Pat Buchanan "The Greatest Comeback"

you know a lot of us have old files somewhere that we haven't looked at for years and that probably have gathered dust but Pat Buchanan had some files that contained perhaps more historical significance than than most for half a century he left untouched half a dozen cabinet drawers of personal files that dated from 1966 when Pat first went to work for Richard Nixon to the end of the 1968 campaign when Nixon was elected president in those files were thousands of memos newspaper clippings and other papers that traced Nixon's political revival and election as president after what many had thought had been his political death following his loss of the 1960 presidential campaign and then his defeat two years later in California scoober tutorial election that political resurrection is the story of that Pat tells in his new book the greatest comeback how Richard Nixon rose from defeat to create the new majority Pat of course had an insider's view of this remarkable comeback having worked closely with Nixon during that period and then and then Pat went on to serve as a White House special assistant through the final days of Watergate in the decades since he's been a syndicated columnist a political analyst a TV talk show regular editor and foundation chairman he was back in the White House for a couple of years in the mid-1980s as director of communications for Ronald Reagan and you know of course he tried running for president himself three times he's also written 11 other books a reading now about how Nixon managed to reverse his personal political fortunes reunited a splintered Republican Party and win the White House offers lessons that members of today's fractured GOP might find especially relevant Ben Stein writing in the American Spectator called Pat's book quote the ultimate insider's guide to how the great game of presidential politics is played ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming Pat Buchanan thank you very much Brad this is it's a sort of a homecoming for me I grew up in this neighborhood over on you till I haven't who my friend George Mathew least on Nebraska Avenue he and I went to grammar school together and I see some familiar faces here many of them but let me talk about about how Richard Nixon managed this managed what he achieved you know the very first words the President of the United States said to me Richard Nixon where Buchanan was that you throwing the eggs what had happened was that Richard Nixon had been inaugurated up on Capitol Hill and he was coming down Constitution Avenue in that period and debris and and rocks even an eggs that hit his limousine and I was going into the reviewing stand in front of the White House with Shelley and the Secret Service told me to move off the boards and step onto this muddy lawn and that's what Nixon said Buchanan was that you throwing the eggs now what that tells you about I think an indication of the divided city to which Richard Nixon came a hostile City to Nixon both houses of Congress for the first time in 150 years from Zachary Taylor were controlled by the opposition the bureaucracy had been built up in the New Deal fair deal and great society deeply Democratic the media was hostile to Nixon ever since the famous his case of 1948 so it was a hostile town that had just met previously broken Lyndon Johnson's presidency who had won that landslide in 64 and driven him from the presidency of the United States so let's go back and what was it like then for Nixon he had lost to Jack Kennedy in 1960 he had lost to Pat Brown for governor of California in 62 when that was over he let his temper get the better of him walked down and told the press corps you're not gonna have Nixon to kick around anymore because folks is in my last press conference and Nixon moved off to New York City to practice law anyone out and worked for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and campaigned in more states I think than Barry Goldwater campaign for himself my wife Shelly was on the plane with him and that's what she tells me and then Goldwater suffered the biggest wipeout of the Republican Party since Alf Landen so what do we have here in 1965 when I meet Nixon you have a political leader who has a ruined career a terminated career and he's in a party that has been shattered so badly that people are wondering can the Republican Party ever come back from the disastrous defeat Lyndon Johnson had 295 members of the House Republican Party was reduced to 140 one third of the Democratic strength what was that America like then in 1965 we had gone through the trauma of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas 1964 a year later at Berkley you had the first major campus riots and disorders in 1965 when I was leaving the globe-democrat you had the Watts rot the infamous Watts riot which was the worst race riot in American history since the Civil War so the country was sort of coming apart you had a defeated Richard Nixon as a candidate and as a politician and you had a broken Republican Party how did I get with Richard Nixon I was an editorial writer a young editorial writer in st. Louis 26 27 years old and I heard Nixon was coming out to Belleville Illinois to speak fill in for Everett Dirksen the United States Senator and Republican leader there and he was going to go to a cocktail party afterwards what at the home of Don Hess who was the cartoonist for the st. Louis globe-democrat and so I went to see his I said Don you got to invite me to your party and you got to get me into the kitchen and you got to get me so I can meet Nixon and so he said okay be there across the river and bail bail so I was there and I waited till Nixon's mode came out I went to that hessy's house and he brings me into the kitchen there's Richard Milhous Nixon and I went up to him and I said sir if you're gonna run in 1968 I'd like to get aboard early and he looked at me he says what do you do and I said I am the assistant editorial editor the st. Louis globe-democrat said I didn't ask you what your title is what do you do and so I explained to him we only had two editorial writers in the globe-democrat the Post Dispatch had eight so I said I write on everything I write on County affairs city affairs state politics national politics foreign policy everything and also at that point to make sure that that I impressed upon him that that I was the guy he might want to look at I said we've met before mr. vice president and he said when was that I said I was a caddy at burning tree Country Club twelve years ago when you came out one day and I went around 18 holes with you of golf and to make sure that he knew I wasn't bluffing I described his golf bag it's plaid I said and I named the pro at burning tree and the assistant pro a friend and I had summers were down at rolling wood you all nut might know where that was but we were going around the country clubs looking for a job that summer so then up Nixon I go to New York and Nixon brings me into his office after a three-hour wait and the office outside and where rosemary woods was and a lady named Patricia Ryan who happened to be Pat Ryan Nixon the future First Lady of the United States was handling telephones for him that was the only support he had so he questioned me for three hours every single issue you can imagine back and forth and we were done he said Buchanan I want to hire you for one year and he explained it look 68 s a long way off if we don't rebuild this party in 1966 the Republican nomination is not going to be worth anything in 1968 and he made me a great offer twelve thousand for the first six months fifteen thousand for the second that was thirteen five for the year which was fifty percent more than I was making and so I said he said what do you think I said I'll take it but you better call my publisher because he doesn't know I'm here so he called st. Louis and sure enough in January I was with Richard Nixon and Nixon had three assignments for me I was to deal with this huge pile of mail answer it all for his signature work on a syndicated column with him and then travel with him in the 1966 campaign or do all of his writing for it he didn't have anyone else and might looked at my role is somewhat larger I was I was determined I was going to make him the president the United States and so what we did one of the first things we did and it explains Nixon success in his comeback the best thing he did the wisest thing he did came natural he was a fighter and he was a Republican loyalist so when Goldwater was nominated and everyone trashed Goldwater and Rockefeller walked away and Romney said we want nothing to do with him and Scranton didn't support him Nixon went around and campaign for Goldwater in every single state he could he answered every call from Republicans so at the end of that campaign all these Goldwater folks these conservatives were deeply appreciative to Richard Nixon Nixon what was in Nixon's best personal interest was also the right thing to do so then in 66 Nixon set out to do the same thing this time in some we can't pain with him I was with him all during that campaign and for six weeks he went to something like 35 35 states 80 congressional districts and and campaign three and four and five hits every day speeches press conferences and all the rest of it and it was a my first campaign it was a Nixon predicted we would pick up 40 seats in the House and we're gonna pick up what'd he say three Senate seats and eight governors and they kept making this dramatic prediction and they were going to hold it to him obviously even let me take a couple of stories and of course from my standpoint in 1964 I had really been the Goldwater enthusiast I love the man I thought he candid maybe too candid at times and my great antagonist in life at that point was Nelson Rockefeller so let me tell you a story about during that campaign we were down in Arkansas at Fort Smith campaigning for John's and Paul hammerschmidt who incidentally would be the congressman who was elected that year who would defeat Bill Clinton I believe in his first race for office anyhow this is 66 we're down there and so Nixon says after we have our press conference in the morning in his speech in the morning I'm going he was going to his motel room and it's one of these low motels you know one-story high and it's you're inside the rectangle and you walk in and you the rooms are all around there and he said one thing Pat I don't want to be disturbed all right I want to get some sleep get a nap I want to be ready for my speech tonight I don't want to be disturbed so I go down to my room in the motel and I'm standing outside making sure nobody disturbs him but I'm about 50 60 yards away and this huge man starts across that quadrangle heading for Nick's straight for Nixon's door and he's yelling hey dick hey dick you know and he's headed right now so I started on a dead run I don't get there in time and he's hammering on Nixon's door like that and Nixon pulse it opened I'm behind him I just looked you know what have I done and Nixon says Pat meet win rockefeller it was Winthrop Rockefeller who was announced I mean Nelson's younger brother who it was great war hero had been involved in the scandal you know Bobo rockefeller in the 50s and everything but that's how I mean he was a wonderful guy we all left Arkansas wearing win with win hats you know cowboy hats it was a great campaign but the net other time in that campaign which was fairly dramatic was I got worried we're at the Bentson Hotel and Oregon and Pat hellings who was a congressman who took Nixon's old congressional seat and then eventually lost he came up to me and said Pat the old man's gonna endorse Nelson Rockefeller they cut a deal he's going to endorse I said so I went down the hall I went into the I walked into Nixon suite he wasn't there I heard a noise I went open the bathroom door he's about to get into the shower and I oh you're not going to endorse that SOB are you and Nixon turns and says don't worry Patton we're gonna get something for it and sure enough Nixon endorsed Nelson Rockefeller for governor in 1966 and went up to Syracuse Onondaga County and why did he do this he when when Rockefeller had treated him so Shapley when in New York they invited Nixon to nothing when he was up there he's a international figure international figure publican party treated him like dirt and he went out and endorsed Nelson Rockefeller well some of the same reasons why he's out there working because he is seeing in his vision if we're gonna put this party together we've got to do away with my ego we got to do away with all the animosities and things and if I endorsed Nelson Rockefeller in 1966 and I run in 68 and he's gonna have to endorse me and he can't walk away from me the way he did from Barry Goldwater that I think was in the back of his mind and that campaign which ended with a tremendous victory 47 House seats Republicans picked up that year I think was exactly the three Senate seats eight governors that really boosted Richard Nixon and at the end of it he got into a head to head collision with Lyndon Johnson over a statement that I helped write it was reprinted in the New York Times two thousand words and LBJ got up when that thing hit we charged him having analyzed his statement that he had released it a communique from the manila summit he had attended we say if you follow this policy mr. president you're opening the door to an American defeat in Vietnam and there's on Johnson's tapes he has talking to Hubert Humphrey and I have it atop one of the chapters and what Johnson's reaction was when he saw it that morning he called Humphrey and said did you see what that SOB Nixon said about us this morning then he went into a press conference and ripped up Nixon for ten minutes it was the worst beating abuse that any president joelkat any President had ever delivered to a leader of the opposition said Jules wit cover the correspondent but Nixon the Nixon lucked out because Mike Wallace was at LaGuardia Airport I listened to it live when Nixon came out I explained to him exactly what the part of the president has just delivered the worst beating to us I've ever heard of president make and Nixon said okay sit down and tell me what he said and Mike Wallace was interviewing Nixon at the airport and so Wallace got on a plane and followed it followed after he got the news followed us up to Waterville Maine and Nixon we flew around and waited Nixon gets off the plane and he's all magnanimity you know the Johnson president works extremely hard I can understand his agony his anger and all the rest of it totally against going against the grain of what Nixon's supposed to be just gracious and said but I think we have to answer these questions on Vietnam in the from the liberal press to the conservative press everybody agreed Richard Nixon had bested Lyndon Johnson in the faceoff at the end of the 66 campaign Nixon was back in the hunt however the next weekend Time and Newsweek came out with a cover story on the great Republican resurgence that Republican comeback they had six people on the cover they had Nelson Rockefeller Ronald Reagan George Romney mark Hatfield Chuck Percy and Edie Brooke time had the same cover as Newsweek all six people Nixon was nowhere and his staff was not amused but in in retrospect it was a excellent thing because Nixon it was an excellent thing because they were all put out front and Nixon could recede a bit and that's it exactly what he said he was going to do it on a Sunday TV show he announced I'm gonna take a six-month moratorium from politics because he had a great great ending to the 66th campaign he knew he was a the whole country and the party had all seen him go head to head with the president on stage and seen him win the battle win the faceoff and then he says I'm going to take six months vacation and so I went up to him and I said is this wise you know the polls show Governor George Romney is running ahead not only of us for the nomination he's eight points ahead of Lyndon Johnson for the presidency of the United States he's going to be out there and we're gonna be doing nothing and he could amass a lead that maybe we can't even match down the road so is it really wise and he said to me a man in an EXO nyan were a phrase Pat let him chew on him for a little while and by that he meant his friends in the press corps that if the Romney got out there Nixon pulled back they're not gonna be attacking Nixon had a great ending to the campaign and Romney's gonna be out there and Nixon I think assess that Romney didn't really have it but in any event he said let him go out there for the first six months and and that's exactly what mr. Romney did and then came nineteen six gel I of 1967 the Detroit riots they broke out Detroit and Newark Detroit is in its mess today because of that ride in 67 and I was writing law and order of speeches and law and order stuff for US News and World Report and for Reader's Digest for Nixon and Romney however as Nixon anticipated had one of the worst rollouts I've ever seen before Obamacare quite frankly I mean this rollout of his campaign he clearly was unprepared he was not knowledgeable on Vietnam and he had yet he had a very explosive temper and it was not us it was the national press corps I kept sending nixon clippings I said I can't believe how vicious this stuff is on one guy sent Andrew Tully I don't know if anybody remembers him but he wrote one thing that was so savage on Romney I said so this is when Romney's an inauguration speech for governor for his third term I said sure this is this is one of the most vicious things I've ever seen and he wrote back at the top of my memo you ought to see what he writes about me and he said by the way when you're in DC go see him he's a terrific guy but Romney's Romney's rollout was so bad Murray Kempton whom I admired as he was a liberal writer at the New York Post I'd admired him when I was in journalism school and I went up to watch Romney deliver a speech to some group in New York a large group and I looked over and there's the great Murray Kempton you know one of my journalistic heroes and I said what is he gonna write about Romney tomorrow now George Romney mitts father had been the head of American Motors a tremendous success and the success was built on the Nash and ler which was a small car and was really selling like all these other cars want and I said what is Kempton gonna write tomorrow morning and I picked up the New York Post and the first line was Kempton s column the Nash Rambler must have been a hell of a car if George Romney was able to sell it so that file that following that was when George Romney in late August of 1967 early September went on Lew Gordon's new I mean this new radio show which was going national and announced that he had been wrong all along about Vietnam and there what had happened when he was in 1965 when he had been over there the generals and the diplomats had given him a brainwashing and that it was a couple days later that hit the headlines in the New York Times Romney he says he's been brainwashed there's not particularly good for a candidate and gene McCarthy you and it's very sharp wit he was a very witty fellow he said you know Romney's case that there was no need for a full brainwashing that a light rinse would have sufficed so but this is what's happening to our opponent while Nixon Nixon I was off in the Middle East traveling with Nixon Nixon made four trips two of them around the world to Latin America you know burnishing his credentials is a great foreign policy scholar doing a great job but staying out of the news other than you know Nixon arrives in such in Jakarta Nixon and Romania and everything and so that was where the Romney thing just began to go go down but the point was Romney was basically the candidate of the Eastern liberal establishment the rockefeller wing of the Republican Party them and he remained that and he didn't drop out despite the new New York excuse me Detroit News which was supportive telling him to drop out in favor of Rockefeller he kept going go on and headed for New Hampshire and he went up there ahead of us and again I told Nixon in December my friend Nick timís I was a columnist came to see me he said look Romney is a demon campaigner there's a hardest-working guy I've ever seen he's going to six and seven coffee klatches a day he could lock up that state before you guys get up there so of course I went to Nixon again I said are we really wise not going up there and he said we're gonna go with our gameplan Nixon did not even announce for the New Hampshire primary until six weeks before the primary and we went up there on one in in February first in a night flight sacred night flight to Logan and then we drove him into Nashua and I was in the car about four or five of us there took him in and registered him in a motel under the name Benjamin Chapman and so when we were gone down when we were registered him we walked him down the aisle he had a hat on and so keep the head down and he's inebriated fellows headed toward us out of the bar and he keeps looking at Nixon and looking at him as he's gone by did not recognize him I think thought he had but anyhow we got Nixon in there on February first six weeks before the primary now what happened that February first as we were going to New Hampshire my younger brother was in Vietnam as we were going to New Hampshire the Tet Offensive began the very first day 1st of February and it was this huge attacks all over their cities of South Vietnam they the enemy hit away they took out three thousand people and executed them and they might have lost fifty thousand it was a tremendous battle one of the great battles of the military battles of the post-war era and all this was going on and we were in there only for weeks we campaigned and one of the things we did in the campaign was because we'd looked at the bread the books of 1960 Teddy White all that that Nixon had been tired and exhausted and angry and all the rest of it we would take him in campaign him hard for two or three days he'd do all this and we all get on a Lear jet fly down to Key Biscayne for a couple of days while Romney is really plowing up there in New Hampshire after four weeks Romney and we were two weeks out from the election our secret polls had us our private polls had us went in five two one Romney was about to be blown out by Nixon in the New Hampshire primary so he quits the race drops out denies us the victory we had been working for for so long time it was a little bit of bitterness on our part but then comes March so we're alone now in New Hampshire and for the last two weeks then comes March keen McCarthy gets 42% of the vote against Lyndon Johnson who's a write-in candidate in the New Hampshire primary tremendous wounding McCarthy's a national figure three or four days later Bobby Kennedy gets into the race seeing that Johnson's bleeding he gets into the race and he began to savage Lyndon Johnson astonishingly I've got memos to the mr. Nixon saying you know this is unbelievable things he's saying about the president United States and he says collect them all and there's better ones than that and so Bobby Kennedy looks like he's taken on Johnson and Johnson is bleeding the last day of March Johnson announces he's not going to run again says I'm not that's it Nixon had me out at an airport he was in Wisconsin I was in a limo at the LaGuardia private terminal and so Jason told me you know you get in the limo on you my limo and you sit and listen to that radio speech when Vietnam because that's what he was talking about and you tell me what he says when I get back from Wisconsin and come onto the plane and tell me so when I get out for the press I don't know what to say and so I was in that limo and he had an african-american driver and and who had been his permanent driver for a long time was a friend of ours and if we were sitting in we both listened quietly and Johnson says and I will not accept I will not seek and I will not accept the nomination this driver said I told you so I predicted this and I said no just drive this car down to that plane and get as close to it as you can as soon as you get there let me out and I'll run and get on the plane and so that's exactly what happened that that Learjet and these reporters they're gaggle of reporters are coming across and I came running right across in front of I get on the plane and I tell I said Johnson's not running again sir says okay and he gets tired and he says well it looks like the year the dropout and which was a little ungracious I thought for the president United States resent leaving office for good so but that changed everything and on the way in you know I told him in my fear was never Bobby Kennedy because I didn't think he had Jack's charisma or his ability or his reach into the center of politics or humor of the rest of it and I thought we could beat Bobby we probably got the nomination but Hubert Humphrey scared me because Hubert was a proud liberal he'd been a great civil rights leader and he could bring the liberal wing the anti-war part of the party back together with the Lyndon Johnson wing and unite those two so we talked about that going into going into New York City and then came we arrived that was the last day of March and then we arrived in April and on the fourth day of April dr. King was assassinated in Memphis and all of a sudden a hundred of American cities including our own City for those of us who grew up here we're on we're in flames there were riots or burning looting federal troops were in countless cities National Guard called out everywhere number of dead was tremendously arrested were in the tens of thousands and so it was the worst violence I think domestic violence the nation had suffered since the Civil War and at that point in Maryland the liberal governor of Maryland Spiro Ted Agnew had been elected passed an open housing law was considered a liberal governor was had been for Scranton in 64 and Rockefeller in 68 he he was he watched his city of Baltimore burning and the civil rights leaders who were there had not condemned Stokely Carmichael the incendiary basically responsible for stirring a lot of folks up so he called all these TV cameras in and he let the civil rights leaders have it right there and said I'm going to condemn every white racist in the south now he named three or four governors and I want you to condemn Stokely Mike Carmichael in these black races and it was an explosive event and they walked out and it was carried the New York Times and I cut it out over the story and sent it up to Nixon you know and I said this is a liberal governor of Maryland this is Spiro Agnew you know and Nixon had been impressed with him before he'd been the leader of the rockefeller forces so that that's in early April then in later April I had been going to graduate school at Columbia Columbia exploded in the worst violence and on any campus I believe far worse than Berkeley in late April Marc Rudd and the rest of them black radicals and white radicals alike had taken over the dean's office occupied the buildings they were and they've refused to leave and they had to call in the cops from New York City New York's finest had to come in and clear it so that's what April was like meanwhile Nixon we're going through the primaries winning every one but not only winning them because we had no opposition but rolling out tremendous totals surprising totals for a candidate who had no opponents for example in New Hampshire if you look to the vote totals Romney's out of the race Nixon's totals on the Republican side and the Democratic right inside exceeded the totals of Romney of rockefeller of Bobby Kennedy of Lyndon Johnson of Eugene McCarthy put together now what does that tell you it told us that this the largest turnout ever in a Republican primary and they're all coming out for Nixon even when he doesn't have opposition what that tells you is there's a real demand for a change here in this country and the country is beginning to look to the Republican Party as its only hope I mean because Nixon is not a charismatic candidate and this happened again and the other primaries in Indiana and Nebraska record totals and then we got to Oregon and Nixon wins the Oregon with 70% and not match that Lee and I were out at the Bentson hotel again and so Nixon goes downstairs had a celebratory dinner and then Bobby Kennedy astoundingly was beaten in the Oregon primary the first defeat this is like May 28th 1968 first defeat by a Kennedy since Jack Kennedy came home from the war in 1946 and I said I got to see this so we went down to the front door of the Benson Bobby Kennedy gets out of the car he's got freckles the dog with him and Teddy White's with him and he came in and I what follow came around and I got into the into the room it was much like this except he was on a stage and he delivered a concession speech and I had not been a fan of Bobby Kennedy's at all which was the most gracious one of the most gracious I've ever heard he was just to McCarthy Jean ran a fine race here he won his victory I want to congratulate senator mccarthy and we're gonna have another race in california and let's go to california but just positive uplifting even though he'd been beaten and even though california was undecided so then that followed that a week later i was at in my apartment in new york when Jeff bell who's incidentally now running for the Senate from New Jersey on the Republican side it was a young kid then back from Vietnam he he called me it don't at the my apartment and said Bobby Kennedy's been shot and so I called up Nixon's office and he was already up because Julie and David had been watching watching it so he went to the funeral it just was a you just wasn't appalling appalling year in a lot of ways and then Bobby Kennedy's been shot and then we have a battle inside the Nixon White House Nixon not white I was then campaign over how we defeat Hubert Humphrey who is a liberal and mainstream Democrat in the center and George Wallace George Curley Wallace the governor of Alabama is winning 21% of the vote at that point he's got 21% of all the votes all these anti Great Society Democrats by and large are all going over to George Wallace and so we have two didn't get Wallace's votes if we can and get Humphreys Oates & Humphries running five points ahead of us in every up every poll and so I sent the mr. Nixon a memo which is in the book mentions I said that you know served a win this thing we're gonna have to be bold and I can think of nothing bolder than putting the hero of bedtime for Bonzo on the National ticket that was Ronald Reagan who is the Governor of California and who was famous then for that movie where he'd he and a chimp had to starred together so but any we all fought over that all that summer over who we should pick for vice-president who we should pick - somebody - could fight Wallace in the south well Nixon fought Humphrey in the center so we get to Miami Beach and the he selects Spiro Agnew and what Spiro Agnew was known for then was the guy who read the riot act to the civil rights leader Mike Wallace who was a very friendly very friendly to us he was with CBS Mike Wallace we went down there with Nixon to the press conference and Mike Wallace said you blankety-blank have just blown this election fitting this clown you all are crazy everything you've worked for is gone and so we said well my take it easy Mike but even who gets up there so I go upstairs with Nixon and Nixon says come on in and watch his press conference with me and we watch Agnew who was very tough and very authoritative in the press craft that press was all over his case and Nixon says Buchanan I think we've got ourselves a hanging judge here and so it would prove to be and so that was at that point I asked Nixon that once our convention was over if I could go out to the Democratic convention in Chicago I said I think it's going to be interesting and I can be your eyes and ears at the Democratic convention you want my report sir you know I desperately wanted to go I just wanted to because I said history is going to be made at this place so I'm out and I'm we got they got me a reservation in a room on the 19th floor of what we called the Comrade Hilton hotel on Michigan Avenue and so I got appropriately I was down in the grant park and I said I've writes in the book you know I'd wear coat and tie I ever since I went to Kansai again Georgetown that's my uniform and soon as I got the grant Parker these kids are pointing over there FBI FBI FBI the parochial school uniform so when we got I got we got gas one day and we ran down Michigan Avenue and we couldn't get into the hotels and I finally got to my own and got in there and went down to wash my eyes out from the gas and there was a great Tom wicker the correspondent from the New York Times he'd been gassed too so I felt a lot better about it there and and then you know Nixon would call up and Nixon call one night at one o'clock in the morning and he said what's going on there Buchanan what's going on up there I'm watching television I said you want to know what's going on sir I open the window and put the phone out in here it's comments about daily and jobs all these obscenities coming up from nineteen stories I said that's what's going on out here sir so it was it was remarkable and then we went to the at the final event I was in by myself on the 19th floor it's around six o'clock I think it was Wednesday night and into my our suite the empty suite where I was walks Norman Mailer and Jose Torres the light heavyweight champion of the world I recognized him hello Norman how are you you know I'd been down at the levitation of the Pentagon that did not succeed at in 67 where he'd written his armies of the night and got his great award for that and so we're talking and conservatism Norman liked to talk you know did talk with conservatives and Huggy for them and we heard the commotion and we went to that we went to the window and looked down there and you saw the cops coming up Balboa I never forget it coming up Balboa and stop and they let the mule train go by the hotel and then people were jammed up and people over in Grant Park in this his whole phalanx of cops just came and just went into Grant Park right below us and just wailed on these guys again and again they the kids have been abusing the cops and insulting the cops for days and they just cut loose and beat him up something terror fears and we got when I got back in the hotel there got some bloody kids all over the place but it was a it was a real but it was the Battle of Chicago and my future friend Hunter Thompson was down there and Hunter said and honor wrote later that Richard Nixon is president of United States because of what happened at Michigan and Balboa that night and it was his story nobody was killed and I don't know how anybody was really hospitalized but it was just a brawl and a fists in a fight and cops with the sticks and these these kids basically all many of them running and but it was a dramatic scene I must I must tell you so from there let me just conclude and maybe I've gone on too long here after that I mean we had our plan we came out he came out of the convention Wallace was at 21% Hubert Humphrey was at 28% and we were at 43 15 points ahead it looked like we could not lose this election but then in Humphrey had a terrible September everywhere he went they were yelling dump the hump dump the home and they wouldn't they wouldn't let him speak it really was a it was you know and he said himself said it said in First Amendment this is fascism and he was being denied his right to run the campaign he wanted but then he went out finally and he did what he believed I think was right he I don't think he was a Hulk on Vietnam he went out and gave a speech in Salt Lake City on the 30th of September I believe or the 1st of October famous Salt Lake City speech and he said basically if I'm elected there will be a bombing halt and we're going to never gonna end the war in Vietnam in other words it's will end it very fast and get it done get it off the table and the whole anti-war movement came back and rejoined Humphrey at the same time George Wallace put Curtis LeMay on his ticket and the first question LeMay got was would you use nuclear weapons in dinner oh he said I'd use anything you know sure you know nuclear weapons people get people are paranoid about these things he said we tested new weapons out in them bikini atoll or something he said you know and now there'll be two guava bushes and all this they're all back there said the sand crabs are a little hot you know and if you can if you see film of it you can see George Wallace coming in from the sidelines at that statement lamech grabbing the general and trying to get him out of there but then so Wallace starts sinking and the labor unions come out and say Wallace's of rotten labor record in Alabama and no Union Gas should vote for Wallace and then you get to anti-war group so this went on and on and on for five weeks and as I mentioned it was Humphrey twenty-eight Nixon 43 and we got down to the night before the Saturday before the elections were out in California to hotel my friend Sears calls me and said we've lost Michigan Michigan's gone and we're three down in the Harris Poll Lew Harris's poll had at forty three Humphrey forty Nixon Saturday before the election so I went up to Nixon suite and went in and there was Nixon and bebe bebe rebozo and her watching the Oregon Ducks play football and I said I gave him the news and they said well thanks good enough take it easy you know and they seemed unfazed by it and Nixon did hold that Monday night and I worked on it the for our telethon nationwide the Nixon Nets and other gals would get the questions phoned in questions would be taken from them and brought into a back room where Shelley was rosemary woods and other gals were there to retype the questions and I would rewrite him and rephrase him and so we get the they get the questions and I put him in a packet and we'd sent him out to Nixon for hours he did on that he had only planned to and he did a second two hours he thinks that won him the election but we were almost quite frankly and if you again if in the book I think that Hubert Humphrey ran a magnificent fall campaign in October one of the best in political history and he almost put us into the history books with Tom Dewey but not quite thank you very much we'd be happy to take your questions I think they've got a couple of microphones and if you're if you don't get to a microphone can you hear me yes sir my name is Alexis of shankha thank you very much I have a very simple question who among Republican possible Republican candidates candidates II would endorse for 2000 I endorsed most of them I don't think would want my endorsement to be right they don't want to carry that baggage whom what I endorse you know there's there's really none that I would endorse right now I think there's a lot of the Republicans have each of them have features that I think would make a an outstanding candidate but of an of an outstanding candidate but they've all in my view they've all got drawbacks now and so I haven't endorsed anyone and and so and I'm not going to and I think we're gonna water wait for the primaries to sort these folks out as we saw the last time you know their candidates rose up and fell and collapse and I think you got you could get that again but you know if you ask which candidate and I've tried to think what is closest to Nixon you know who's really been defeated twice and but who's a major national figure yet but he was seen as a loser I think the closest to that depiction might be Mitt Romney right now who apparently see I see the look of consternation but I think he would be closest to that description but nobody but I went to work for Nixon he was world famous I mean it had been about Alger Hiss case in the forties and in the anti-communist campaigns of the 50s with I took on the ticket and you know with Khrushchev and they in the kitchen debating it oh I've been all through these things and he'd been in there with JFK so he was a tremendous figure there's nobody in the Republican Party that has the kind of credentials or weight or gravity and it's perceived so as Richard Nixon did in 1965 yes sir yes sir right there yeah this ought to be another softball question I think he said it's gonna be another softball question yeah I don't think I'm not sure than Mike so I'll repeat your question I'll repeat it okay it's kind of a more general version of the one you just talked about but what of the what we might call the Nick Sounion strategy both for kind of taking repair or taking care of your own party as well as strategy campaign strategy against an opponent say you know okay in a presidential all right whatever that has relevance to today situation well some of it does the gentleman wants to know what relevance does the Nixon comeback in the political strategy of 66 67 66 T today one relevances has is look the Republican Party if it's not United very probably he's going to get beat Nixon went out and he determined to through patience and perseverance he went out and endorsed Javits he endorsed rockefeller endure he was with Goldwater he campaigned for everyone except for members of the John Birch Society quite frankly and so he pulled the party together in 66 and he campaigned in 68 in a way they would make sure it stayed together you had the favorite sons in various states so Nixon said okay you can be favored son basically on the first ballot but the end of the first ballot you got to release your delegates and Nixon agreed not to go into states like we didn't go into California against Reagan we could have beaten Reagan Nixon was much stronger on a national level and rated but we said okay put some of our guys in your delegations and your guys in your delegations and so we cut these deals to make sure that when he won the nomination nobody would have his nose out of joint has happened at the Cow Palace now what is different what is different today is not the the the Goldwater Tea Party and the establishment Republicans and regular Republicans is very similar what is different is we could see down the road the great Nixon one of the reasons Nixon president of FDR was splitting apart is you got George Wallace is carrying all the Deep South states got Bobby Kennedy gene McCarthy George McGovern out of the convention denouncing the and Humphrey people he got the Johnson Humphrey Center this mighty coalition that FDR put together in 1932 we could see the northern Catholics as we call them then and the southern Protestants eventually breaking off and enabling us to put together the new majority which Nixon did in 72 now what I don't see today is I don't um it's hard for me to see the coalition let me give one statistic 18 states have gone Democratic in six straight elections in DC and they include California New York Illinois in Pennsylvania for mega states the three mega states Republicans used to have Ohio Florida in Texas Texas is still solid Ohio and Florida are up for grabs I think Barack Obama won them once or twice or twice probably in some cases so I think it's very hard to see a real future for the party and you see the demography of the nation has changed the number of people who are beneficiaries of social programs it's up around 100 million and you're talking about being the party that cuts government you're going to be cutting cutting what they depend on them you say we're going to cut taxes and they say well we don't pay income taxes below a certain level so it's a very tough tough uphill uphill grind for the Republican Party on the long term okay yes sir Pat two or three questions um did you have us a white one of those White House briefings where you guys got about five questions if we want to drop you a line do you have a peel box in McLain we can do the snail mail route did you have a peel box well Buchanan dot org the website will probably get it to me then I'll meet Linda Muller is right there and she runs the website um did your brother get back from Vietnam safely back in 1969 was 1968 the worst year in American history well you know it was the worst year I think well when I say worst year in American history that and you know I had uncles over during their World War two in places like the Anzio and but it domestically in terms of American politics it was probably the worst year of the 20th century but being look we had a civil war we got six hundred and twenty thousand Americans and so that was and you can't compare anything to that but there's no doubt in my lifetime and we're still living with the consequences of the revolutions of the 1960's um can you say a word or two about Tom Braden and your experience with him on WRC radio and for the average for the average person today what about the solution of balkanization well Tom Braden was a good friend of mine we did used to do WRC radio over there in Nebraska Avenue and out of that came a show called after hours with Gordon Peterson out of which came crossfire on CNN and which was the number one rated show on cable of course we don't have any competition number one rated show on cable and CNN dominated everything and I think it's been a for better or worse it's been a model for enough back and forth programs so yes let's go over here sir I want to thank you for coming tonight okay well I'll repeat the question sir go ahead I can hear it well thank you for coming tonight mr. Buchanan my question was to what extent were you involved with some of the major foreign policy decisions of the Nixon administration say the opening with China or the Pakistani civil war well the opening to China I initially opposed I've got a man and then after I opposed it Nixon said I'm going I said well I'd like to go also I think it's my turn so but really it was a very bad time for me I was I thought well I'll get into it in my next book but I thought that we I was a great admirer and supporter of Taiwan's and I was very concerned that we had they had been ignored while we were in their Beijing you know toasting mouths a tongue you know who was not one of my most admired people so I think but then mainly the foreign policy decisions I think I had an influence over the fact when the president delivered that speech the November 3rd Street the most important speech he I think he delivered in his presidency which were he called for the great silent majority to stand with him he wrote it entirely himself but I was pushing him and pushing him I said our presence he's going to be broken just like Lyndon Johnson's unless you rallied the American be well it's us sir there was 500,000 people in streets you're gonna decide which way this country goes and he I think he made the decision partly based on that and so that and I wrote I worked with him on the speech of the Cambodian invasion you know which unfortunately four days later we had ken's state so thank you yes sir thank you yes sir on our earlier Cold War with the Soviet Union and I asked this question because there's so many different views about it how will history record or what was Nixon's view or your view on what were the principal drivers that ended our Cold War with Soviet Union that's that's an excellent question I think the there are a number of fortunately the gentleman asked what were the principal factors dropped behind America's ultimate triumph in the Cold War one was I think quite candidly the superiority of the American economic system and its ability to throw off enormous amounts of wealth that enabled Ronald Reagan to build up American defenses to a point where we break the Soviet Union because it was much smaller economy despite what they were talking about I was a try Kovac with with President Reagan and the Soviets had call that Gorbachev had called that meeting because they were scared to death whether other Americans might not have been they were scared to death of SDI the Strategic Defense Initiative I got into a nasty argument with a field marshal akram I off who said you know this thing is not going to work and I said we're gonna buddy houston astrodome over our country and I think I think he I think he felt we might just do it but that was one factor and secondly was look the Soviet Union Ronald Reagan called it an evil empire it was those people were held in bondage in Eastern Europe the Hungarians had risen up the Czechs had risen up the poles had risen up at times East Germans and they all knew it and me and people in Eastern Europe looked West and he said why are they doing so well and we aren't doing this well if we've got a superior system so I think that was that was a factor as well I just think in the long run as long as we avoided a huge war which would have destroyed us both that communism simply is not a workable system Marxism Leninism does not work and and eventually it kept revealing its weaknesses to us and I remember when I was with Nixon and the people didn't I was with Nixon in when they the American astronauts went went down and went in the Pacific the first moon moon shot the moon landing and they came back and Nixon was out there and he sent me to Romania and I was by myself he was going to come into Romanian he did and the place was just cheering the president United States this was as Russia Soviet satellite under shell Cisco but I remember going into a restaurant at the Anthony Palace by myself and I was sitting there and I ordered a beer and so this young kid comes over and he he said I'm gonna get two East German beer the best beer we got he brings it out and he turned he looks around he says a pillow you know these guys were tremendously moved by that and but and so I think those were the reason he was just fundamentally an unworkable system and and I think Reagan's leadership was tremendously important I think George Bush did HW Bush did a wonderful job at the end of that Cold War I would just say I was with George McGovern in the year 2000 with Gorbachev and he gave a remarkably similar answer to the innocence of yours well Gorbachev was wise man let me tell you a story about Gorbachev when I was at I was at Riga Vick and I was my Tony Dolan was going to write the speech but I was head of speech writers and so I got we got the speech done based on we'd had that successful summit we had it written up so I went to hophni house and we were up in the top room and after in the second second floor and he had a common room where I was gotten the argument for that Chrome off the Soviets had this room down there and we had the room on the left and so they were coming down for the final meeting Nixon held up the meeting and I mean it's when I'm at home but Reagan had held up the meeting because he thought they could get a deal they didn't have one so all of it that Gorbachev and Reagan came out and went downstairs with Shultz and and what's-his-name the Foreign Minister who just died Shevardnadze they went down into the small room downstairs and they before they could get by stood at the door of the common room because I wanted to see every one of them it was a very long narrow narrow little you know path it's like I want a motel second story of a motel and so the Soviets all came and I was just about I mean I was just clipped far closer than I am to you they were walking by slowly and if one after another after another and I was just looking at him and Gorbachev came by and he's not a tall man he's not a tall man and I looked down at him and you know what I said to myself that's Al Capone I swear that's what went so but it's but it went you know it was such a it was such a great event well I don't want to go into all the stories we went you know Reagan conducted himself so beautifully there just beautifully you'd have been proud of him okay so we can I don't know I'm not sure what your view is on American Stasi our American citizens civil liberties are under assault we're being spied upon mm-hm and it almost feels like it I don't want to tweet I don't want to be on the Internet I don't want to surf you know and anything not to be paranoid or anything but as they would say it's none of their goddamn business what what well you know what what is your view on that and I think there are a lot of Americans agree with you and I share a lot of your sentiments in this sense that I mean what we had I mean during the Cold will hurt there in the terrible times when Chris javanese people got these nuclear weapons I mean I can recall growing up here we played football down on the East ellipse owned by the White House see Harry Harry Truman walking by with Secret Service guys to try out for the morning stroll and it was a free country and now you go up there they got all the everywhere you go there's security there's at airports there's TSA there buildings I go into you got to have your ID your photo ID and you're talking about something very serious what is the price what is the price of the kind of security these folks believe we have to have I mean I'm wondering about all I mean when they start talking about you know going beyond the you know going out and just picking up at random all the phone calls and things are they going through these things they've got the ability to do it I think you folks are raising a lot of legitimate valid concerns which are shared by an awful lot of people folks in the public and party Rand Paul is very much out front on this issue so but I do believe in dirty and I do you know look look at this is of course that plane was shot down but you know you get you get one more action and somebody gets on a plane with a bomb and it's going to be even tighter in this country I can see I didn't satisfy every theory the answer no he says yes sir sir you've written quite a bit and there's also been ton of other books about the Nixon years like you know Nixon's in the arena or sapphires before the fall or do you think are the best books to read about Nixon that's the second best book to read about next night well this I think this is a I think this well there's only a few books about to come back the resurrection incidentally of Richard Nixon's by Jules Witt cover who didn't like what dish didn't like Nixon it comes through if he'd gotten some of that out of there I used him more than any other person in there I'm just trying to think there's been a number of biographies the biographies of Nixon and it's hardened I think Ambrose Ambrose was pretty good I think you know but when the point is when you know someone as well as you we knew Nixon my wife and I and you start reading it it's what they are they're sort of watch seeing the things from outside and you know what was going on because you were on the inside and it's some of it it rings like they're you know they got clippings and they got it out of other books and things and they weren't there you know so I can't I cannot think of one I would put as the supreme you know the best the best book on Richard Milhous Nixon I mean you get Lyndon Johnson of course you got Robert Caro's ten-volume series on wynnejoy but he gets into all that but of course you got a point of view too but he's a very gifted writer and that's but you know we're basically I it's somebody who can write well and it tells stories and anecdotes in a book even if he does not think get some this fax might not be as correct as some of the others they tend to be more readable and you get into him let me tell you the book on I shouldn't mention I think maybe I saw it here you know I was grew up and my father my late father had said you know when he died I said in his EULA that he never used bad language of any kind except when he was talking about FDR and Truman and he had a papal dispensation but I we were down on Truman but I read this McCulloch biography of Truman and honestly you come away with some real admiration for Harry Truman that you never had before and a really gifted writer who can tell a story about somebody they can change your view and to me that's the that's the kind of books I'm most interested in rather than the recitation of what they did and didn't do sir okay going back you discussed how the Cambodian incursion speech by Nixon was probably your most important speech that you worked on it's the son of chaplain immigrants my father fought for the Khmer Republic fought for London all no no yes sir and is it true that you knew about the bombings before Henry Kissinger and number two if Nixon was not forced to resign do you think he would have prevented Pol Pot from attaining power in 1975 good questions good questions I knew about the Cambodian bombing I went into Nixon the speech when Cambodia was a speech that was held was secret and I went into Nixon called me down to his office and said we're going to invade Cambodia we're going into Cambodia we're going into the parrot speak we're going into these all eight of these sanctuaries for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese and he said and we're already bombing them and I said sir for your bombing them they're going to know we're coming and he said no patent we've been bombing them for a long time and I did not know we'd been bombing Cambodia that was a secret but Henry Kissinger knew it and and see me and Kissinger certainly knew it he'd done the draft firstly after the speech that Nixon didn't like and so we were Henry it's it's back and forth and an awful lot of bureaucratic games working with Henry Kissinger that exhaust an awful lot of people he's a brilliant guy brilliant guy but on what happened in Cambodia the Holocaust in Cambodia there must have been a million people that died in that yeah and they're set up a country of seven million that's the worst thing to come out of Watergate was Cambodia and Vietnam going down the boat people and the Holocaust in Cambodia I think if Nixon Watergate hadn't damage Nixon I don't think the North Vietnamese would attacked for this reason and it's ended mind the Harbert Haiphong he had bombed him knowing I remember talking to him at Christmas 60 70 70 to going through the line and I said you know mr. president I know you're catching hell for this but I'm very proud of you for you know for for what the b-52s are doing over Hanoi to end this war and I think that that like Eisenhower I don't think Khrushchev would have challenged Eisenhower the way he did Kennedy whom he judged to be weak mistakenly and I think the North Vietnamese would not have made their move in 1975 and Nixon hadn't gone out of the White House in 74 and Congress had not tied the hands of the government of the United States and coming to the aid of the north of the South Vietnamese and Cambodians the way we had promised we would thank you sir and welcome to the USA okay okay I guess that's we get one more over here all right thank you this is a more personal question about Nixon again you were there you knew him very very well say something about the the intellectual dimensions of the man why did he like to read did he go to theater what kind of films did is see we have sort of headlines about Nixon but I don't have a sense of what he was really like at least intellectually all right he didn't usually like he didn't usually pay attention to novels capable of honor which was a novel by the same fellow that wrote advise and consent drawing he loved that because it tore the press to pieces he required all of us to read this and it was a very enjoyable novel as I said it was not subtle but he but he loved that and but what he liked me let me tell you what you do I'd go into his office and this is when I was just rosemary woods and perhaps Atlanta and the mrs. Nixon and he'd called me in there and he told me once if I had to practice law the rest of my life I'd be mentally dead in two years and physically in four and he wanted to know about issues what about Vietnam what are the conservatives thing you know what's the conservative movement all about what about this and one thing he was in the capacities he had I have one in the book I forget who it was a brighter for the New Republic and I said the guys are gifted writer sir but he's far on the left and he wrote back said I don't care if he's on the left or not a lot of these folks that are on the left you bring him in and you can you can bring him aboard I mean he was intellectually curious to the end of his life I remember once when the you know you've heard that everybody's heard about the battle with the neoconservatives and in the 1980s at one point he called me from Saddle River and says okay what is this battle that you deser happened with the neoconservatives who are they what do they represent what are the areas of disagreement he was intellectually curious his whole life he loved to read he was open to ideas and people who were who were on the other side consider he brought in Pat Moynihan Kennedy Scott in domestic policy Kissinger is Rockefellers man he brings him as and assigns him to the foreign policy John Connolly was LBJ's man LBJ's protege brings him into the Treasury he was not afraid at all of being with big people he wanted people as smart or smarter than he was but one thing he had was he was not ideological the way we were yeah we were younger I was very much you know solid conservative social conservative and he would and I would call it a meeting we had I saw me a Catholic conservative Goldwater right you had Bob Ellsworth who was a liberal Republican Wednesday clubber from ex-congressman you had Ray Price Republican establishment editorial writer New York Herald Tribune and yet Len garment Jewish intellectual liberal and very passionate about civil rights and he had us all lined up there and he's talking issues and he's watching the reaction of each of us because we were like antenna you know if the radar goes off here these fellows are going to have a problem with this issue and so he built all I mean in I mean I work with Regan but I think in terms of intellectual mean Regan was was committed and dedicated philosophically and deeply grounded and Nixon was more of an eclectic I mean he would pick ideas and thoughts of him conservatives at one point you mean when mentioned the Cambodian speech he got me to write it because he's had enough he'd been trying to get a peace deal with the North Vietnamese and they were sniffing him you know so we're gonna have to do something let's get the hardliner in here to work on it with me you know and then it'd be cannon you're out we had a bad campaign in seventy let's bring in the blue sky guys you know and it was it was all back and constantly back and forth inside that White House there's the arguments and disagreements over which way to go how to build the new coalition and it was it was a real place of intellectual ferment you know yeah it wasn't no it wasn't all break-ins and stuff one more okay we're facing the start of the new Cold War now the developments in Ukraine right if you were to advise the administration first I don't believe we're facing a new Cold War for the simple reason that there's no ideology involved Soviet Union had communist Marxist Leninist ideology in addition to Russian what you imperialism combined and I don't see that the ideology to me is dead so I don't see that kind of cold war I think Putin is in in a tradition of a he's a great power chauvinist and he's a nationalist and he wants to be respected taken seriously treated as an equal power by the United States he's going to take care of his the Russians and the near abroad and I don't I don't see the the Menace that others see in Putin I mean what's going on is tough business in eastern Ukraine but I understand Crimea perfectly from his standpoint there was a coup d'etat but overthrow his friend in Kiev and he was gonna lose all of Ukraine including the Crimean Peninsula and his naval base down there it's at Sevastopol you know they've had that since Catherine the Great and so I think he grabbed that I think it was an opportunistic thing and I think he's he's been very defensive on this if he really wanted to rebuild the Russian Empire he would have grabbed Luhansk and Donetsk I think and just seize them a long time ago but he didn't he had his army there and he moved him back and forth so I think he's much more he's much more calculating and this is much more sort of a chess game than something like Mao and his prime you know we're gonna calm you knives a whole world and we don't care if we lose 300 million people and the rest of it I just don't see him as that you know a great menace to the United States or to Western civilization he's a problem and I think statesmanship I think Nixon could have dealt with him I think Nixon could have dealt with him you see I see dissent written all over your face okay well thank you very much I guess [Applause]

Channel: Politics and Prose

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Id: iUaZhr3_y7Q

Length: 70min 55sec (4255 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 31 2014