military it will not be able to have the strength to deter a possible Soviet attack. Now, we can help, but the Japanese can help more. One, because they're closer. Two, because they're Asian. For example, our trade last year with Japan, or, I sh--I should say, our trade with China last year was five-and-a-half billion dollars. Japan's tra--trade with China last year was over ten billion dollars. That gives you the magnitude of the problem and the way that it can be solved. So we've got to encourage more and more Sino-Japanese cooperation.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:35:32
[Frank Gannon]

What--if you had to choose one thing, what's the greatest danger facing Japan today?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:35:38
[Richard Nixon]

The greatest danger is the--the danger of the threat from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is still there, and if the United States is not there to hold the rein against the Soviet Union, Japan is kaput. Another danger, and that's why Japan has as--as great an interest as we do in China, is if China, some way or other--because they give up on the West, because the United States fouls up some way its relationship with China, if China felt that it should move back into the Soviet orbit, then the Japanese would be running for the hills.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:36:16
[Frank Gannon]

The first time you met General de Gaulle was when he paid a visit to the United States in 1960. We have a film of the departure ceremonies from National Airport in Washington.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:36:30
[Action note: They watch film. Dialogue in clip:]

Richard Nixon:

You have made us stronger, as you have made your own nation stronger. And you have also strengthened the will of all free peoples in the cause of peace and freedom to which your nation and our nation is [sic] devoted.

General de Gaulle:

Au revoir, Washington. [Unintelligible] magnifique capital. Au revoir, Monsieur le Vice President.

[Action note: Film clip ends.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:37:05
[Frank Gannon]

What--what were your first impressions of Charles de Gaulle?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:37:13
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I had my first impressions of de Gaulle before I ever met him. I was in France in 1947, and all the s--the Foreign Service people that I met spoke of him with absolute dislike and certainly thought that he had been--he was finished. I had the impression from reading the press, the media, at the time, that he was virtually a dictatorial type, almost a fascist--rigid, difficult. Also, I had been reading a little of Churchill, and Churchill was really devastating in his commentary on de Gaulle. He said, "Of all the crosses I have to bear, the heaviest is the Cross of Lorraine." The Closs--Cross of r--Lorraine, of course, was de Gaulle's standard. And he said, "You know, de Gaulle thinks he is Joan of Arc." He said, "The trouble is my bloody bishops won't let me burn him!" So, under the circumstances, when I first met de Gaulle when he came on this trip, I expected to be--see a rather austere, dictatorial, difficult kind of a person. I saw someone quite different. One--dignified, yes--one with enormous self-confidence, one who was very impressive, who--who gave off an aura of charisma, of command. Some men have it--very, very few. He was one who has it in spades, and, after I got to know him, one who became more and more impressive as you knew him.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:38:46
[Frank Gannon]

In 1963, when you were in Paris, he gave you a luncheon at the Élysée Palace. Why did he receive you at what had to be the lowest ebb of your political career, do you think?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:38:58
[Richard Nixon]

Well, frankly, I don't know. I wondered that at the time. After all, at that time I had been defeated for president of the United States. I had been defeated for governor of California. I had burned my bridges in spades as far as the press were concerned. And here I was in France on a trip with my family. I didn't ask to see him, and we received this invitation to the Élysée. He may have had several motivations. One, the obvious one, is that, well, he thought just possibly I might come back again. I, of course, didn’t feel that, and I don't think he would have felt that either. The other point, however, that should be made in that connection is he didn't--he was one who--sorry. He thought I might come back again. Another point he--that may have--a fact that may have affected him was that he had a very low opinion of some other American political figures. He was quoted as saying that--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:39:58
[Offscreen voice]

[Inaudible] to do a pickup on that. That fly [inaudible].

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:00
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:01
[Offscreen voice]

[Inaudible] do a pickup on the second part of that question.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:05
[Richard Nixon]

You ready?

[Frank Gannon]

Yes.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:06
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I thought--the fly--you get it? Oh.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:08
[Frank Gannon]

No.

[Action note: Gannon laughs.]

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:09
[Richard Nixon]

That's what he's saying? All right.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:11
[Frank Gannon]

That he had a low opinion--

[Offscreen voice]

After he thought you might come back again.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:15
[Frank Gannon]

The second reason was he had a low--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:16
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

--opinion of other--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:40:17
[Richard Nixon]

The second--the second reason was that he had apparently a very low opinion of some American political leaders. He was supposed to have said at one time that President Kennedy reminded him of an assistant ha--hairdresser trying to comb through problems. Well, whatever the case might be, he did receive me. I think there was a deeper reason--a deeper reasons as to why he received me on this occasion. There was a certain empathy there. He never mentioned it, as far as I was concerned, but he made a very revealing comment to General Vernon Walters, Dick Walters, when Walters took him a letter that I had written him--a handwritten letter--when he announced that he was resigning from the office of president of France. He said, "Like myself, he has been an exile in his own country." He had been in the wilderness. He had gone through adversity. I had been in the wilderness and gone through adversity. He appreciated that, and I think he respected it and admired it, and therefore saw things and possibilities in my career due to the fact that such things had happened to him.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:41:34
[Frank Gannon]

What was the luncheon--what is luncheon at the Élysée Palace with General de Gaulle like?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:41:40
[Richard Nixon]

Well, first of all, coming to the Élysée was a great thrill for me. I am somewhat of a Francophile. I had four years of French in college and read Rousseau and the other French classics, in--in French, and, also, I'd read a lot of French history. You came to this great building--a--a--the only thing, really, that surpasses it in the places I've visited is the Vatican, because in this same trip, incidentally, I was received by Po--and the family as well--by Pope Paul before--the day before he was--the coronation took place. But, in any event, we drove through the gates and went in to lunch. The lunch was set up outdoors. It was in the summertime--beautifully done, as, of course, any French chef would do it, and of course de Gaulle had the best, and--but very friendly. The only- only six people present--President and Mrs. de Gaulle--she's a very remarkable person, incidentally--and the Bohlens, Mr. and Mrs. Bohlen--he was the ambassador--and Mrs. Nixon and myself.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:42:55
[Frank Gannon]

In your memoirs, you wrote about a--a toast that General de Gaulle made at that luncheon which turned out to be very prophetic.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:43:05
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. After the toast--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:43:07
[Action note: Gannon begins to speak.]

[Richard Nixon]

Uh--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:43:08
[Frank Gannon]

Can you begin with just "after"?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:43:09
[Richard Nixon]

What?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:43:10
[Frank Gannon]

With just "after the toast"?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:43:12
[Richard Nixon]

You want so s--

[Frank Gannon]

Without saying "yes."

Day 9, Tape 3
00:43:13
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, yes, fine. Don't say "yes," fine. No--"in his toast"--is that--you want me to say--

Day 9, Tape 3
00:43:24
[Frank Gannon]

"After the luncheon."

Day 9, Tape 3
00:43:25
[Richard Nixon]

No--after the luncheon, de Gaulle proposed the toast. It was a surprise to me, and, I think, even a greater surprise to Bohlen, because he said, in effect--he said, "I realize that you have been checked in the pursuit of your goals. But I have sensed that there is no doubt but that at some time in the future you will serve your country again in an even higher capacity." Well, that's the first time I'd ever heard anybody, even--even among my closest friends and supporters in the United States, let alone abroad, indicate that I might have a political future. And it really shocked Bohlen. He didn't--wasn't bitter about it or anything like that, but he says, "That was really a remarkable statement." Now, again, you could say, "Well, de Gaulle's just smart enough to say that to anybody," because, you know, we always say nice things to our visitors, particularly if we're fellow politicians--doesn't cost anything, makes them feel good, and someday it may be useful to you. But the interesting thing here was that I have talked to several French leaders, cabinet officers and othe--others, through the years, and over and over they tell me that de Gaulle at various times has told them that same thing, prior to the time I was elected in 1968. In fact, there was a very amusing incident. It occurred at a time that they were having de Gaulle inspect the new quarters, guest quarters, at the Trianon Palace at Versailles for distinguished guests. And as they were going through it, they went through the area that was for the president, or whoever it might be--the head of state who was coming there. And the bathtub was apparently quite a small one, and the guide said, "You know, this bathtub looks a little small for Johnson." De Gaulle smiled--he says, "Yes, but it looks about right for Nixon."

Day 9, Tape 3
00:45:25
[Frank Gannon]

What are your main recollections of your trip to Paris and your visit to--with de Gaulle in 1969, when you were now president, when his prophecy had been fulfilled?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:45:41
[Richard Nixon]

I would say that, first, just arriving there. This was the first state visit to Paris as president--I had been there, of course, as vice president--and no one does protocol better than de Gaulle. He believed that that was a very small price to pay. And he did the s--he put on the same show, I learned later from General Walters, who was then our aide in the embassy--military aide--whether it was the--the leader of a small African or Asian country, he did the same for them as he did for the president of the United States. But it was magnificent. But it was a bitter cold day, and the aides had told me that I'd have to wear my overcoat and gloves and all that business and so forth, and so I had had it on, and as the plane pulled up to the apron I saw de Gaulle standing there. Here's this seventy-eight-year-old man, standing erect, no hat, no coat. So I took off my overcoat and walked down to meet him. Symbolism--he dealt in symbolism. He thought that was very important. Just to show that--respect, he was not going to wear an overcoat. He knew what the pictures would look like, as well. And then, too, I have memories of many things that happened. We had hours and hours of talk. I--just impressed by the way he was able to--he reminded me of MacArthur. He talked with precision. You could take de Gaulle's conversation, transcribe it, and never have to change a comma or anything, or a word, for that matter. He didn't talk in commas too much. The precision of it--he spoke, for example, then, as he had clear back in 1963, about the importance of the United States talking to China and negotiating with China now, when they needed us, rather than waiting until later when they would be so strong we would have to talk to them because we needed them. He talked about the need to bring the war to Vietnam to close [sic]. He talked, for example, very effectively about what he called--wh--what has been called "détente." He said, "Well, what are you going to do? Are you going to break down the Berlin Wall? If you're not ready to make war, make peace, but make it on a very strong basis, from strength rather than from weakness." All these conversations impressed me, but I think even more those times when he'd speak philosophically, because he was a philosopher. He was a philosopher-statesman, without question, and without a peer, in my view. He--we were s--sitting--we were sitting in a beautiful room in Versailles, where there--conversation was taking place, and in a break in the conversation he walked over to a window and, speaking to no one in particular, but to everyone, he looked out the window, and he said, "Louis the Fourteenth ruled all of Europe from this room." And then another case--he was talking about World War II and the hopelessness of all war, particularly modern war. And he said, "In World War II, all the nations of Europe lost. Two were defeated." He had the ability to put everything so precisely, so well. And then a final memory, the great dinners, the toasts that he prepared, a conversation with Mrs. de Gaulle where she, speaking of their--closeness of the family, made the point that--"The presidency is temporary, the family is permanent." And then, finally, going to the airport, getting ready to leave, making the departure statements, de Gaulle escorting us out on the apron to the ramp--foot of the plane, shaking hands, getting into the plane. Then the custom is for the head of state to go back into the reception room and wait for the prain--plane to take off. And I assumed that's what he would do. I got onto the plane, and then, as the plane was taxiing down the runway to take off, I looked out. De Gaulle was still standing there, standing on the ramp in a salute. Symbolism again. I think he would--did that because he felt that after very difficult years with both Ken--both Kennedy and Johnson, that finally there was in the White House a president like Eisenhower, who understood France, who would restore the French-American relationship, and who understood and respected de Gaulle.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:50:29
[Frank Gannon]

De Gaulle's image was--was--was formidable, to say the least, and he spent a lot of time and effort creating it and maintaining it. Did you get a chance to--to see the man behind the myth, so to speak?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:50:44
[Richard Nixon]

To an extent, yes. I saw it certainly--well, let me put it this way. Mrs. Nixon saw it. He was a very thoughtful man. You know--head of state comes to a dinner. The poor wife of the host--in this case it's Mrs. Nixon--does all the work preparing the flowers and the name cards and the menus and all that sort of thing. And she had a beautiful centerpiece with a fountain in it and flowers all around. It was held in the [Carleton Hotel]. There was no residence for the vice president then, and we had to rent out a hotel. And de Gaulle spent quite a bit of time talking to Mrs. Nixon about how beautiful the centerpiece was, complimenting her on the dinner generally. He was a very--he was a very fine gentleman. He wasn't that austere type. Also, de Gaulle was a deeply religious man, and many people are not aware--you think of him only as a great soldier, and even potentially a great stateman [sic]. Some do. But he was also a very devoted family man. I think one of the most moving stories I've ever heard of a public figure involved de Gaulle--something you would not expect from him. They had children, other children. One is an admiro--one is an admiral in the French r--navy today. I met him--his name is [Phillip de Gaulle]--when I was in Paris. Looks just like his father--younger, of course. And then their last child, [Anne], unfortunately was born retarded, because Yvonne de Gaulle, de Gaulle's wife, was in a terrible automobile accident just before she was born, and--brain damage to the child. And that retarded child was one that they insisted on keeping. The doctors said, "Look, there's nothing you can do for her. Let us take her to a home." And de Gaulle answered, "She did not ask to be brought into this world. We will keep her here." There was never a day when he didn't go home and try to entertain her. He was the only one that could make the child laugh. He would play little games with her. She loved to take his military hat, the decorations on it, and play with them. He was w--he would always walk her around, whenever he could, in the gardens and so forth. During the war, the press always wanted to take pictures of him with his family. He would never allow it, except with him and Mrs. de Gaulle, because he didn't want them to have a picture of just the older children without [Anne de Gaulle]. The thing which really caused him very great pain was the fact that other children sometimes could be so cruel to [Anne]. Because she was different, they taunted her--because she was different. And then, finally, in--she was eighteen years of age. She caught pneumonia, and she died. There was a very simple ceremony in the little graveyard at Colombey, where they lived--a few prayers, some tears, de Gaulle, Mrs. de Gaulle standing together silently at the grave. And, finally, he took her ha--by the hand and said, "Come, Yvonne. Now she's like the others." And from that time on, there was never a day till the end of his life that on a Sunday he did not go to the grave to lay fresh flowers. That was de Gaulle.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:54:25
[Frank Gannon]

How--how did you learn about his death?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:54:31
[Richard Nixon]

I learned about it in Washington. It was from Henry Kissinger. He brought the--he usually brought the news of anything--development of that sort. And just as soon as I learned it, I said I was going to go to the funeral. I was--and as a result of my going, everybody else came. It was a--an enormously moving event. It was in Notre Dame. It was not actually a funeral, I should say. This was simply a memorial service, because de Gaulle, typically, had put in his will, "no funeral." All he allowed was to have a little private service out into his home village. And a butcher and a--a tradesman, others, were among those who acted as the pallbearers, just very, very simple people. But, of course, the nation insisted upon having a funeral. President Pompidou said it very eloquently when he heard about the death--he said, "General de Gaulle is dead. France is a widow." And so all the people were gathered there in Notre Dame, and I remember the moving eulogy that was given by President Pomp--Pompidou, who was to succeed de Gaulle, and--or had succeeded de Gaulle when de Gaulle retired. And I was leaving the cathedral when it was completed. And then the great organ in Notre Dame--it's a huge organ--began to strike up the Marseillaise, that great, moving song. And I started to turn toward the organ and toward the flag to salute, and unfortunately another one of the guests happened to grab my arm at the time just to pay his respects. The moment was lost, but it occurred to me later that there's no more moving tribute that could be paid to de Gaulle than for that whole mass of people from all over the world to turn toward the altar as the Marseillaise was being played and salute.

Day 9, Tape 3
00:56:38
[Frank Gannon]

What--how do you think history will assess de Gaulle? What--what will his legacy turn out to be? How will he have made a difference for France, for Europe, for the world?

Day 9, Tape 3
00:56:50
[Richard Nixon]

Well, de Gaulle made a difference in several ways substantively. First, without de Gaulle, France would never have recovered its spirit after the terrible defeat of World War II. Without de Gaulle, France would not have become a respected, powerful nation in the world today, as it is. And without de Gaulle, and also Adenauer, and the fact that the two came to power at the same time together--without de Gaulle and Adenauer, you would not have had, at the time we've had it, the French-German rapprochement which ended centuries of bloody wars between two very great peoples. So, all of these are achievements that will go down in history for de Gaulle. I am inclined to think, however, that he will be remembered more for what he was than for what he did. He was a man bigger than life. H--he once described himself--and this is not an arrogant statement, even though some would think it that. They asked what he was politically. He said, "De Gaulle is not on the right. He is not on the left. He is not in the center. He is above." What he meant there--he was above politics. And, under the circumstances, I think--you look at de Gaulle generally, he was a massive personality on the post-war scene, an intellect of unquestioned superiority, a man of supreme eloquence, a man who understood symbolism and modern communication, a man that was bigger than France, bigger than his own country, one that everybody could recognize as a giant, even though they might have disagreed with him bitterly. His greatest contribution, other than what he was, was what he did, not in terms of any particular thing for France in th--terms of its foreign policy, but the French constitution. I remember, for example, that when I was vice president, I had the opportunity, or the responsibility, of going to the airport to visit--to meet visiting prime ministers. And it seemed about one month I'd be going to meet a new Italian prime minister, and the next month it'd be a new French prime minister. And that's still the case with Italy. They changed prime ministers about two or three times a year. But in France, de Gaulle stopped that. He created a strong presidency, and yet democracy underneath. And it's that stability that has made France what it is today. I had a talk with the Socialist president of France, [Mitterrand], just recently in Paris. And I told him of my evaluation--de Gaulle and the constitution--and in a rather sardonic way he answered--he said, "Yes." He said, "When we were out of power, we didn't like that provision of the constitution. But now that we're in power we like it much better." Stability is so essential. If the de Gaulle constitution could be adopted in all the Latin countries of Latin America, it might be the answer to many of their problems--stability, a strong presidency at the top, and yet democracy underneath, affected by elections as they go on from time to time. But don't have a change of government every time any particular head of government happens to have a policy that falls out of favor.

Day 9, Tape 3
01:00:19
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that President Kennedy got away with things that you didn't get away with because the media liked him and didn't like you?

[Richard Nixon]

Well, I don't want to say that I did the same things he did, or that he did the same things I did. But there was a little bit of a double standard. He, incidentally, was--could be very honest. I am sure he would agree there was a double standard--privately, at least. But I do know that I was rather amused when I read recently--when some of the disclosures come out of what happened during the Kennedy administration--that with all of this talk about racism--

Day Nine, Tape four of four, LINE FEED #4, 9-7-83, ETI Reel #65
September 7, 1983

Day 9, Tape 4
00:00:59
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 9, Tape 4
00:01:06
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

--and all that sort of thing, and prejudice--that a little bit of that went on in their period, too. Bobby Kennedy, for example, when there was--a reporter for C.B.S. was overly critical, he thought--overcritically of President Kennedy, he called him a "Stevenson Jew." Well, that just raised hell, and President Kennedy made him apologize, but not a word was written about it. And then President Kennedy on one occasion, on a day in Boston--he was referring to that particular day, and he says, "It was so hot that even the niggers went to the beach." Not a word was written, although it was said to a Time Magazine reporter. Compare that to what happened to poor Earl Butz. He was driven from public life. Now let me say I'm not complaining that they didn't say that--they didn't report it. I think when a president or his attorney general and so forth happens to say something that may reveal something when he says it off the top of his head--that the press shouldn't rush it into print. But let me say that in the case of the liberals, they will cover up--the press will--virtually anything they can. Now maybe today it's changed a bit, when everybody is panting after each other to try to get into the news, to get their stories that go out. But in that case, I must say there was a double standard.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:02:37
[Frank Gannon]

Do you remember how you heard about the death of Robert Kennedy?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:02:41
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, very vividly. I was listening to the returns from California in New York, because I had campaigned in California--campaigned only because I wanted to get a big vote in the primary, which we of course got, because we didn't have any opposition to speak of. But, be that as it may--no, let's--let's stop that, on th--on the California thing. Question again.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:03:05
[Frank Gannon]

Do you remember how you heard about--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:03:07
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

[Frank Gannon]

--the death of Robert Kennedy?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:03:08
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. I was--I--I remember it particularly because I was interested in the California campaign. He had campaigned out there, after losing in Oregon, where I had seen him briefly, because I had campaigned in Oregon and won heavily there. He had to win in California. A--and he had won. And I listened to it, and then I heard a report toward the--late in the evening--it was a p--after midnight because of the time difference--and I heard that he had been shot. But the first reports weren't all that discouraging. It indicated that he was under observation, as I recall, at the hospital. So I went to bed. The next morning, very early, Mrs. Nixon came in, and it's one of the few times I've seen her cry. And she said, "That poor boy died." Bobby Kennedy had died. And I thought, "My God, not again!" And here this nut had finished him off, a b--in each case an aberration--an aberration in the case of Oswald and an ober--aberration in the case of the one that shot Bobby Kennedy. I particularly remember, too, going to the memorial service. And that's when I told my friends, "Don't underestimate Ted Kennedy." I think that's the day he grew up. Before that, he'd been kind of a playboy, and he still played around a bit thereafter, as most people are quite aware. But, on the other hand, he was not considered to be a very serious person. But his eulogy was eloquent. He was a--he was a man by that time. I knew from then on he would be a formidable figure on the American political scene.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:04:54
[Frank Gannon]

From most accounts, Lyndon Johnson was a very bitter and embittered man by the time he left the White House, almost paranoid about the--the suppor--the--the--the opponents who he felt had sabotaged him, the supporters who he felt had screwed him. Did you--did you see any of that in your dealings with him?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:05:16
[Richard Nixon]

Well, yes. He let his hair down with me on occasion. That was one of the reasons, for example, that he told me that he couldn't have been president unless he'd had J. Edgar Hoover who--head of the FBI, because Hoover was very important to him in terms of avoiding leaks, leaks coming from people that were supposed to have been loyal to him. Johnson had a very high standard of loyalty, incidentally. The story that illustrates that in--a true story, I understand--appeared in a recent book. One of his aides came up to him and submitted a name for appointment to some position, and Johnson said, "Is he loyal?" And the aide responded, "Well, he appears to be loyal." And Johnson said, "Goddamn it, when I say loyal, I mean loyal. I want someone who's so loyal that he'll kiss my ass in Macy's window and tell me it smells sweet. I want someone"--no--no--no--let me--let me start th--"when I say loyal, I mean loyal. I want someone who will kiss my ass in Macy's window and tell me it sells--smells sweet." Got to repeat it, because I missed something. Yeah. "When I say loyal, I mean loyal. I want someone that'll kiss my ass in Macy's window and tell me it smells sweet. I want his pecker in my pocket."

Day 9, Tape 4
00:06:50
[Frank Gannon]

That's loyal.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:06:51
[Richard Nixon]

That's loyal. But Johnson perhaps had reason to feel that way. After all, he not only had the problem of the Bobby Kennedy people, who deserted him after he'd--had kept so many of them on after President Kennedy's death and deserted him when Bobby Kennedy didn't get the nod for vice president. But even when some of his own protégés left him, it must have hurt him very deeply, because he was a very proud man. Bill Moyers, for example--Moyers was practically his alter ego. Moyers, who, ironically, today is TV's priest of higher morality as to--with regard to political activities and so forth--he was Johnson's hit man. He was the one that supervised, on Johnson's orders, an investigation of Goldwater's staff to see if, as Johnson put it, there were any fags on the staff. The reason was that they had discovered that Walter Jenkins, Johnson's top man, had a homosexual background. And he was the one--this is Moyers again--who supervised the taps on Martin Luther King, which were initiated by John Kennedy, and then also proceeded to help Johnson in the cover-up of that because it might be politically embarrassing for it to get out. Then when Moyers deserted him in 1967, ostensibly because of his disenchantment about the war, it must have had a terrible impact on Johnson. So I can ima--I can see why he would have been almost paranoiac upon insisting on loyalty, even to the extreme that he described it.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:08:30
[Frank Gannon]

One gets the impression that for the last months or year he was in the White House--that he was almost like a--what, a zombie. Was he effective, or was he vitiated by this kind of--of paranoia?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:08:47
[Richard Nixon]

What happened to Johnson after he had reached the peak of 1964, the great victories of the sates--of the great sup--s--the victories of the Great Society programs--1965, 1966--he started to go down after the midterm elections of 1966. What had happened there, briefly, is this. Johnson was unbeatable in '64 because up to the time Johnson became president in his own right, he was there always praising President Kennedy. As long as he was doing that, he got a magnificent press. He went to the grave. He did all the proper things. He had a very low profile. He was speaking always of President Kennedy and carrying out his mandate. After he was elected in his own right, he began to be Johnson, and the press began to be turned off. And then, after he dropped Bobby Kennedy, even more of them turned off. And then, when the war began to escalate and Johnson didn't know what to do about it, it became even worse. And those three events combined to reduce Johnson's popularity. And then he just started to flail around, and everything that he tried seemed to crumble in his hands. It wasn't before the end of 1967 that he really, I think, gave up. What caused him to give up finally was when McCarthy didn't win in New Hampshire. Many people think that Johnson was forced to resign because McCarthy beat him in New Hampshire. McCarthy didn't beat him in New Hampshire. Johnson beat McCarthy, but Johnson--the fact that McCarthy even got that many votes, because he had contempt for McCarthy and his dovish views, discouraged him, and he just decided to bug out. Drop out, I should say. From that time on, I think Johnson was sort of a pathetic figure. He wasn't the Johnson I used to know. Oh, at times he'd have a burst and then he'd back down and so forth, but it was always deterioration from there on. And after the election it was downhill all the way. [Lord Rosebury], in the nineteenth century, in describing Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill's father, who had terminal syphilis, once said that he died by inches in public. And so it a--was with Johnson. He began virtually to shrivel in public. Johnson himself described it in a rather poignant way. He said, "You know, President Kennedy was lucky. He was assassinated and it was over in a day. With me, it goes on day after day, this assassination, and it's much more torturous." And I recall one thing that brought this home to me was when we had the situation with regard to the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Now, these Pentagon Papers that were going to come out--we tried to stop them from being published in the Times because we thought it would not serve the national interest. In fact, it was very harmful, because it disclosed a lot of things that, in my view, were very detrimental to our bringing the war to a successful conclusion as soon as possible. But they weren't about our administration. The Pentagon Papers recounted what happened in the Johnson administration. And so we thought Johnson would join us in the lawsuit to keep The New York Times from publishing it. But Johnson said, "No." Talking to Bryce Harlow, he said, "I--there's nothing we can do." He says, "All they're trying to do in the media is to re-execute me." That's the way Johnson felt, and I think perhaps the best indication of how disillusioned he was and how much he'd given up on his ability to control events, and particularly to do any good with the media, wa--when the advice he gave to me toward the last about what I could do about the media attacks that were getting rougher and rougher on the war. He says, "Oh, there's nothing you can do about it. All you can h--do is to really hunker down like a jackass in a hailstorm." Now, that's not Lyndon Johnson-- not the Lyndon Johnson I know. The Lyndon Johnson that I know would be a jackass that would kick his opponents right in the balls.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:13:34
[Frank Gannon]

I--it's--it's--it's been written that it was his desire--his--his need to be liked or to be loved that drove him to the excesses that in turn drove people away from him, and/or--or created impossible demands for them that--that they couldn't poss--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:13:51
[Richard Nixon]

Johnson--

[Frank Gannon]

--ibly fulfill.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:13:52
[Richard Nixon]

Johnson was a very proud man. One of the reasons, for example, that I think he failed in his term of presidency was his refusal to get rid of many of the people he inherited from Kennedy. They weren't his people. They didn't agree with him. They didn't want him to succeed. If he succeeded, it would make Kennedy look bad in comparison. But he didn't do it for two reasons. One, because in the beginning he needed them. He needed the mantle of Kennedy in order to build himself up. But, two, he was just confident enough to think he could win them. He thought he could win the press. He knew that Kennedy had a good press, and he felt, quite correctly, that certainly in domestic issues he--Johnson--was keeping Kennedy's promises. Kennedy was unable to do anything on civil rights. Johnson did it. And so it was in all the other d--great domestic programs that he carried forward. And so he thought, "Well, by God, I can win the press." And he kept fighting and fighting. He thought he could get people to love him, to like him, like they apparently had loved and liked Jack Kennedy, because he thought he was quite a fellow. And he just couldn't do it. And one time, rather--I think, again, a rather sad story--he was talking to Dean Acheson, who--who was never anything but blunt, and he said to him, "Why is it--why is it that I can't get people to like me?" And Acheson said, "Because you're not a very likable man, Mr. President."

Day 9, Tape 4
00:15:23
[Frank Gannon]

At--at the risk of being criticized for--for asking the fox to--to assess the interior decoration of the henhouse, how would you compare the--say, the Truman scandals--the [Five Percenters], the mink coats--the Johnson scandals--the--Bobby Baker--to--or, say, the Carter scandals, in a way, or the Abscam scandals which took place in the Carter administration--to the Watergate scandals?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:15:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think there's--there's a fundamental difference. The Watergate scandals in--alleged abuses of power to serve political purposes. The Truman scandals--the [Five Percenter] scandals, the Johnson scandals--the Bobby Baker case, and the money that was made by Johnson and some of his colleagues, and the Carter ones, to a certain extent-- Bert Lance, et cetera, et cetera--that involved the use of political power for financial gain. Now, that's a very substantial difference. Neither can be justified, but, on the other hand, when you compare the two, you would have to say that, as far as Watergate was concerned, bad as it was, no--ody--nobody gained anything financially except those that wrote books about it. It was for political purposes.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:16:42
[Frank Gannon]

As--largely because of your tapes, you have become known as the man who sort of brought the four-letter word to 1600 [he pronounces it "Sixteen Hundred"] Pennsylvania Avenue. Given some of Johnson's tremendously colorful and vital but undeniably crude language and the--the language of the presidents you have known, does it gall you that--that you have been lumbered with this dubious distinction?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:17:05
[Richard Nixon]

No, nothing galls me. I mean, obviously, the Johnson tapes will be expur--w--will be expurgated. The Kennedy tapes will be expurgated, and they should be. Let me tell you why.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:17:16
[Frank Gannon]

Should yours be?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:17:17
[Richard Nixon]

Of course. Of course. Let me tell you why. We have to realize that--first, l--let me begin by saying every president I have known swore privately. Eisenhower did--all the rest. None of them that I have known swore publicly. Now people say, "But that's hypocritical." And the point is--not at all. If I may be very direct, you don’t go to the bathroom in the living room. Presidents, like anybody else, are human, and profanity comes forth when you're frustrated, and, believe me, in that job sometimes you do get frustrated. I remember--already we've talked about how President Kennedy was blowing his stack about what happened at the Bay of Pigs, and, boy, he used words that--then--I've never heard in that place before or since. But I understood it. I would have been frustrated, too, and I would have sworn about being mis--Eisenhower--I remember the time that he was so angry as we got the election returns in 1956 a--and found that, although we had won in a landslide, we had failed to win the House and the Senate. And he says, "Those goddamn mossback Republicans! That's the problem! We've got to have a modern Republican Party!" That's the way he would talk. Now, look, why don't we have all of that out so that everybody can see? And the answer is that, while presidents are human, people expect them to be more than human. People have images of their presidents, of their leaders. They want them--they want to keep those images. I want to keep them. I want a president to be able to have a private life, even to be able to swear now and then, to let his hair down. But from the standpoint of people, it's very important that they see the best side of the man. President Gaulle--de Gaulle understood this as well as anybody. He recounted how, shortly after the fall of France--and he was that symbolic man who was going to bring France back, and he went to one of the French African colonies, and he remembered how moved he was. There's a huge, huge crowd-- surrounded his motorc--cade, and they shouted, "De Gaulle! De Gaulle! De Gaulle!" And he said, "At that moment I understood I was two people. I was this General de Gaulle, and I was Charles de Gaulle. And from that time on, I realized I must do nothing that would not be worthy in public of this General de Gaulle. So every time I did anything, I said, 'Would General de Gaulle approve of this, or that, or the other thing?'" And so it is with the president. And so I say, as far as I'm concerned, what a president's private life is--it should be kept private. People don't like profanity. They don't like it in their families. They certainly don't want to see it in their presidents.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:20:24
[Frank Gannon]

A couple of months ago, you told me a story about--we were talking about Johnson. You told me about Johnson and a rattlesnake on his farm.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:20:32
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yeah. Well, Johnson had a--J--Johnson was a legendary figure. I mean, he wa--he was bigger than life. He had enormous appetites in every way--physical, et cetera. And in this particular instance, I remember that th--there was a story that appeared in the papers. We all remembered it. In fact, some of us used it, I think probably unfairly, in the 1966 campaign. Some woman reporter was bitchy enough to write it. She'd given him a ride--he'd given her a ride, I should say, in his car around the ranch. He used to like to get in that car and drive around his ranch--a huge ranch, you know. And he drove very fast. He did everything--he walked fast, he talked fast, he drove fast. And he was driving this car and drinking beer at the same time, and she wrote that he was driving eighty miles an hour and drinking beer out of a can in a car. Well, it raised hell, of course, and Johnson raised hell with her, I'm sure. But, be that as it may, he, in driving around the ranch, he sometimes had the bad fortune to have the reporters go with him. Maybe it wasn't bad fortune. Maybe he didn't really care. At that point, he was pretty confident he was going to survive, and he had had two or three beers, apparently, out on the ranch. It was a hot day, and he stopped at the side of the road in order to relieve himself. And he went into some bushes there, and one of the reporters called out and say--"Mr. President, aren't you afraid a rattlesnake might bite it?" He turned to him--said, "Hell, man, it is part rattlesnake."

Day 9, Tape 4
00:22:14
[Action note: Gannon laughs.]

[Richard Nixon]

He also, of course, was big in every other way. I'll never forget my surprise, actually, when I went into the Oval Office--I was never in the Oval Office while Johnson was president. I--I saw him in his bedroom for coffee one morning. after a Gridiron d--Gridiron dinner in 1966. Never in the Oval Office--I was in the Oval Office only once after leaving for--lee--leaving as vice president and coming back as president. That was with President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. And I remembered so vividly President Kennedy there in the rocking chair, which, of course, I'd seen pictures of. So I go into the Oval Office after the election in 1968. Here's President Johnson. He's still got the rocking chair. It's twice as big as Kennedy's! Course, he was a bigger man. I remember, too, the first time I was on Air Force One. I walked in there, and I looked at the compartment where the president's supposed to sit with his guests, and here was this huge elevated chair. It looked like a throne. And all the other chairs were sort of around it, and--so I had it taken out, and I was able to put in two extra chairs as a result of removing the hu--huge Johnson throne chair. Now, unser--understand, I do not say this critically of him, but that's the way he was. He was a big man. He wanted bigger things. And another instance I remember so well--when I went to Europe the first time, when we were in London. We were to stay at Claridge's Hotel. I'd stayed at Claridge's many times. It's one of the really great hotels of the world. And I'd had this same--what they called "presidential suite," or "king suite," or whatever, each time. And as I go in there, here I see the Filipino stewards around taking the bed out and putting it--I says, "What the hell are you doing?" "Oh, w--we're removing the bed." "W--w--who"--"we brought your bed from the White House to put in here." I said, "I don't need that! Why don't I use this bed?" "Oh, we always did that for President Johnson." Of course, Johnson wanted a big bed. He wasn't going to be satisfied with the big beds--s at the Claridge's. Well, I stopped that practice, at least. But that was Lyndon Johnson.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:24:27
[Frank Gannon]

What were your personal relations with him like?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:24:30
[Richard Nixon]

Personal relations were very good. I'm referring now to the period after I was president and after he had left. I kind of knew how to use a former president, having been a former vice president. He was very har--helpful to me, and I was, I think, very considerate of him. I--I went out to dedicate his library. I dedicated a grove to Mrs. Johnson in California. I had him and Mrs. Johnson to the White House on several occasions for lunch, for breakfast, et cetera--a church service. I had him briefed regularly, and it was worth doing. As a matter of fact, h--he became very supportive, particularly on the war issues. I remember so well during the 1972 campaign, he was appalled about McGovern, just absolutely appalled that he was the Democratic candidate, and he thought Shriver was a silly ass. And so, under the circumstances, you'd think he would endorse me, but he made a very interesting comment to Bryce Harlow. He says, "Well," he says, "I'm for him, but I'm not going to say anything public." He says, "After all, I've been sucking at the tit of the Democratic Party so long that I'm not going to let go now simply because the milk's turned sour because of what the poor cor is--cow is eating." That's the way Lyndon Johnson would put it, of course.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:25:53
[Frank Gannon]

How did you hear about his death?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:25:58
[Richard Nixon]

It was a very dramatic moment. It was--we were just holding and waiting to see whether or not the Vietnamese would sign the peace agreement which we had negotiated. And we learned it on the night of the twenty-second, that the agreement signing would take place on the twenty-third, and then the formal signing on the twenty-seventh when Secretary Rogers was to go over to Paris. And Henry Kissinger brought me the news that President Johnson had just died. And what concerned me about that was that I knew that above everything else in his final days he wanted to be sure that the war had been brought to an honorable conclusion, because he knew his place in history would be determined by that. And I wondered if he really knew, because we hadn't announced anything yet. And I asked Kissinger--later I said, "Did he know?" And Kissinger said, "I think he did." But he says--he says--he--Kissinger--says, "I went down to see him on the fifteenth to brief him, and I told him on the fifteenth that the Vietname--that President Nixon had ordered that the bombing be halted." And he said Johnson smiled. He said, "I know what that means. Nixon would never stop that bombing unless he had a deal." Now, there's another reason Johnson said it. I remember a conversation I had with him back in 1969 at breakfast, and he was berating Harriman. He said, "That son-of-a-bitch Harriman told me twelve times when I stopped the bombing that if we'd only stop it he knew that the Russians would help and the Vietnamese would cooperate, and it didn't do any good. Every single bombing halt was a terrible mistake." So, therefore, he got the message. He knew before he died that the long war that he had tried so desperately to bring to a conclusion but had only succeeded in escalating had been brought to a conclusion, and, of course, he could have felt then that maybe his place in history would be restored.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:27:58
[Frank Gannon]

Looking back from the--say, the perspective of the turn of the century, how will the man in the street in the year two thousand assess John Kennedy's contribution to America and to world history? How will John Kennedy have made a difference?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:28:15
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I--I think the way, really, that question is often put to me, which is-- rather than what the man in the street's going to do, because who is the man in the street? That's one of hundreds of millions and so forth. It's--you usually hear this--what I think--rather fatuous question, "What is--what is history going to say? How is he going to look in history?" and so forth. And here is something we have to understand about--what is history? How does history judge John Kennedy? How is history going to judge Lyndon Johnson? How is it going to judge Richard Nixon? That is beside the point. You've got to find out what history is, and w--this impersonal history we talk about. I remember when, after I had resigned the presidency--I had made the resignation speech--Henry Kissinger walked over to the residence with me. And as we were walking along, he was rather emotional, and he said, "Because of your foreign policy, I am confident that you will be rated as a great president in history." I said, "Henry, that depends on who writes the history." Winston Churchill understood that. Winston Churchill said, "History is going to treat me well, because I intend to write it." And he did. When we talk about history, what we have to recognize--that history is not a single impartial judge. The verdict of history is rendered by a jury of historians. And historians in the United States are overwhelmingly liberal and, to the extent they have party affiliations, are overwhelmingly Democratic. And, in addition, because their bread-and-butter is style, they are suckers for style, obsessed with style. Style is more important to them than is substance. Now, in answering the question with regard to what President Kennedy's place in history will be, I would say it will be very good because historians have to be impressed by his style. He's got to get double-A figures for style in every which way. They've got to be impressed by his charisma. Historians like charisma. As far as his record is concerned, they will gloss over that to an extent, because the record is not particularly impressive. He was not able to--not able to accomplish anything particularly domestically. Johnson was the one that carried through on the Kennedy promises. He was the performer. Kennedy was the promiser. And in foreign policy--the Kennedy foreign policy could only be described as being almost disastrous. Kennedy's legacy is a Castro with a privileged sanctuary in Cuba and raising hell all over the world. As far as Vietnam was concerned, his legacy is the assassination of Diem, the musical chairs that followed, fifteen thousand combat troops assigned there, the beginning of a war that took years and years to end. But on balance, historians--not history, but historians--in that broad context will rate him very, very high. A British historian, Paul Johnson, makes the blunt statement that Kennedy was a weak president. I don't agree with that. I think had he lived, that Kennedy would have become more Irish and less Harvard as he went along, and would have done a more effective job with regard to both Castro and Vietnam, and other things, than he'd done earlier. But not having lived, he will have to take, of course, in--historically speaking, some of the criticism which has been leveled at him for his failures, particularly in Cuba and in Vietnam.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:32:19
[Frank Gannon]

From the same perspective--or the perspective of history, not from the man in the street--how will--how will Lyndon Johnson fare at the turn of the century?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:32:28
[Richard Nixon]

Well, historians are turned off by Lyndon Johnson's style, turned off partly because he's got a Southern accent. Incidentally, I think Jimmy Carter has suffered from that, too. It's not fair. Historians generally don't--i--if they come from the South, they develop Harvard accents if they possibly can, the elitist--you know, that sort of approach to things in terms, and it's--the fashionable way to talk and to act and to write and so forth is not Southern, let's face it. Not fair, but that's the way h--it works. So they don't like Johnson's style. So that hurts him. They don't like him in comparison to Kennedy. That hurts him. In terms of what he accomplished, they don't like him because of the war--the war in Vietnam. And then, however, you've got to balance that by what he did. And what he did on the domestic scene was something that made a difference. And I refer to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Just as I could go to China, where Hubert Humphrey, the liberal, could not, so only Johnson could have gotten the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed--Johnson, a Southerner who had voted against civil rights during the 1950s, when I was presiding over the United States Senate. And that was his monumental achievement. He deserves great credit for that. And maybe by the turn of the cension--century, honest historians--and there are some, I am sure, that will be honest and look back and say Johnson gets high re--high m--high marks for that, for doing what Kennedy promised but did not produce on the civil rights area.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:34:13
[Frank Gannon]

How do you think Richard Nixon is going to fare?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:34:17
[Richard Nixon]

Well, as far--as far as historians are concerned, again having in mind that most of them are liberal, most of them are Democratic in terms of party persuasion, and most of there--them are obsessed by style, I'm going to strike out on all three scores. I'm nom--not a Democrat, I'm not liberal, and my style does not appeal to them. And so, under the circumstances, apart from Watergate, which of course will be a very big negative, the--the administration that I headed will not get the credit, perhaps, that it deserves for some great events that did make a difference. Henry Kissinger--at the time we went to China and at the time we ended the war in Vietnam, he'd come into the office and emote about his friends from Harvard. He said, "They can't bear the thought that you did it. They can't bear the thought that you did it." "Well," I said, "what difference does it make? It'll look all right historically," and that, of course, is irrelevant now, but, nevertheless, when you look at the events, the actual accomplishments, they are not insignificant. The opening to China--that made a difference. It changed the world.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:35:31
[Frank Gannon]

Mm-hmm.

[Richard Nixon]

The new relationship with the Soviet Union, the first arms control agreement--whether you like it or not, it made a difference. Ending the war in Vietnam and, during the balance of my presidency, not losing anything to the Communists--that made a difference. Reestablishing relations with Egypt, saving Israel in 1973, laying the foundation, therefore, for the Israeli-Egyptian rapprochement--that made a difference. Domestically--and many people are not aware of these domestic accomplishments because we're primarily known for the foreign policy accomplishments--the most important achievement, without question, were the appointments to the Supreme Court. We left a lot of blood on the floor, but we changed history in the United States, and I think for the better, as a result of those four very, very good appointments. Next to that, and very next to it, very close to it, was the peaceful desegregation of Southern schools. That could not have been accomplished by anybody other than, I believe, a conservative who had credentials in the South and yet who also was strong for civil rights. Beyond that, I think as time goes on our cancer initiative may historically make a difference. It has made some already. What we did, for example, in environment and hunger I don't think can be classified like that, because that would have happened anyway. We were--just happened to preside when it did happen. Revenue sharing--that principle might not have happened had we not done it, but some even question whether it should. But the overwhelming evidence would have to be that on China, on Russia, on Vietnam, on the Mideast, the Supreme Court--these things all made a difference. Now, that seems like a very formidable record. But on the negative side, as I say, we have the whole--Watergate, which of course made a difference on the negative side. Now how is that all going to sort out as far as historians are concerned? Negatively. Negatively because most historians are negative toward the individual, toward me, just as they are toward Lyndon Johnson. He isn't going to get a good shake historically from historians. And neither will I.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:37:56
[Frank Gannon]

In 1968 in Miami, when you announced your--that your choice for vice president was Spiro Agnew, there was a resounding chorus--"Spiro who?" Looking back now, was that--was that the right choice?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:38:13
[Richard Nixon]

Well, you know, I would be expected to say that it was, and I do say that it was. First of all, I had to have somebody who was a bridge between North and South. I did not want a Southerner because I didn't have a qualified Southerner. If I'd have had a qualified one, I'd put him on there, because it was time for the South to be on that ticket--on a Republican ticket. But Agnew, coming from a border state, met that. Second, Agnew, we forget now, had very good credentials as a quote, "moderate," end quote, Republican. He had defeated a racist Democrat. He was highly praised in the New York Times editorially for having done so after he was elected governor in Maryland, and so--and in terms of Agnew himself, he was an able man. He was intelligent. He was a well-trained lawyer. He was a fighter for what he believed and served well as vice president. Now, let's look at the negatives there, and let's put it in the context, since we're speaking historically here. Agnew, unfortunately, had been governor of Maryland. Maryland, realistically, for as long as anybody can remember, had been a state in which contractors doing business to the state were asked to and gladly complied with provisions to kick back part of the amounts they got for their contracts into funds to be used by the governor for his political purposes and was, to an extent, since the governor doesn--wasn't paid that much, even to take care of some of his personal expenses. Now, that wasn't limited even, however, to Maryland. That's happened in many other states. Adlai Stevenson, according to John Bartlow Martin, his biographer, had a fund of sixty thousand dollars which was taken from contractors doing business with the state of Illinois which was used to pay for some of his charitable contributions, used to pay for parties that he gave for his staff, a dance that he gave for some of his children, and so forth and so on. It was considered perfectly proper in his case. Agnew did it. Now, there was nothing to indicate that Agnew ever did anything as vice president for which he took money, but because some of the money that was supposed to be contributed by the contractors was delivered to him after he became vice president--so he was forced to resign. Was it a double standard? Yes. Why was it worse in tha--Agnew's case? Because he had the temerity to take on the press. There was no one, even more than I---more than I, Agnew was a target. Agnew was a target because he'd been effective against the press, and, understandably, once they caught him in what they thought was a politically vulnerable activity, they hung him out to dry. But I think in terms of that very time, and up to the time that occurred, that Agnew conducted himself in a dignified and effective way as vice president.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:41:29
[Frank Gannon]

If it's common knowledge that this is the way--that this is politics as usual in Maryland and other states in that region, or of that kind, couldn't you have, or shouldn't you have, or did you anticipate that he had this problem or might have this problem?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:41:45
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I didn't anticipate it because I did not dream that he would have continued to accept the contributions after he became vice president. See, that's what made it the p--that's what gave it the problem, receiving the contribution while he was vice president.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:42:03
[Frank Gannon]

So to that extent you--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:42:04
[Action note: Nixon makes a sound.]

[Frank Gannon]

--he--he des--he deserved--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:42:05
[Richard Nixon]

[Unintelligible.]

[Frank Gannon]

--what--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:42:07
[Richard Nixon]

No--I--I--

[Frank Gannon]

--happened?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:42:08
[Richard Nixon]

No, I still think it was a double standard. I think he deserved, certainly, some condemnation, but I do not believe that he deserved the almost hysteria that went on in the U.S. attorney's office and everything else, that he had crommi--committed the crime of the century. It had happened in Illinois, and I'm sure it happened in a lot of other states. It doesn't happen in California, I can assure us. They haven't grown up to that sort of thing there yet, but I'll bet you it's still going on in some of these states.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:42:36
[Frank Gannon]

But wasn't--this was on a--on a new level in that it--whatever may have been happening in state houses, this was the White House, or the--the--the Office of the Vice President. This raised it to a national level.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:42:45
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, th--the contribution e--the contribution had been earned, shall we say--the contractor had been--hands laid on him to make the contribution before he ever got, however, to vice president. It wasn't done while he was vice president. It was delivered. The money was delivered. It just wasn't--but it w--the services performed for the money, i.e. the contract, occurred b--long before he became vice president of the United States.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:43:11
[Frank Gannon]

If you felt it was a bum rap, why'd you let him go, or why didn’t you stop him from going?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:43:15
[Richard Nixon]

There was nothing that we could do to stop him. With the problems that I had at that particular time, there was nothing I could do for him. I only wish I'd been stronger. If I had been, I would have stopped him.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:43:28
[Frank Gannon]

How do you think history will look back and assess Mrs. Nixon?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:43:35
[Richard Nixon]

I think quite well. After some of my candid comments about the press, I think they are going to have a great problem in not giving her her due. I think the fact that, although she has done nothing in the public arena since we left Washington--that she's still rated in most of the polls among the top--most admired women in the world, in the Good Housekeeping poll and so forth--that's got to tell us something, that she has a legacy. Let me see. I don't know about history, but I know how I would rate her. I've known a lot of First Ladies and, incidentally, I've admired them and respected each in his own way. Each contributed in her own way. The first one I knew was Mrs. Herbert Hoover, a very lovely lady. I knew her when we were both serving on the board of Whittier College. But looking at Mrs. Nixon, I think these are the characteristics that sort of set her apart. Once, first, she has an unusual combination--beauty and brains. Now, I have found that, generally speaking, girls that are beautiful are--don't have much upstairs, and those that have brains are not very pretty. I know there's a great argument in television today about whether or not the television networks are hiring peoples [sic]--girls, women--simply because they are good-looking. And of course they are. Take, for example, Jeane Kirkpatrick at the United Nations, probably the most intelligent women, or one of the most intelligent in the U.S., and very articulate. Do you think she'd ever have a chance to be on a network show? No way! She isn't good-looking enough. She is, in my view--she'd never make it. Of course, they'd pick that--but Mrs. Nixon, without question, had great beauty, and she's also very smart--cum laude graduate of the University of Southern California, worked her way through on a fellowship, orphaned when she was seventeen years of age, took care of her brothers, did the cooking and so forth and so on, a hard life in those early years in order to get through school and get an education, taught school, married, continued to work, made it possible for me to enter politics, and so forth. That's enough of the background. But apart from the beauty and the brains and the background, there's another characteristic that's a little harder to describe. I'll never forget when I was in China in 1978, we were riding a train from a city in the southern part of China up to Peking, and there was a Chinese woman, a young woman, who was my guide and translator. She was the tough, partisan type, as they always are when they assign them to you--not very feminine at all. And she said to me as we were riding along in the train, in the incompartment [sic]--she said, "How is Mrs. Nixon?" Because Mrs. Nixon by that time had had a stroke. And I said, "Well, she's recovering very well." And she said, "We in China have great respect for her. She is such a strong person, such a strong person." And what she meant by that was that here you had someone who had developed strength from the time she was in school, who had a tough life when she was growing up, who showed great strength in my political career, in the fund crisis way back in 1952, in Caracas when she sat there just as cool as if it were a Sunday afternoon tea rather than a life-f--threatening crisis, who went through the defeat in 1960, the defeat in 1962, the resignation, and still just glided along as the lady that she is. I think that impressed the Chinese. It certainly impressed me. And then another thing I would say about Mrs. Nixon. Now--now the women's libbers are not going to like what I'm going to say now. They’re not going to like it at all. But I remember something I read in Winston Churchill's Great Contemporaries about Asquith, the British prime minister in the early years of World War I. He said his greatest legacy is his children. Her greatest legacy are her children. She's been a magnificent mother. It's hard for children of celebrities, particularly of presidents, vice presidents, to grow up a normal life [sic]. People who are children of celebrities turn out to be groupies or drugs, alcohol, or even worse [sic]. But Tricia and Julie are remarkable young ladies, and I was away a lot, and--and she certainly gets the credit for that. So I would say that, all in all, because of her brains, her beauty--which of course she inherited--because of her great strength, because she was a very, very fine example as far as being a mother is concerned--on all this she deserves credit. Now let's look at the downside, however. The ladies in the press--some of the men as well, who covered--criticized Mrs. Nixon very cruelly, and this hurt her, incidentally. It shouldn't have, but it did. She should have considered the source, but they said, "It's Plastic Pat," and why? Because she never said anything. She didn't make speeches. She didn’t make an ass of herself in public. That's what they want--they want a story, you know--get--fall down drunk or some other damn thing. But she wouldn't do that. And they said, "Why didn't she make speeches? That shows she doesn't have a mind of her own." That’s not true at all. She's just smart. She knows you can't have two voices out of the White House. She had ideas, and she expressed them privately. And another thing it shows, which these critics among the ladies in the press--what they wouldn't understand and they won't appreciate at all--she was self-assured and self-confident. She didn't have such a big ego that she had to go out and prove that she had a career in her own right. To her, what was important was the career of her husband. She served as First Lady with all of these thoughts in mind, and she set an example that was splendid. Her travels abroad, all of these--her--her performances in the White House. And I would say, finally, as a campaigner. The one thing that brought that home to me--back in 1952 I was speaking, I remember, out in Kansas, and Harry Darby, who served for a short time in the Senate, was introducing Mrs. Nixon--Pat, as he called her--to a big, huge rally there. And he said, "You know, our candidate for vice president, Senator Nixon, he's controversial, but everybody loves Pat." And I thought that was a high compliment to a great campaigner.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:50:59
[Frank Gannon]

You had mentioned a couple of days ago an interesting insight that de Gaulle had into the difference between Kennedy and Johnson.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:51:08
[Richard Nixon]

De Gaulle put it--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:51:10
[Frank Gannon]

Or--can you do it in a sentence?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:51:12
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah. De Gaulle--in referring to Kennedy and Johnson, de Gaulle made, I thought, a very profound comment. He said, "Kennedy was a mask on the face of America. Johnson was America." I must say, incidentally, on Johnson, another recollection of him that always brings a smile to my face was the time we had breakfast in 1969. He was bitching to me about an article in Look Magazine about his brother. He says, "You know, my brother's sort of a black sheep." He says, "Every family's got one." He said, "I--I know, for example," he said, "that I had this contractor friend down in Texas, and," he said, "he had a no-good brother," he says, "who just couldn't hold a job. And his mother came to him and begged him to hire that dumb brother and give him a job." He said, "Oh, well, he finally relented, and he did. You know what he did? Well, he gave him a job dro--driving a load of dynamite across the state. Well, the fellow stopped at a roadside bar, had six beers, propositioned the waitress to marry him, and then drove on down the road. You know what happened? He drove smack dab into a telephone pole."

Day 9, Tape 4
00:52:33
[Frank Gannon]

Do--do you think of yourself as old?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:52:37
[Richard Nixon]

Not yet, but that's--that's because I've survived so long.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:52:44
[Frank Gannon]

D--de Gaulle said old age is a shipwreck. Do you see yourself as, since you--if you don't see yourself as old, you don't see yourself as shipwrecked, but do you see yourself towards shoals or sandbars?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:52:58
[Richard Nixon]

Tha--tha--I'm very fatalistic. I think when I--when I leave the scene, it will be suddenly. Let me say I--I don't want to go and don't intend to go gradually.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:53:08
[Frank Gannon]

De Gaulle, as early as twenty or more years--as early as 1950--had laid out an elaborate--although a very simple--but an elaborate plan for his funeral--where he wanted to be buried, who he wanted to be there, what he wanted his epitaph to be. Have you done that?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:53:24
[Richard Nixon]

No, I have--I--I sh--I've been giving the Protocol Office, I guess they call it, at the White House--I've given them fits, because they've been out after me time and time and again to approve some darned plan. And I'm not going to do it. I--I just don't like to look forward that far.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:53:42
[Frank Gannon]

In 1968, as you've said, when you were considering whether or not to run for president, Tricia said that the reason you should run was that if you didn't you wouldn't have anything to live for. And you've said that that was true at the time. What do you have to live for now?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:54:00
[Richard Nixon]

Well, what a former president can contribute is, I would say, marginal. I mean, we--you know, we get a lot of guff to the effect that, well, everybody's hanging on every word that a former president says, and former presidents are great national assets. And that's all a bunch of nonsense. It's not really true. A former president can contribute, not because he's a former president, but if he knows something, a little bit more than somebody else. Having been president, it--it may give you temporarily a forum. But once they find out there's nothing up here, or that you've got nothing to say, they quit paying attention to you. So I would say that as long as I can keep current with events and have something to say that could make a difference, I may influence the course of events. Once I decide that I no longer have the energy or maybe the understanding to comment on current events in a way that could influence the course of events, influence decisions made by the president, secretary of state, and whatever--once that occurs, then I will quietly recede from the political scene. But as far as the future is concerned, I have, again, a rather philosophical and almost fatalistic view about it. Walter Annenberg, our former ambassador to England, once told me, shortly after I resigned the presidency and I was down a bit, understandably, and he was trying to buck me up--and he said, "Remember, life is ninety-nine rounds, ninety-nine rounds, and whoever's standing at the end is going to win." Well, I'm still standing at seventy, and I expect to stand again, I trust, for a few more years. Maybe ninety-nine rounds.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:00
[Frank Gannon]

Looking back on the--the last seventy years, do you count the last thirty-six or seven hours we've spent together in the studio as one of the highest of the high points?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:12
[Richard Nixon]

Well, let me say, we've discussed the high points--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:15
[Action note: Gannon laughs.]

[Richard Nixon]

--but whether I'd put this at a high point I'm not sure. I wonder if we've missed something on Johnson here.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:18
[Action note: Gannon begins to speak.]

[Richard Nixon]

Let's see. Well, that's enough. We're through?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:23
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--anything you want to--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:25
[Richard Nixon]

What was it--Johnson--let's see--what other--let's see. I know--you covered all the Johnson points you want?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:32
[Frank Gannon]

I think we hit--yeah.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:35
[Richard Nixon]

Good. That's enough.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:37
[Offscreen voice]

Hold position one second.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:39
[Richard Nixon]

You got--our pictures. I think we trotted through that in good shape.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:42
[Frank Gannon]

Yes. A lot of ground.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:47
[Offscreen voice]

Stay right there for one second. I need to do a couple of [inaudible] shots.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:54
[Frank Gannon]

If--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:55
[Richard Nixon]

Oh--sanitizing the record.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:56:57
[Frank Gannon]

You got that. You said that. You talked about expurgating all the stuff.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:02
[Richard Nixon]

Maybe I did. I don't think so.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:04
[Frank Gannon]

Do you want to do it?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:05
[Richard Nixon]

[Inaudible]--his warts are bigger than--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:06
[Frank Gannon]

Roger?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:07
[Richard Nixon]

If you've got--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:08
[Offscreen voice]

Yes?

[Richard Nixon]

--if they can bring the [inaudible]--

[Frank Gannon]

Can we come back for one point?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:09
[Offscreen voice]

Yes. Switch the lights, please. Keep the tapes rolling. [Continues; inaudible.]

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:13
[Richard Nixon]

I think it's just as well. [Inaudible.] I'd like to make it again.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:16
[Frank Gannon]

All right.

[Richard Nixon]

All right, I'll finish.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:17
[Frank Gannon]

Make it specific.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:18
[Richard Nixon]

Three minutes, right?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:19
[Offscreen voice]

Okay, here we go.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:21
[Frank Gannon]

It seems that the kind of vibrant Johnson you've described hasn't come across, and the--the record is that he spent a lot of time while he was still alive expurgating his own memoirs. Does this bother you?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:57:35
[Richard Nixon]

I understand that Johnson not only expurda--I understand that Johnson not only expurgated his memoirs but that since then those that are running his library and have his papers are expurgating his tapes, his memoirs, and everything else. They're going to sanitize him so that he comes through like every other bland, moderate, so-called "mushy moderate" politician. And I would say that they're rendering him a terrible disservice. He's just going to be an homogenized type like those that populate the House and Senate and many of the state houses today. Johnson was different, and they should let people see him as he was, warts and all, because I'll say one thing for sure--Johnson's warts were bigger than most of those in the political scene today.

Day 9, Tape 4
00:58:27
[Frank Gannon]

We've made it sound like it was almost inevitable that you would win the 1968 nomination for president as the--as the result of this comeback. But was that the case? Did you have a battle for the nomination?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:58:39
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. Nelson Rockefeller was in there, in and out, over and over again, and he had a huge amount of money. He spent more in that nomination period than we sent--spent for the entire campaign in 1968. And then also Ronald Reagan was making a little run at it from the coast. He was not in it so much, but his people were pushing him hard. I'll never forget what brought this home. After we won the nomination and Nelson Rockefeller called to congratulate me, and he always gets a hoarse voice--he's very enthusiastic type [sic] when he's--on elections night. Every time I've talked to him, his voice is hoarse. A voice that was very hoarse said, "Congratulations, Dick. Congratulations." And he said, "You"--I said, "Well, you ran a good race, Governor. You gave us a little bit of a scare." He said, "Yeah, well, Ronnie didn't do quite as well as we hoped he would."

Day 9, Tape 4
00:59:27
[Frank Gannon]

What was that?

Day 9, Tape 4
00:59:28
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he--

Day 9, Tape 4
00:59:29
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Frank Gannon]

He meant Reagan?

[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yeah. He meant, of course, that his only hope was to have Reagan pick up some Southern delegates and bring in California, and he'd hold New York. Between the two of them, they would deny me the majority, and then they'd fight it out for the nomination.

[Frank Gannon]

Was--was either Rockefeller or Reagan a real threat then?

[Richard Nixon]

Never. Never. The mistake that he made--Reagan never intended to get into the primaries. But I said right at the beginning that I was going to enter every one of the primaries. The mistake that he made was not to go into the primaries. That party wasn't about to nominate somebody who wouldn't test himself in the primaries. He wanted to be nominated by the bosses and to claim, on the one hand, that he had the support of the people, and yet refusing to allow the people to decide in primaries whether he had that kind of support--it totally destroyed him. I entered the primaries. I won every one of them. So it was inevitable that he would lose. [Inaudible.]

[Frank Gannon]

Bebe Rebozo you've described at many times as your closest friend, or one of your closest friends. At many of the most crucial events you've described, he was there. I think a lot of people have the idea of him as sort of a--almost a sinister figure, not to put it too--in too extreme a way. What is he like, and why is he your best friend?

[Richard Nixon]

Well, what--what Bebe Rebozo is--in terms of the media, is, as you say--he sounds like a Latin gangster, like a second- generation Al Capone--foreign bank accounts, Bahamian banks, this, that and the other thing. It's all totally false, and it would not have happened unless he had been my friend. He knows that, and he's a very strong man to have taken this terrible abuse. They've lied about him. They continue to misrepresent him, and they do it because he's my friend, just as they go after my family and others, because they happen to be my family. That's part of the--that's part of the business, of course. Where any conservative is involved, they will cut at you any way they can--your friends, your associates. In Rebozo's case, he's impeccably honest. Let me tell you--if he had done what Bert Lance did with his bank, making--borrowing for special purposes, making special loans, and so forth--he'd have been in Leavenworth for life! And, of course, he's never had--been--he's been accused of many things, and indicted for nothing, because they've never had a case. And, thank God, now they realize they didn't have a case.

[Frank Gannon]

You've described yourself as a loner, though, and what is it in personal terms that draws you to Bebe Rebozo as a friend, just in personal terms?

[Richard Nixon]

Well, he's a--he's gregarious. He's a great storyteller. He's--he and Bob Abplanalp, another one of my friends, are very much alike in that way. They love to trade stories. They kid each other a lot. But I think the reason that I like him and I like Bob--that kind of person--is that we never discuss politics.

[Frank Gannon]

What do you discuss?

[Richard Nixon]

Oh, we discuss business, business matters. We'll talk about the--everything from food to beverages to business to sports--everything except the political area. Sometimes we get into politics. We have a lot of--a lot of fun talking about the media, our favorite television programs, our favorite commentators, or commentatress.

[Frank Gannon]

That must be a short conversation.

[Richard Nixon]

No. Time we get through, we have created something that is quite interesting there. No, we talk about a few things like that, but the point is--

[Frank Gannon]

Do you talk about women?

[Richard Nixon]

--all of us--not very often. That isn't the primary interest. I think all of our conversation is--most of our conversation is really more in the non-political area. It's in the kind of area that a group of men, for example, at the Touchdown Club would talk about. A great deal of talk about sports and that sort of thing, but mainly--I think this is the important thing--each one of us knows when we were together, as we were in Europe recently and as we have been recently in Florida--each one of them knows that he can let his hair down without worrying about anything being said. And there are very few people in this world you can do that with, because everybody, deep, down, is a gossip--deep, deep down. Some restrain it, but most just can't help, particularly when they're dealing with a celebrity, to say, "Gee, let me tell you about this or that or the other thing." And both Bebe and Bob--they realize that a friendship with someone from a high office--the first requisite is let him talk, let him let his hair down.

[Frank Gannon]

I hope you have felt that way here, because we're going to keep all this real quiet.

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