The Speech That Defined a Presidency

so what would happen if a highly respected author and the Hoover Institution research fellow allowed his long-running and prestigious public affairs interview program to be taken over by a TV game show host an even bigger question is why did our guest Peter Robinson allow this to happen it will all become clear very shortly uncommon knowledge now welcome to uncommon knowledge do not adjust whatever you're watching this on I am Pat Sajak and today we are at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley California I want to thank the good folks here for opening their doors to us for this event and if you haven't been here it is a fabulous place and you really should come it's not only historically fascinating but it's a moving experience as well and I would recommend it highly Peter Robinson is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution where he writes about politics and business and he more often than not as the host of the show he has degrees from Dartmouth College and Oxford University spent six years at the White House first as chief speechwriter to Vice President George Bush and then as a special assistant speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan and on this the 30th anniversary year of Reagan's famous mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall speech at Brandenburg Gate a speech written by mr. Robinson we thought we'd turn the tables on Peter and talk about that historic address in the events surrounding it and leading to it and following it and we might even do a dwell into a few other areas with our guest mr. Peter Robinson thank you are you nervous I'm extremely nervous remarkably enough I will be gentle we're going to talk a lot about the speech because that's why we're here after all but let's talk about what got you into the position where you could write that speech and I mention this because I want to show you a picture folks this is this is Peter with with the President of the United States and you'll notice that one one of them looks more comfortable with the camera than the other I won't say which is which how old were you in that picture in that picture I was 25 25 so hot I mean this is a big deal you're going to be writing speeches for the president the United States how does a 25 year old get into that position this is not a story that reflects well on me or on a couple of people we know or on the federal government after college I studied at Oxford you mentioned I got a degree from Oxford I stayed in Oxford an extra year to try to write a novel at the end of the year I had a novel so bad that I couldn't stand reading it and William F Buckley Jr the late and great conservative journalist who much to his credit encouraged Young Conservatives suggested that I try to go to Washington and become a speechwriter as 1982 and Bill said get in touch with my son Christopher who was then writing speeches for Vice President Bush so I flew from Oxford to Washington presented myself to Christopher Buckley hoping he might have a lead on a job writing for a member of Congress or for the Postmaster General and Christopher said well I'm about to leave this job in two weeks and my replacement just fell through I don't see any good reason you shouldn't write speeches for the vice president of the United States and while you're here go downstairs downstairs in the old executive office building and talk to Tony Dolan who's the president's chief speechwriter I did that while I was talking to Tony the phone rang it was the gubernatorial campaign of a man called Lou Lehrman who was running against Mario Cuomo for governor of New York and Tony Dolan and they needed two speechwriter and Tony said ah I have just the man and Christopher the next day told the bush people that he found the perfect replacement for himself yours truly but they'd better move fast because Lou Lehrman wanted me and Tony told Larenz people found the perfect guy for you Robinson but move fast because the bush people wanted and so I went back and forth from interview to interview New York to Washington and at the end of two weeks they both offered me a job and nobody asked if I had ever written a speech before your government inaction Lior government inaction and it was a very good thing that nobody asked because I had never written a speech before is that true you had actually never but never favored someone else before no that is literally true and so I then spent six years in the White House waiting at any moment to be discovered I mean found out is what I really need so you joined the vice president's vice president staff I worked for George HW Bush for not quite a year and a half and then joined the president's death the vice president's death was small and informal which is how I survived he it turned out two things happened that couldn't have been predicted but just worked one was that George HW Bush and I just got along well together I think I amused him when his press secretary that made it all the way from the interviews and the press secretary took me in to introduce me to the then vice president and the vice president I was standing and he looked at my shoes and let his gaze go up to my eyes and then he turned to the press secretary and said well he looks about the right height let's hope it works out this apparently was before something called vetting of head yes and and it did work out so he and I got along and then it turned out speech writing speech writing is not a high art really it's more of a knack you can imitate Jack Benny I can imitate Jimmy Stewart that means I can write speeches and you could too just some people can do it it's really a question of being able to hear someone else's voice in your head while you're right and it turned out I just I had a knack for it I could do it and what a great voice you had to hear when you moved over to the president the president's now the president's team exactly president speak a lot some incessantly and and particularly since the radio and television age now in the Internet age you can't escape the words that are pouring from their mouths and yet these millions of words it's amazing how few have endured I mean you know John Kennedy think not what your country can do for you etcetera a date that will live in infamy the getting a bird a dress I mean your speech that line has joined that pantheon that's pretty cool stuff it is cool stuff and I have a child of mine right here are you listening to this getting irrespectively it's become this is this is not the time to air your dirty land all right it's become part of the popular culture Monday Night Football which has been on forever has a little opening montage where they show historical moments over the time they've been on the air and things that define the era and something familiar is a part of that and here's a clip talk about the popular culture you think you work there you go there you go it's Howard Cosell it's dandy Don and it's Peter that's it together again some people in the public eye when they get associated with something closely whether it's a roll a remark and incident another person sometimes it begins the grade on them they don't they don't want to talk of it they roll their eyes do I have to talk about that again you know I've done other things you appear to have embraced this and understand the historical significant did you ever time when you said otherwise you know I don't wanna talk about that again I the answer is slightly complicated but I'll try not to go on and on in the old days the old days being the days when I was a speechwriter the rule was that the speech writers were anonymous and by the way I hope we get a chance to get to this but if you ask me that that speech thank you for I am associated with it but the speech was Ronald Reagan it was Ronald Reagan from beginning to end and if if we get a chance to discuss how it came to be you'll see that only he would have delivered it in any event for the first 10 years I didn't say a peep about it I didn't associate myself with it in any way and then I discovered that one of the diplomats who in fact had tried to stop it was in Germany where he was he was then making he'd been nominated to a high position in Germany and a friend of mine in Germany sent me a German I had to have a translated this guy was taking credit for it and I thought that's not right that's just not right it was Ronald Reagan and we speechwriters were it was our job it was not it was not an apparatchik at the State Department so I wrote a piece about it then and it turns out that it's alright it's easy to live with because people only become interested in it about once every five years and I have the feeling that on this the 30th anniversary you and I are now for the last time I don't think anybody will be all that interested 35 years from well it singles my memory may go it's interesting to talk about timelines because it seems strange but we're now into the second generation of people to whom the Cold War the wall the Soviet Union are notes in their history books so this year being the 30th anniversary three or four times I've talked about the speech and three or four times you wouldn't do this because you're a professional but if I have a laugh line that works I'll just use it over and over again because good laugh lines are hard to come by so I learned a long time ago that if you said if I begin speaking by saying I had a special job I was the well man in the speech writing shop speech we'd go get grit and go to the president come back and then it would come to me the well man and I would go through and I would insert here and there well so with this audience it worked and then I spoke to some kids at Dartmouth College my alma mater and I said well nothing and then I had to back way up and figure out do you know who Ronald Reagan was he was though it's kind of suck me ten minutes and oh yeah no but it's gone it's gone so the wall itself just to dude put it a little historical context here it was I mean it was a physical barrier but it was much more than that I mean it's really representative of a generation really talk about the bat all right the end of World War two Germany is divided into two pieces the Soviets control the eastern part which quickly becomes eastern Germany and the Americans British and French control the rest which quickly becomes West Germany and then Berlin itself is divided into two parts the Soviets control one bit and we control the other but and this is a bit that kids these days don't know West Germany I beg your pardon Berlin live deep inside East Germany so even West Berlin is completely surrounded by East Germany and what happened is that after the war as West Germany began to rebuild and it became clear that East Germany was going to become communist millions of people literally millions escaped East Germany simply by walking into West Berlin and once they were in West Berlin they could get on a train and go to West Germany and they were free and by 1961 one-fifth of the population of East Germany had done just that they were bleeding population and so overnight one night he woke up one morning in West Berlin and West Berlin was completely surrounded by barbed wire and in the course of days and weeks they replaced the barbed wire with brick and then by the mid 70s they replaced the brick with tall concrete slabs and so what you had in the Berlin wall was this little pocket of the West West Berlin literally surrounded by a 13-foot wall in the middle the Communist world and unlike some of the walls were talking about now it's not it wasn't to keep people out it was to keep people in it was to keep people in East Germany that is exactly correct that is exactly correct and when I went there to do research for this one of the most striking things in fact there still the wall is gone but there is still if you know what what you're looking for there are still memorials to people who were killed trying to escape over the wall so that's that's the background that it was as brutal a reminder of what the bad guys were up to as you could possibly imagine they created such a bad society that their own people were desperate to get out and they had to wall them in you mentioned going there for research it's a story true about a lady who who may have sparked the the well-known line to you it is true indeed it is true indeed I was there for research I was only there for about a day and a half and I went around to various sites in Berlin beginning with where the president would speak and then that evening I broke away from the American party that is to say the advance men the press people on the security and so forth and got into a cab and went out to a suburban home in West Berlin where the else's dita else and ingerborg Elves whom I had never met before but we had friends in common in Washington put on a dinner party for me of West Berliners simply so I could get to know some West Berliners and we chat a little bit and then I said I have to tell you that the ranking American diplomat in Berlin earlier today told me President Reagan's speechwriter don't don't make a big deal out of the wall they've gotten used to it by now and I and I had been flown over the wall in a u.s. army helicopter so I said I said it looks to me as that would be the kind of thing it would be hard to get used to is it true have you gotten used to it and there was a silence and then one man raised his arm and pointed and he said my sister lives just a few kilometers in that direction but I haven't seen her in more than 20 years do you think we can get used to that so they had stopped talking about it but they hadn't gotten used to it we went around the room another fellows that I walked to work by the same route each day I pass under a guard tower and there's a young man on that tower with a rifle over his shoulder who looked down at me with binoculars we share the same history we speak the same language but one of us is a zookeeper and the other is an animal and I've never been able to decide which was which and then our host is a lovely woman called called ingerborg ELLs who just died a couple of years ago and she was a lovely woman she was a gracious hostess but she became angry and she said if this man Gorbachev means this talk this perestroika this glasnost he can prove it by coming here and getting rid of that wall and that was now by this point I'd been in the White House for five years I knew Ronald Reagan I don't mean to say that I played cards with Ronald Reagan or that I was a guest at the ranch nothing of that kind the relationship was entirely professional but we speechwriters it was our job to know the mind of the President to watch which material he liked to understand how he thought and I just knew the moment she said that that if Ronald Reagan had been there he would have responded to that the simplicity but the power of that remark and so I put it into my notebook and went back to the White House and that did become the basis for tear down this wall take a show it's decided the president is going to speak yes Brandenburg Gate he's got to say something and the wheels are set in motion yes take us through the process process is Robinson gets the by the way there would be about half a dozen speeches each year that we knew were going to be big-ish speeches and then there's also a lot of remarks in the Rose Garden and so for them we tried to share those out relatively evenly so it was just my turn for a big speech so that's why I got I got the assignment rule that literally that was y'all know it was just about when I really listen well I was next in line that's that that's right and they see the White House staff guidance was he's going to stand in front of the years we're standing and we'll have about 10,000 people in front of him turned out to be about 40,000 talked for half an hour probably got to talk about foreign policy given this given the site that was it the rest was up to to me to figure out to do the first draft thinking so to speak as well as the first draft writing so the process was that flew to Berlin I spent a day and a half getting research it was a very moving day and a half partly because it was so frightening to me I went to the site where the president would speak and I don't know this is a problem I don't know how to convey to kids of my own my own son's generation what it felt like to stand at the Berlin Wall and here's the Reichstag which is still pockmarked from shelling during the Second World War and behind you you have a modern city people are well-dressed there are neon lights they're driving beautiful mercedes-benz it's a modern city there's life and you look over on the other side if you see guards walking back and forth a few pedestrians dilapidated buildings this is in color and this is just in black and white and and the Celt sense of history there there's really something close to evil on here we have freedom now all I have to do is write a speech for Ronald Reagan that lives up to that sense of moment that sense of place and then I went in saw the the ranking American diplomat who was full of things full of ideas about what the president shouldn't say and then I went to this dinner party so I was taking notes madly all day long back we went to back I went to the White House I wrote a couple of really bad drafts in one draft I thought audience is going to be German so the key line was here Gorbachev Mackenzie these are taught off and my boss Tony Dolan said Peter when your client is the president United States give him his best lines in English all right so the Tony Dolan chief speechwriter at the time plays a central role here the president was also going to Italy to talk to the Venice economic summit he'd he'd visit wrong he'd see the Pope II to the president if it'll either be speeches involved in the Venice economic summit and then he'd go to Berlin so Tony had the whole speech writing shop produce all of this stuff at once and then he waited until a Friday afternoon in May until you could hear the sound of the helicopter landing on the South Lawn to take the president to Camp David I'm not making this up and Tony took this sheaf of speeches over to the West Wing and said to the staff secretary who was new you know ordinarily these things would go out to staffing before they went to the president but look how much you better send him send him to Camp David this weekend so he can get a little ahead with this workload and the staff secretary did so the president saw the draft before the staff saw it then the following Monday we had a meeting in the Oval Office with the president very eerie experience to go into the mock-up Oval Office here because it is exactly right in every detail in any event talk about this speech that speech and then we get to my speech and the president just said well that was a good draft that's a fine speech and then I said we would go in with questions you might have time for one question maybe two you'd go in with questions that you would hope it elicits more from Ronald Reagan so I said I heard I learned when I was in Berlin that depending on weather conditions people will be able to hear your speech on the other side the communist side maybe even as far east as Moscow mr. president is there anything in particular you want to say to the people on the Communist side of the wall and Ronald Reagan thought for a moment and then he said well there's that passage about tearing down the wall that's what I want to say to them that wall has to come down and that was all but then the speech went out to staffing and for three weeks the National Security Council the State Department everybody fought it and but they couldn't get over it yes yes go ahead I want to show maybe we show this see how the system works what here's a draft of the speech with a few a few marks on it now I want to and I want to highlight one I've maybe on another page but it's it's a note written apparently in a later draft by : Powell and you're I'm sure you're familiar with this oh yes it was his summation the Brandenburg Gate speech is better than before but the staff is still unanimous that it's a mediocre speech and a missed opportunity where do you go from there to think what might have been so there was there near unanimity on the on that line particularly that needed to go yes who is in your corner on that Ronald Reagan that's it . well if you have to have someone in your corner that's especially turned out to be the correct yes . the speech writers so the way this goes there's there's someone the essential point is if the State Department in Tennessee had gotten me to change my mind because I was the speech writer who'd condoms on the research if I had written a cover memo dear mr. president on second thoughts I got part of this wrong and I recommend that we rewrite the speech as follows there's a strong chance he would have deferred to the writer who had done the research Ronald Reagan was never personally close to almost anybody but you know he under he he liked his writers and the your other chance was Ronald Reagan himself but the president this is why that meeting in the Oval Office was so important because the president had already said he'd particularly like to deliver that passage and that meant their only recourse was was me so I got yanked into meeting after meeting after meeting and I just I just was stubborn about it show your well your argument was hey the chief likes this my argument was first of all Ronald Reagan likes it and frankly the other argument was the other submitted different drafts alternative drafts and they were bureaucratic you just can't you can't put Ronald Reagan in front of the Berlin Wall and haven't read bureaucratic dreck and by the way so the decision they went to Italy now this I didn't I wasn't I don't have this firsthand because I was not part of the traveling party but they went to Italy and the deputy chief of staff and then called Kendu Burstein the fight is going on and on and on and can do Burstein said we have to take this back to the president so can do Burstein told me what happened he sat Ronald Reagan down in the garden of some Italian Palazzo he explained the arguments against this passage it would put Gorbachev in a tight spot it was unrealistic of who raise false hopes so forth and then he had the president reread it and then Ken said they talked about it for a moment and then the twinkle came on and the president said now I'm the president aren't I hahaha yes sir we're clear about that much so I get decide if that line stays in yes sir it is your decision well then it stays in Wow Wow if you don't you don't mind my sharing a little personal email that you sent to me you talked about how you revisit the speech every few years when people don't talk about it for a while and I I assume you hadn't read the full speech in a good way I haven't read it in years well Peter read it recently and he said to me when I want to get it right he said you know I had occasion to reread the speech it's pretty good you know what else was interesting about the speech to me is is there was a lot in it that was political I mean Ronald Reagan was not shy about making the point that the Soviet Union was crumbling in large measure because of his policies confronting the the missile defense brouhaha all he said all you know basically said to all of you have been demonstrating against this it was that policy that is making this all happen so there was certainly a political element it is it is we think of mesophilic exactly so yes for sure we tend to remember Ronald Reagan correctly as the most genial the warmest the loveliest of men what we sometimes forget forget is how aggressive he was and so here we have this is June of 1987 Gorbachev is in power they've had the summit in Reykjavik and the State Department argument is wait a minute everything's coming our way lay off the guy and the Braun 'old Reagan said no no no the Berlin Wall is still there that system is still evil I'm pressing my advantage you're serious about perestroika tear down this wall there's only one way out of this for you that was Ronald Reagan he wasn't getting good I wasn't going to go all sweet on that Oviatt another thing that's struck me in reading it is there's some other wonderful passages that people have forgotten about it and I've asked you about some of your favorites and I know there's one I guess near the end of the speech that's right and I think it might be good to look at what the president says because it's beautiful passage and then we'll talk a little bit about some of the circumstances around because that's your interesting story too so there's near the end of the Brandenburg totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship and a front years ago before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches they erected a secular structure the television tower at Alexanderplatz virtually ever since the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the towers one major flaw treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind yet even today when the Sun strikes that sphere lets fear that towers over all Berlin the light makes the sign of the Cross [Applause] there in Berlin like the city itself symbols of love symbols of worship cannot be suppressed something happened during that speech is fascinating I again this is this almost sounds like Disney it's almost sounds too much but it happened it was a gray overcast day and again I wasn't there but I could I could see it on television and the people who were there came back and actually I got a phone call from Tony Dolan while they were still there so was a gray overcast day and there's this ball this tower in East Berlin the one he referred one he's referring to and he's talking about the Sun coming out and so forth and it couldn't see it because there was no sign of the Cross it was just this grey ball and a grey sky and then he got to the passage and the clouds opened up and the Sun came out and the sign of the Cross appeared on that on that thing and so my conclusion there is that God probably could do all right at Disney you know seeing seeing the clip something emotional about it to me and and he was such an extraordinary there is it I've listened to this but you know once every five years I listened to it a few times but there is and but I know you don't want me doing any of the asking of questions here but just as it just as a pure performer just as a guy who could connect oh yeah he was one of the greats yeah it's not on a real visceral kind of level I mean he but I wonder about this if sometimes I think that that the Republican Party in general and and specifically the conservative movement have not wounded themselves in a strange way searching for the next Reagan when you look at that clip you see what it was an extraordinarily unique individual who was and you know when you start saying we got to have another Reagan then you're dissatisfied with everything that comes along there is no other regen I mean would you agree with that but it's it's it hasn't helped the party it hasn't helped the conservative movement to I mean it's great to have that to build on but you can't replicate that you can't replicate it I got a little lesson of this this will sound lives not to say it sound retro a self-referential is self-reflect but the PERT if you acknowledge it it is there why thank you so um when this little program uncommon not which well and now it's a big program now that you're hosting of course but when I'm coming I was taking it we've taken it to the next level what we were started with just a couple of stations up north near Stanford a couple of PBS stations and when Bill Buckley took his show firing line off the air at the end of 1999 he called me and said Peter I'm going to recommend you to the PBS system as my replacement and I my response was immediate I said bill I can't be you and Bill got cross bill became cross and he said don't you ever attempt to be me just be you and do that as well as you can and it's that kind of thing we get these large figures Bill Buckley still is a hero Milton Friedman Ronald Reagan those are sort of the three heroes of my young manhood and all three of them would say stop it you have to be who you yourselves yeah yeah you can always tell when Bill Buckley was angry because he would speak mono syllabic Lee this an unfair question because it calls for you're trying to get someone else's shoes and someone else's head for that matter but it just it might be fun to speculate what do you think Ronald Reagan would make of Donald Trump seriously as a man okay so uh there are um well the obvious the immediate response is there's a lot about Donald Trump that Ronald Reagan would find pretty hard to take and the comments about I wouldn't Ronald Reagan was a Midwestern gentleman i ad Midwestern because there's a kind of sense of solidness about his character simplicity about his character and Donald Trump is a loudmouth from Queens and so I believe that was his slogan and that's right right and and so you um you have to correct for the difference in background even for correcting for that the tape about Donald Trump's what he said about women it may have been ten years old such words would never have formed themselves in Ronald Reagan's mind so on that level II on that level for sure politically politically I have to say that I think that Reagan would have appreciated certain of Trump's impulses or his instinct now Reagan could actually think things through he was always writing he was always thinking and Donald Trump as best I can tell isn't a reader or a writer either one particularly but although arithmetic he's very good at risk of sikinos rating he follows reading but the fundamental impulse that somehow or other the country needs to be made great again that you need we need defense spending you need tax cuts these fundamental impulses I think the President Reagan would have approved of but he would have liked to have slapped Donald Trump himself a few times I think let's talk about this show which which began on PBS in the 90s 9019 tour 2012 actually 1998 I think with with two stations and and grew and ran for several years on PBS and now it's just a vidcast it turns out we are when we took the show off PBS our audience dropped dramatically but the responses went way up so on you're actually finding people on my feeling is that on the Internet it finds people Michelle finds people who are actually interested in her yeah you know not not just waiting for Elmo not just ladies don't work so so taken as a whole how how's this experience affected you I mean you've you've talked to you've talked to politicians you've talked to the philosophers you've talked to scientists has it changed your worldview in meeting all these people and in hearing what they have to say I mean do you feel better about this you know has a change your attitudes about this country about yourself of it well I mean one thing is that means a certain humility there are a lot of people on this world who know more than I do not Yunis it's irrelevant if you saved me the trouble I could see it coming I could be it's just in a it's been a kind of graduate seminar in America the number of people who and even people I disagree with people people care about the United States of America in a way that I'm not sure is quite parallel with the way Germans care about German there's something about this experiment that people from Tom walls whose literary figure of course but if you ask him what's your what's one of your what's your deepest love he'll answer America or Christopher Hitchens the late Christopher Hitchens who was wrong about almost everything it was just amazing how wrong Christopher was fascinating Christopher cared about the United States of America the argument was taking place right here so I suppose that talking to all of these people no matter who the guest is and no matter what the subject in one way or another the text is the United States was surprised you as I guess in a bad way a good way they were smarter than I thought they were different than you thought they they threw you for a loop in one way or another Milton Friedman there was one exchange I had with Milton Friedman that stayed with me ever since the late Milton Friedman and there was I can't even remember the argument was some economic argument and I stopped him and I said wait what you just said doesn't sound like a technical economic argument that sounds like a moral argument you're arguing about what's right and what's wrong and Milton Friedman the greatest economist of the 20th century just looked at me and said Peter of course it's a moral argument what other kind of argument is there that's very deep the ground of all argument is what's right what's wrong what's right that was that was tremendous you must have had among the many shows and I've seen so many of them there virtually all of them brilliant but virtually what is that what are you doing Jack Benny I was I I had to I had to get it in once on the show with you you do you first so we do it together three and two what Rochester ah but there must have been a time or two when you know there's a little clock you have a pair that tells you how much time has gone and you think must be thinking well it's been about a half-hour and you look and you've been on for four minutes because it's been excruciating I won't ask for any names but do you have any tricks to get through those I do more talking myself you know to get through those um I did there if you want to mention I will I will mention we've had we've had we've had very successful shows since but one of the very first I think was the second show that I taped was with George Shultz former Secretary of State and I asked him a question that he didn't want to answer as television and there was a big long wind-up and it was when the war in the Balkans was taking place and I made this historical parallel about the Reconquista in Spain where the Christian kingdoms took seven centuries to drive back to Muslims and isn't there an argument they would make it themselves the Serbians argue that they're simply trying to recapture their own country in just the same way as the Spanish recaptured Spain and mr. secretary what do you make of that argument and here was George Shultz's answer in full this taught me how a great diplomat operate yeah on to the next question it in a big in a big hurry speaking of people who don't want to answer questions politicians are often known for that and they they go to their talking points they answer the question sometime that they want to answer rather than the one you would ask have you learn to finish your way around that to get to get to the crux of the matter when someone doesn't want you to get there huh I don't know that I've learned it I mean it's a permanent frustration but my judgment is that if I ask a question a second time and they still won't answer it it's not up to me to reach across and grab their time pull them in and slap them the way which is the treatment they get on certain networks and certain chair talk shows but my judgment is that my audience which is smaller and they they're people who find their way to the show themselves my audience knows what just happened and I don't have to point it out and these guys by the way so you one thing that has changed in my thinking when I interview politicians governor's senators these are all impressive people and getting elected we forget this to all the Congress what idiots they all are you know what I have yet to discover an idiot in Congress getting elected is hard work these guys are by and large very impressive and surprisingly enough at least it surprised me maybe because I was so naive every single one of them that I've encountered is in one way or another a real believer these guys I'm thinking of Mitch McConnell I did an interview with Mitch McConnell Mitch McConnell the take on Mitch McConnell would be that he's a technician he's a master of the rules of the Senate and all he cares about his power you asked Mitch McConnell a couple of questions about what he would do if he had more votes if he had more power if he weren't calculating on the margin so closely all the time and every single answer is very conservative Mitch McConnell is a conservative in many of it so my my judgment is to let these guys if they don't want to answer a question make that clear to the audience that they're evading a question and then move on you know maybe that's too sweet I don't know no you're not the tie grabber type it's alright maybe we talk about your family a little bit you may you have by today's standards a rather large one yes it's a large Catholic family from the 1950s that's corrected for inflation numerically five five it's three boys and two girls three boys and two girls okay yes and and your wife only one wife yes yes edita a DITA EBITA she is she her parents left Cuba in 1959 and she was born about 18 months later she has three older brothers all of whom were born in Havana my father-in-law is the only man I know of who served in the administration's of both Fidel Castro and Ronald Reagan Wow he was given no choice but to serve for Fidel and it took him three months to figure out how to get out of the country as a father of two I understand fatherly pride and one of Peters sons Mira are so good that really you don't need any more we had to keep at it that's why we stopped that and my wife said we're stopping I just said that particular chief laughs where was I going with this I have no idea not my quote Nico show a track-and-field guy and particularly pole vaulting yes and and I understand fatherly pride I can't tell you how many pole vaulting videos I've received from Peter Robinson he's a very impressive bull mother would it kill you to say like father like son have you ever pulled one out tomorrow I die but I never get anything I'll say oh yes yes must get it all from his mother you know so as you as you as you look ahead hearing that you continue to ahead you continue going to show is this you continue to write I do yes do you have another book in you you know I had a book in me the answer is I hope so but I'm not working on a book right now I worked for years on a book on the beginnings of the Cold War and I just it I couldn't quite get it done history it turns out I'll give you an example just yesterday or the day before there appeared in The Wall Street Journal a column on how Trump should learn from it the way Harry Truman handled the beginnings of the Cold War Trump should understand that Harry Truman ginned up public indignation and addressed the populist impulse in the country and this column quoted senator Vandenberg you see you're already falling asleep this is exactly what this is quoted senator Vandenberg is telling Harry Truman that if you you're going to have to give a speech in which you scare the hell out of the American people I spent a week of my life trying to track down the citation for that quotation this is years ago and it turns out as best I can tell that Senator Vandenberg never said any such thing that quotation doesn't pop up until about three years later but it took me a week of my life to find out something that wasn't actually there and that's what writing history is like so I'm saving that I intend to live to about the age of 120 and I'll take up this book again at 118 what why don't you write a fake history book that's just a thought I don't know when you come here to the to the library museum it is a great place it is but it must be you must have all kinds of emotions that run through you when you walk into the Oval Office which is as you said earlier is is perfect in terms of how its laid out here what goes what goes through Peter Robinson's head it's it's I'm Here I am with the most the most cheerful and light-hearted of men and this is a kind of a day for me it's a little bit of its kind of disconcerting or disorienting for me it's frankly rather sad because when I when I walk into this Oval Office replica which is exact in every way my friends aren't there and Ronald Reagan isn't there and that's at some level that's just a it's disappointing to me it's it's it's a it's like going back to your college campus and saying wait a minute where is everybody oh oh that was decades ago so that I don't say that I knew Ronald Reagan well I I mean I did know him very well in some sense I understood his mind I think I didn't I was no I didn't play as I said I didn't play hearts with him up at the ranch but but I knew him he was a big part I'll tell you ok so here's this is a little bit off but it'll get to the point it'll help you understand what I feel I think I'll get a road map okay go ahead please who did he'll feel free to take bill sapphire started a club for presidential speech writers bill sapphire the late columnist for The New York Times who was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and for a number of years we get together Jack Valenti hosted us at the motion picture of Association he had a big dining room in Washington and we get together there and there were two tables of writers whose politics were very different but who understood each other just instinctively and that was the kennedy table and the reagan table and that was because we both just loved our presidents John Kennedy was the biggest thing that had ever happened to Ted Sorensen and Ronald Reagan was a pretty big thing in our lives as well and so I don't like to say this because it sounds sappy and because it's not useful it's not useful it's like it's a little too close to this notion of searching for another Ronald Reagan but I miss him yeah I miss it I think we all do you know you're terrific host but you're also a terrific guest Peter Robinson thank you very much for doing this we thank you for letting me turn the table [Applause] you you can switch chairs next week if you'd like is there anything you'd like to is there anything you'd like to add as we as you have you as you end this your first guest shot on your own show I'm dazzled by Patrick Sajak he's good how many people have Americans invited into their homes for year after year after year Johnny Carson it's it's single digits we are in the presence of one of the greatest broadcasters and entertainment entertainers in the country's history Thank You Pat Wow well thank you [Applause] now if I were really a true great broadcaster I would have ended it on I miss Ronald Reagan but I wanted to go on so he'd say something nice about me thank you Peter was great and a privilege to sit in your chair thank you so much and our thanks again to all the good folks here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum for their hospitality and again it's a wonderful place you really should come it's worth a trip to California so for Peter Robinson for uncommon knowledge and the Hoover Institution I'm Pat Sajak [Music] [Applause] [Music] just to soften you up I really don't know what's our Twitter what questions he has but just to soften you up yeah thank you right now if you'd like I think so I think they're I think they're money involved and no no it's nothing that you would find interesting but I thought I might try to make you feel a little bit indebted right from the get-go so Pat thank you for doing this Pat Sajak will tell you he's told me actually told me so many times I think he needs a new line that all he does is play hangman on television now in the first place that's not true he's a very serious well-read man he's the vice chairman of the board of Hillsdale College he served on the board of Clermont I don't want to overshoot let's not get carried away here and and Pat has funded a Cancer Research Center at Anne Arundel Medical Center back in Leslie's Ajax home state of Maryland but even if it were true even if all that Pat had ever accomplished was persuading millions of Americans to invite him into their home for these several decades now consider this I did a little work on this battle Wow I really want you to feel so much for the one host rule here's a passage from Boswell's life of Johnson and you needed one the setup is that dr. Johnson had just remarked that their friend David Garrick the theatre producer and actor had augmented the public stock of harmless pleasure Boswell is not harmless pleasure very tame Johnson nay sir nay sir harmless pleasure is the highest praise to be able to furnish pleasure that is harmless pleasure pure and unalloyed is as great a power as a man can possess so to the all-powerful pat sajak my thanks you didn't tell me this can be so highfalutin

Channel: Hoover Institution

Views: 52,464

Rating: 4.8786912 out of 5

Keywords: Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate Speech, Ronald Reagan, Peter Robinson, presidents, freedom

Id: E9Lkv7U55kk

Length: 50min 38sec (3038 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 23 2017