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Ladies and gentleman, please join me
in thanking Chuck J and this great group from Villa Park High School. I 'm Sandy
Quinn, President of the Nixon
Foundation and I just lost something here. And I ask you to join me in welcoming our keynote speaker
today, former Military Assistant to the President and the Vice-President, accompanied by members of the
Nixon family, younger brother, Ed
Nixon, and grandson, Christopher
Nixon ***. Ladies and Gentleman. [clapping] Thank you.
Now we're gathered here,
you can be seated please,
unless you wanna stand. How
many want to stand? No. [laughs] We are gathered
here because it's President Nixon's birthday. Now, we have this great band and we have Chuck J. So, Chuck, would you please do a little Happy Birthday?
And we have to sing.
Remember Richard Nixon played this on the piano at the White
House. [singing] Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday, Mr. President. Happy Birthday to you. [end singing]
Now I didn't think that was corny.
I thought that was fun.
I know, you want cake.
I want you to
meet a few special guests, beginning
with the Chairman of Board of the Richard Nixon Foundation, Ron Walker. His wife, Anne Walker, and his daughter Lisa. I want you to meet
a member of
our Board of Directors,
Hubert Perry. I want you to meet some,
I don't know how to describe them,
but some great Nixon girls, some ladies who were with the President from
the very beginning and were
with him all the years in public office and they're with us today:
Loie Ga, Laura Jacker, and Doris Jones. Please stand, please stand. And another
great lady, the widow
of Bob Finch, Carol. Where are you? Carol Finch. Please stand. And her son, Kevin. And I have to give Kevin a little plug. If any of you are in La Quinata, Kevin runs a restaurant.
He owns it.
He cooks, he serves, he does everything. It's called "The Dish," so be sure and go if you're over in Flintridge, Pasadena, La Quinata. Now I get a free meal from that, don't I? Okay.
Carol's late
husband, Robert Finch, was candidate
Nixon's campaign manager and folks, there's lot of seats right over here, you know,
once an usher, always an
usher, that's what I did at Disney.
He was candidate Nixon's campaign manager in 1960.
He ran for
Lieutenant Governor of California and won. He won with more votes, incidentally, than Governor Reagan did.
He won a bigger majority in the state of California. When Richard Nixon was elected President, he insisted
that his good friend, long time
confidant, adviser Bob Finch go with him to Washington where he served as the youngest member of the Cabinet, was appointed Secretary of
Health, Education, and Welfare, a
wonderful person, a great
patriot, and a good
and close friend of the Nixons
and Nixon family for years and years.
We're delighted to have the
Finches here representing him. I'd also like to introduce the President's
sister-in-law, Clara Jane Nixon. Clara Jane, please stand. [clapping] I'd
like to introduce the man
who was the pilot
of that helicopter you see
out there, Gene Boyer. Where's Colonel Boyer? Colonel Boyer. Gene has written a book about it. Gene, when's the book going to be published? When can we have it? It was published But when are we going to have you here for a -? We're working on getting him here for a signing. So, you'll hear about that. Excellent book full of terrific stories.
And representing the National Archives because
the Director, Dr. Tim Naftali
is in Washington today, tending
to the work with the
Nixon collection that still
remains there, his deputy Paul Wormser, Paul? And the
representative of President Obama
who presided at our briefing just a
few minutes ago, Rear Admiral
Mike Shatinski. He is a model
citizen solider and lives
and works, lives in Whittier, works in Los Angeles, and he's in the Reserve and
he's head of Naval
Surface Forces in San Diego.
Wonderful job.
Mike, thank you for coming.
We gather to commemorate President
Nixon's birthday. 98 years ago, he was born in that house that you have seen and I hope you have been through, right outside here, which is left today as it was when he was born there. We present his galleries,
his life, his history, and
now, thanks to National Archives, all of his papers are in that great big building that is new to us over the last couple years, where millions of his documents and audiovisuals are now available to scholars. So, he
then rests in peace
here, alongside his First Lady, Pat.
So, for those interested in Richard Nixon, around the world, this is the place to come and in one place. Unlike, I think, any
of the
other Presidential libraries, where the
birthplace is just yards
away from the resting place
and the galleries and the papers.
His hometown, the atmosphere, the ambiance in which he was born and raised are still intact. Yorba Linda is still very much a little community. And where we're sitting was once citrus groves, where his father
labored as a farmer.
So, this is the
place for things Richard Nixon,
and we're delighted that you
came with us today on his birthday.
Also, came with us
today, is part of
the Nixon legacy and that
is his grandson, Christopher Nixon ***.
And I want to acknowledge his
fiancee, Andrea would you please stand? [clapping] Now, while
I have a captive
audience with them, I have
to say that we have
more weddings, we had 250 weddings
in this room and in those
gardens just last year. This is the most popular place for weddings in Southern California. So, I've lobbied your
mother. [laughter] No, I have. And, Andrea, I have to lobby you. And I'm not going to put you on the spot right now, but we'll even reduce the price. Eh?
And we don't do that much.
Well maybe we won't. But anyway, you should do it here. So, ladies and gentleman, I've asked Chris to
come to our podium and
give us some remarks.
Chris.
Thank you so much,
Sandy, and maybe we'll take you up on that.
What's the discount? [laughter] We'll talk.
I know.
I have to talk to Ron about
that.
Thank you all so much for coming out today.
I think it's so
important that we all
visit the library, we all
learn more about Richard Nixon and we all carry his legacy forward.
And I think his birthday, I
think it's good to reflect a little bit on his legacy.
And so I want to do two things in three minutes.
I want to talk
a little bit about what that legacy
means to me because, in
my shoes. Richard Nixon was my grandfather.
We called him "Ba," B-A. Which, actually, in Chinese I think means "maternal grandfather." Someone told me that once. But, I saw him very much as my grandfather and he taught me so many wonderful lessons.
And one of
those was service to
the nation and to serve your
country and to serve a cause greater than yourself.
And, in fact, I remember when I was a child, he would
take out this great video
series, if you haven't seen it, it's called "The World at War." It was a great video series. And he would take out different sections on the Pacific and he would talk to me about where
he served and what he did.
He would reflect on what
drove him to decide
to join the service because
as you know he was a Quaker and
the Quakers have, as
part of their religion, the idea of pacifism, not fighting and not carrying arms. And he talked about what the
decision to fight for his country meant to his family and to his mother in particular. And he said just how important it was particularly
in World War II to fight
for the United States, for
a cause that meant so much, for the cause of freedom.
And I thought that that
was something that was so important
and something that molded my life.
And I owe whatever I do in public service to my grandfather. He told about how important it was and I always remember that.
So I think that's something significant.
But I also saw Hubert Perry. I
saw him here, where is he? There he is. And you may remember the Chief. The Chief, the football coach for my grandfather, when he was at Whittier. And he learned
so many lessons from the
Chief, but one of them was
to never give up, to keep
fighting and I think that really was something that
was so important to my grandfather's career. You have someone who was defeated several times but came back because he knew
that he was the
voice for the issues
that he believed
in so much that he would never stop and so he learned that resilience at a young age. And that was something that he passed on to me through sports as well. And, in fact, I'm from New York and just last night I was watching the New York Jets and I don't know if there are any football fans here, yes, so you might know about the Jets. They have a very checkered past, they're known for ripping your heart out. They have these terrible losses where they find new ways to lose every time, but last night it seemed like they were up against they're old nemesis, the Indianapolis Colts, and one more time Peyton Manning drove down the field and with one minute left, the Colts kicked a field goal, went up, and I said here we go again, the Jets are going to lose again, but this time they came back and they won.
And I remember with my grandfather back in the
early '90s, I was
watching the Giants. And I'd become particularly frustrated because it looked like Phil Sims had thrown another interception. They're playing the Raiders and that they were going to lose.
I
just sort of throw my hands up
and said "I am done
and I am not
watching." And he said, "No, Christopher, you'll see, they'll come back, and they'll win. You'll see, they'll do it.
Don't give up.
Don't lose faith.
Don't lose hope." And the Giants did come back and win. So even last night when I was watching the Jets I heard my grandfather's words echoing in my
head
to never lose faith, to never
give up, and to always come back
and I think that that really sums
up so many of the things
that he did in his life. But,
I am just going
to, sort of, close on some of these thoughts.
I go and talk
to a lot of schools and I
am always amazed when I talk to students,
how many students really care
about Richard Nixon's legacy and understand so much about it.
And I was speaking to a junior high school which
I think is kids in seventh grade, eighth grade.
And there was a group
of girls that came up to
me and said that they
were so impressed that President Nixon did
so much for equality between
women's sports and men's
sports, with Title IX, and that was something that they realized.
And I was really taken aback to hear some students that weren't much older than 12 that recognized the importance of President Nixon's domestic agenda. Which,
we hear so much about China
and international affairs, but we
hear much less about the domestic agenda.
And to think that this has
started to seep into the consciousness, I think that's such an important part of the legacy.
And I can't tell you
how many times I go out
and I see veterans who talk
about what he did for them, bring the troops home. I talked
to people who said, you know,
your grandfather saved my life, I was just about to come up in the draft for Vietnam and he pulled us out of Vietnam. And so
many people tell me how
important that was to them. So I think it's so important that we reflect on his legacy. Because all of us in this room have
some connection to President Nixon,
either we care a lot
about his legacy or we
carry his name in many
cases or we knew him as great friends for a long time. It 's important
that we learn about
it and that we tell other
people about it, and that
we spread this message of
his legacy because it is
so important for our country's
history that we
understand him and his
Presidency and that we
can teach future generations that
President Nixon is more than just a sentence, there's a lot more to
his legacy, and that
we spread that legacy to our country.
I really view it as our responsibility.
In between now, his
98th birthday and his
100th, let's all try and tell our
friends, our neighbors to take a look at Richard Nixon and learn
some more about his legacy and
spread that message that he stood for,
the message of freedom, the message
of what a great country
America is, and how
anyone can rise up and
become one of the
most powerful people in America,
just through hard work and persistence.
And I think that is something
that is great for us to
reflect upon on this 98th anniversary of his birth.
So thank you very much, and
I'll look forward to talking
to you afterward. Thank you. Thank you, Chris.
You know, we could have
the reception in the gardens
out there.
You could put a tent up, whatever you want to do. Let's talk.
To introduce General Hughes, this is a tough job, when you want
something done that's tough, you go to the military. He's Air Force, so I thought, well, I got a Marine. I went to our longtime friend Colonel Jack Brennan who is the First
Marine Military Aide to the President. He went to China with the President, he went to all of the countries of the world with him, throughout Northern America
and South America and Asia and Europe.
And he went to San
Clemente with him after the
Presidency where he was his Chief-of-Staff.
A wonderful friend of the
Nixon Foundation, of the
Nixon family, ladies and gentleman, Colonel Jack Brennan. [clapping]
Hello. When dear President Quinn called and asked if I would participate in the ceremonies and
activities this weekend, I, of
course, was reticent because, as Chris *** mentioned, this is the beginning of the NFL playoffs.
And I'm a great fan.
But when he told me that
I was to introduce a great American and an incredible patriot, General
Hughes, the National Football League passed into nonexistence, I no longer cared about football. Imagine having the chance to introduce this great man.
I mean, why think about football.
I'm sorry?
Green Bay Packers just scored.
Where were we?
Oh yes, the great General Hughes and his fantastic military career. In
the quite recent past, his alma mater, the United States Academy at West Point honored him as a distinguished graduate. At one point,
late in his career, all
of the staff NCOs of
the Air Force together gave
to him the coveted Honored Sword Award. And today, for his civilian work and his dedication to President Nixon, I understand that Sandy's going to give him a coffee mug from the Museum Store.
In fact, General
Hughes, except for Ed
Nixon, probably is the person who is the most
intimate and who has known the Nixons longer than any man alive.
He was with him at most of the trying times in his life, as Vice President
in Moscow, at the
discussions with Khrushchev known as the "Kitchen Debates."
He was there with the
attack on the lives of
President and Mrs. Nixon, Vice-President and Mrs. Nixon in Caracas, he made the arrangements for the historic trip to China, and in fact has been with President Nixon so much that they had a first name basis. Don Hughes would always call him Mr. President and President
Nixon would always call him
by his first name, Goddammit.
Like, Goddammit Hughes, how come it's raining on Tricia's
wedding day.
Call that meteorologist in the Air Force and find out why. So, they were very close as you could tell. From 1969 to
1972, General Hughes was
head of the Military Office in the White House. And the significance is
not known to the
general public, but in
fact, there are two thousand military people in direct support of the President. Everyone from Air Force One and crew, the helicopters,
Camp David, the White
House staff mess, the cars,
even the President's valet is military. And General Hughes was responsible for all of this.
His military career culminated, however,
when as a three star general, he
became head of all the
Pacific Air Forces including troops
in the cold tundra of Korea, the jungles of the Philippines, Japan, Hawaii. Of
course, he commanded all
of them from his seaside villa in
Oahu, Hawaii. But, nevertheless, he was in charge of this incredible group of people. How, how? Can you imagine?
Can you imagine one man being
responsible for 35,000 people, all
of the planes, all of the equipment.
I mean, it's impossible.
Unless you're a marine sergeant, its pretty tough to do.
As you can
well imagine, General Hughes has
made incredible and momentous decisions
in his career but almost
certainly the most brilliant was when
he selected me to be the Marine Corps Aide to the President in 1968.
Yes, he was my boss in the White House.
He was my inspiration in life,
he's my hero. General?
Thank you, Lieutenant Brennan. I've really tried
to join the Marine Corps, but I was ineligible.
My mother and father were married.
Chairman Walker.
President Quinn.
Members of the Nixon family. And that brings up another point, the Navy this time.
When Ed Nixon was getting
married, he was a student
at Pensacola, and I
went down with Vice President
Nixon for the wedding.
And he swears he didn't
do it, but somebody put a Marine up to come on
over to me
and say, "Do you realize
that your shoes are a mess?"
Now, I still think
he said, "You did it." But what I did tell him was, just to prove it, look at the back of my trousers and you'll see where the shine went.
Anyway, today it's my great honor to share with you my personal thoughts and my feelings
about President Nixon as a man, as a President, as a very very good friend of mine. I knew him from February 1947 until his death in 1994.
And I knew
his family, I knew
them very well, from the very beginning. We had an unusual start because President Nixon, then Vice President, he didn't want any military aides,
and he didn't
want to be the first, but it was a Navy admiral who was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and he
kept persisting and so
reluctantly the Vice President
decided that he would give us a trial so he sent a Marine colonel
and me, an Air Force
Major, over to do this job.
And the arrangements
were that we'd go on
a three week trip to
Africa, to about eight
countries, and then when
we came back to Washington, he'd make a decision about whether we stayed or not. Well, of course the Colonel went
with the President, and I went with Mrs. Nixon.
I was her aide all the way through the trip and
the Colonel took the
President. A nd I
recall one day in
particular, we were
in Liberia, which is clearly
the worst place I've ever been.
And, Mrs. Nixon, I was getting
to know her by this time, sort of
admire her, but this really did it.
We had a visit
to a market place.
And the market place, it was
in a wharf or docks, but
you could smell it miles
away and she picked
her way delicately through the rats,
alive and dead, and she
took vegetable presents that
were given to her and she did it just like she would on Fifth Avenue. She was a real lady. And to cap it
off, the heat was
in the early 100s and
when we got back to
our car, the driver had
run the air conditioning on the
battery, so we were stranded.
And that's when I began to
like the press, because I went
over and talked to the press and they gave us the car.
And we went on up.
Now, rather than do a
speech, what I really
want to do is I'll
talk with notes, taking you
through that I think were significant episodes and occurrences up through
the early part of the presidency.
The results of
the trial were that the Vice
President made the decision that
Colonel Cushman would stay
as a National Security advisor, and I could go back to the Air Force.
So, realizing that I
could probably get out of the
Pentagon, I was reaching
for the phone to call the
assignment officers to tell them
that the President insisted that I
go to Georgia Air Force and fly the one hundred. Rose Woods heard about this decision
and she stalked into the Vice
President's office and came out
about two minutes later and she said, "Put the phone down. Dotty *** is going to go on maternity leave and you're the appointment secretary.
That's how
I got a start. It lasted for seven years, of course that doesn't include the time we'd been friends. The
first thing I thought the
first episode I think
that is worth talking about at is, of course, is Caracas.
In May of 1958,
President Eisenhower sent President
Nixon on a country trip throughout South America, we went to every country except two, Chile and Brazil. I don't know why we didn't go there, but we didn't. And it was a very good trip.
We were supposedly the
principle reason was to attend the
inauguration of President Fondizi in Argentina. It was also to show the American flag because our image was not all that high
throughout South America. And
so we start
on this trip and everything is
going well, we noticed a
little bit of anti-Americanism
as we'd go along, but nothing
significant until we hit Lima.
Lima, Peru.
And he had been
invited to visit San Marcos
University, the oldest university
in the western hemisphere and also
at that time the most leftist of
all of them.
So, we knew
that there was going to be some
problem, but we didn't realize how great it was.
But that was the first
show of violence, when he
went out in the crowd
and they crowded
around so much that he
finally gave up trying to
get into the building itself. So, he stood up on the rear seat, recognizing
he wasn't going to get
in and trying to drown
the crowd out, and he
put on his best show
he could. He finally wound
up calling them cowards, and
decided that they would move
over to the Catholic university
which he did and got a better reception.
Then on the way back is
when the first real, there
was a rock thrown, he
didn't get hit there, but his translator did and
so did the Secret Service guy.
But on the way in, a
man stepped right up
and spit right in his
face, just as close
as you're sitting to each other.
He acted pretty much like anybody else would.
He wanted to retaliate, but didn't. So, we got
out of that one, and his
stock was very, very high
because of that.
It just turned into a very
pro-American operation.
Now throughout this talk, I'd like to bring you up on some names and
some acronyms that I'll be using.
One is that, originally, in
the office, Vice President was known as The Boss.
Then when we got General, Colonel Cushman and me in there, it inevitably ended up calling him "The Old Man." So,
consequently, he was known
by two things, affectionately, as "The Old Man" and "The Boss." Now, I'll use "Pat" for the name of Mrs. Nixon, but I did not use it when I was working for her. Anyway, after Lima we went to Ecuador and Columbia, there was
no problem there.
But then we headed for Venezuela. And we had received some indication that things were not going to be too good there. Supposedly there
was an assassination, supposed to be an assassination attempt on the Vice-President, but we couldn't pin
it down.
It turned out that the intelligence people just wrote it off. But on the way in I was talking to my wife Betty on the radio phone. And she said, hey, you're in for a real shock when you get there. So, I took it for what it was worth. But it turned out she was right.
When, we landed, there
was a tremendous crowd and
a lot of noise and a lot
of signs and the noise
was unfriendly and the
signs were equally unfriendly. So, things being the way they were, they cancelled the
welcoming ceremony but the
embassy had not used
their heads and they left
the cars outside of the tunnel.
So, to get to it, we had to walk through
the terminal and there
was a balcony on both the sides of the, of the building.
And, that was
an opportunity for some more spitters to do their job. And then, to make matters
worse, just as we hit
the first entrance, they've then
took up the Venezuela national anthem,
so we had to stand at attention and it just felt like rain.
And we got out of that. We had some more on the other side. And I remember I was in the second car with Mrs. Nixon and I was, we had the foreign minister's wife in tow, she was going with us. And I remember
distinctly seeing Mrs. Nixon wiping
the seat off of the
car we were in so
that they could sit down in the back.
When we started in, and we
suddenly realized we had no
motorcade, we had a motorcade but we didn't have any protection at all. There were no police, no army or military people at all and we ran into three ambushes where
we'd
be forced to stop and
they would attack the cars with
more spit and rocks.
They tore the flags off, and
they were smashing the windows in the car, thank god they were safety glass. And we did that for three times, and
I remember finally we had,
just a very few
secret service agents, but they bravely got out and fought to
clear these ambushes and get
us through. I distinctly remember one of my good friends in the Secret
Service, get hit in
the back of the head with a
green grenade, a tear gas grenade canister.
And that, that's how
bad the things were, and there's nothing worse than being in a mob that's been raised to a frenzy, the hate that you see in their eyes is frightening. Mrs. Nixon, or Pat at the time, she was spending her time consoling this Venezuelan minister's wife. So, we finally broke loose and got out and went up to the embassy residence up on the hill. And the rest of our motorcade somehow got through and went down to the hotel. We went up there and closed the gate and we were fairly safe at the top of the hill. So, when we got up there, the President and Pat and I
went up to their suite and got cleaned up. The Boss was really, really in a rage. He was white with fury. But he was also very calm about it. So we cleaned up
and we did the obvious, we checked on the other people, see how they were, and then
we tried to call
up to the United States, we couldn't do it, the communications were cut. Fortunately the pilot of our plane had a HAM radio and he made the initial contact that we were having a real problem.
Well, about that time, the Junta, the people who had
taken over Venezuela from a
dictator, a few years ago.
The Junta were the military people
who were responsible for our security and so forth.
They came, they showed up
at the residence, and sent
the Ambassador upstairs and he
came in and he said he wanted, the Junta
wanted to see the Vice President.
I talked to him and he
said, "Tell him yes, tell him I'll be down. So we're standing there talking after he had gone and I saw him. He started, he took his tie
off, he took his
shirt off, took his
trousers off and his shoes off.
I said, "You know your baggage isn't here yet." He said, "I know.
I'm going to take a nap."
I said, "Oh boy." And sure enough, he got in bed and said he took a nap. I don't think he did, but it lasted 45 minutes.
Well, then he got up, and we had a translator that was Eisenhower 's translator.
He was fluent in about eight
languages, but he was also great actor.
And he was simultaneous translator.
By that I mean, The
Boss got what the
other person was saying just
as he said it, because Walters
would stand right by him and
he'd take the Spanish in
this ear and translate it
while our friend was talking.
And he was also a great actor.
So that if the
boss was mad, Walters was mad, it was
unbelievable the way that,
it was almost scary
the way he would do that.
And so we went
down to see the Junta and the Boss went in quietly and he stood there, they all stood up and it seemed like for ten years. It wasn't that long, of course. But he, in his book he said he handled them with coolness and courtesy. Okay.
I took it a little differently because I would put it more on the line of a
real tongue
lashing without the voice
being raised and the attitude
that went out was purely
mad, angry. And he taught them
on the principles of freedom.
He said the reason you
threw out your dictator was for freedom and it took half of the Communist forces in your country to help you do this and now you're letting them run your country. And he went from there. So he sent them away like whipped puppies and that's exactly what they looked like.
And he said we're cancelling the visit, we'll leave as soon as we can. Well, that night we couldn't leave then, so we were going to leave the
next day, just chop the visit off.
And the Junta sent word
back and they were really begging us to come to the what
they call a circular
militare, which is their
big officers' club
for an official luncheon.
And they really, really,
that's all they wanted to do was get that luncheon. So the Vice-President finally said, "Okay, we'll go to that and then we're leaving
."
So, the next morning, late the next morning, we got up and the drove us, well, I was helping Mrs. Nixon in the car, she went ahead
of me, and there were three hand grenades and a sub-machine gun on the floor and she gently stepped over the sub-machine gun
and she picked up one of
the hand grenades and said, "I
think this is yours," and gave it to me.
But, then they took
us down the same route that they had brought us up yesterday.
Only this time, about every 15
feet there was a
soldier with his back to us, looking out at the crowd.
So, the security was there and it could have been before.
When we got to the luncheon,
it was a terrible luncheon, it was
very, very cold, I mean
the, the attitude and they stretched it as long as they possibly could. And then they wanted to take
him on a tour of the circular militaire, so he finally just got pretty indignant, and
about that time a Colonel from
the, came up and said all is ready.
So, all he was doing was doing was bargaining, going for time, to get
more security in place to get us to the airport.
So, that's the way
we left Venezuela. And President Eisenhower had said
he didn't want us to come right home.
He wanted to prepare a, he
said a suitable welcome for us. So, he said find some other place. So, we went to Puerto Rico for the night. The Puerto Rico governor turned out a
tremendous crowd and
there was a, a welcome like you've never had.
And then of course, we did the same thing
the next day when
we came back to the United States.
The thing is that
all through this I
talked to Jack Sherwood, the
Secret Service agent who was with him.
We were in the car right behind him, and the foreign minister was going hysterical just like his wife was, so that's what the boss was trying to chew him out a little but as the same time
try to keep him from
being hysterical. And
the whole incident
lasted, I'd say about,
three hours of where
were of real trouble. But Puerto Rico took good care of us, and of course the
next day, we were
up at the, at home
with another very, very good welcome.
And, before we leave Caracas, I'd
like to tell one
other little episode that
occurred many, a few years later.
So we'll fast forward to about 1969, when we were doing an advance a
round the world to pick
up the astronauts that had
come back from the moon. We stopped in Hawaii,
and the senior officer in Hawaii was Admiral McCain, whose son is now Senator McCain.
And on the advance, I called on him and I
asked him who was gonna
be his responsible officer, and he said, "Well, you're looking at him." So, I said, "Well, that's fine." And we took him up on it. So, anyway, the big
day came and after
we landed in Hawaii, the
admiral took the Boss
and Henry Kissinger and
me up to his office to give us a briefing.
And we got on the elevator, I
don't know if you
notice or not but frequently
when you get on the elevator,
there is a moment of silence when the door closes.
Well, Admiral McCain decided he would fill that. He said, "Well, you know, Mr. Vice-President or Mr. President, just want you to know that if this is a success, the credit all belongs to Don Hughes." And Don Hughes this and Don Hughes that and Don Hughes. I could see Henry start to smirk and I tried to look like I wasn't even there. So, when the door opened, the President never said a word and McCain went on and on
and when he door opened, the President
hesitated a second, and he says, "That was great Admiral, he's the same guy that arranged my visit to Caracas and damn near got be killed. The Admiral didn't know whether to wind his watch or punt. But anyway. That takes
care of Caracas. The real part I think I learned from that is that even in the worst
possible times that we
had there, the President was
never, he never worried about his own safety, he worried about this as a serious
affront to the
United States of America. And that's the way he treated it. That's the way he thought. It just, and
he handled it like no
one, I don't think anybody else could have.
Then we moved a little bit later that year, we were invited over to London for St. Paul's Cathedral. It was dedicating a window to the Americans who were killed during World War II from England
.
This was a much
nicer trip.
We got a very, very warm welcome. We got a schedule that was very good, both ways. It was interesting and it was useful. That's where he made a very famous speech called the Gildhall speech in London. The quote that went around the world was that "No people
in the world today should have
to choose between bread and freedom."
And that got quite a play at the time.
But there was
one unforeseen and very
unwelcome incident. Didn't
involve any relations between us. But it was heart attack time for me. We were
returning a visit, a
dinner from the Queen and they were coming to the American Embassy where we were staying
and we had gotten
back from Oxford University and we had about an hour spare time, which was unusual on a trip. Well I
took the occasion to take
a hot bath and I was luxuriating in this. The
butler that was the
head of the service at
the embassy, came in
and said, "The Vice-President wants to see you immediately."
Well, I always brought
with me a flying suit,
where I could step in, zip up and go. And so I did. And I went in and there was the Vice President of the United States and he was standing there in his, he had his white dress shirt on and he had a funny look on
his face, and he said,
"Don, I forgot my black tie."
So, being a great aide,
I said, "Well, Sir, that's no
problem I've got three of them."
And he says, "You don't understand.
I mean the whole damn suit." So, the queen was due in no more than thirty five minutes.
And it was six o'clock at night, all the stores were closed. Nobody on the staff or the ambassador had a suit had a tuxedo that would fit. Secret Service didn't; all I had was uniforms. So, we said, ok, we put the Secret Service guys on the door
and we said the first American that comes through that looks... [laughter]
The first American that came through was a member of our trip, a very, very good friend. Name was Jim Bassett. He was the newspaper guy that wrote "In Harms' Way." Well, Jim, the principal reason Jim went on the trip
was to meet the Queen.
He got inside the door and
then his feet never
touched the floor until he got in the room. In four microseconds we had the Vice-President dressed, him undressed. So, I got a double-martini for him, and ordered his food, and left him.
So, then I decided,well we didn't have a press guy with us, so I put the word out, absolutely no mention of this. No mention.
Keep it quiet. Just don't say anything about it. And everybody swore they wouldn't. So we
were there and the Queen
arrived and of course the
Queen and the Vice
President, they had known
each other before and they liked each other.
And I was
just listening to their small talk as they walked and the press were all around us, and as I said, small talk, and pretty soon the Vice-President said, "Well, you know, your
Majesty, this isn't my suit." Well, of course the press got that. And we went from there. That was a four martini night. And then we'll
go from there to the
Russian trip, the Soviet Union at the time. And the
official purpose was to
open the first national exhibition
for United States that
will be held in the Soviet Union.
We featured consumer goods
like appliances and things
of that nature, as opposed to
what they had done when they
came here what they did when heavy on their arms.
But the real benefit from it was
to make an opening to
get a one on one
for President Eisenhower and Khrushchev.
The Boss really did his homework on this one.
He worked for months.
He was studying every possible
issue that he thought could be raised. He
went after the great detail.
Those who know him, knows how
he would do that, so that when he went, he was ready. But he was also ready, in addition to the material, he was also ready for the attitude because he knew that Khrushchev's way
of life was to be
a bully, was to
go after you and he
was very rude, crude and obscene. In fact, they say that on some occasions his translator would blush when he was translating what Khrushchev was saying.
And as I said, he had a bully attitude on him and he came after the Boss in the Kitchen Debate, he came after him and
sort of jabbed at him with a finger.
The Boss did not respond.
He just played it low key.
He didn't raise his voice,
he listened to it but
he didn't really take it, because
at every possible opportunity, he
would come back with a rebuttal. But it wasn't in the same manner that it was coming at him. It was kind of like what you might have with a fight with a meat cleaver and a fencing foil. He was, the Boss was getting
the
shots in underneath
the heavy blows.
But Khrushchev never did stop that kind
of an attitude and the Boss
always managed to keep
his calm. Now, at one time I was really
surprised at this;
Khrushchev raised a toast, he raised it, and he
said it, he said
the toast, and then he
said "Ok, Pross" or whatever it is. And he raised
his glass and started to
drink, and Boss put his down and he didn't touch it.
He said, "What did he say?" So, what he said was you're drinking to peace and the elimination of all military bases in foreign lands. The Boss says, "Well, tell him I'll drink to peace." The thing about it was how he was prepared for the unexpected.
Because normally those things
go routinely. You, "Here's to you, here's to you." But he caught it; "What did he say?"
Wherever we went the
same thing would happen.
Somebody would come up to
him and say, "Mr. Vice President,
may I ask a question?" Inevitably, the
question would be something like,
"Why is the U.S. blocking the stopping of the atomic testing?" "Why does America want war?" "Why does American ring our nation with your military bases?" That would
be asked--if it was
a butcher doing it, he
would ask one of those questions. And the Boss patiently, he answered every time,
he answered them and the press got what he was saying, but he was getting a little annoyed about it. We went
from the next big issue, I call it the piece de resistance. The trip. The visit to
the copper mine in Nova Seberce, that's out in Siberia. At first it was a
very large contingent from our group that wanted to go on this trip. We had the President's brother, Dr. Milton Eisenhower, we had Admiral Rickover, the famous
nuclear submariner and a
good number of others, but when we
got out to the mine,
we got read the rules of the engagement here.
And you had to, first of
all the mine was 1200
feet deep and about a
quarter of a mile to where we were going.
And the visitors, we all
had to strip right down and
take the Soviet long johns, which are pretty itchy, and waterproof trousers
, boots, heavy woolen socks, then
the knee length boots, and then the hat with the light. You could see our group dwindle. Dr. Eisenhower suddenly remembered he had to write a letter,
the senior, the senior
secret service guy, he had
to make a report and the
press were saying things about how they were going to miss a deadline and so forth, so we were a pretty small group that went down in that thing. I had
claustrophobia quite honestly and I
wasn't too happy about this at all.
Brickover was fine because there isn't much difference between a submarine and a mine, I guess. So, he did all right.
But anyway, we got down in there and its all muck and so forth and we start to walk the quarter of a mile. And just
the boss and I were leading
the show and he
turned to me and he
said, "Hey Don, what are you thinking about?" And I said, "Sir, I'd like to meet the SOB who put this on the schedule. He nodded his head and said, "Yeah, I got it." And off we went it. We came at
the end of there, and these
guys with the big drilling
machines and they, when
they saw us they cut the engine, cut the power and then one of the miners says, "Mr. Vice-President, may I ask a question? Why do you ring our homes with your bases?" So, the Boss gritted his teeth and went through his answer and said, "Let's get out of here." So we went up. And that's when he really for the first time took on the hecklers. And he had a
foreign minister with him
as an assistant, Zukoff I think the name was.
So he went after
Zukoff pretty heavy saying, "Knock these hecklers off.
We're not getting anything."
He never did succeed, but
it was worth a try. And then
we're coming up to our departure.
When we were in Russia, we used the Russians airplanes. They insisted on it.
They had the old TU104.
It is a two engine, but
with every place we go,
there'll be six or eight of them.
And then we began to check the tail numbers and they found out they were the same ones.
They were put parked in
it so they had a big fleet
but inside they were extremely
primitive, instead of for a bathroom,
they had a real, the real
commode, porcelain commode and
a plastic circle for
privacy but when we
had to leave our airplane in
Buknova at Moscow
and Khrushchev went out and
spent 2 hours on that
airplane, and drank a good
supply of bourbon and berated McAuliff, one of his engineers, and berated him something like, "Why don't I have something like this." But it was a visit that was interesting, but I wouldn't want to do it again. On the way back,
we had
a day, we left on a Sunday, Sunday morning and we
were going to make
a quick stop in Poland.
So, we got
on the aircraft and the
pilot called me in
and said, "We don't have
much fuel, I'm not putting much fuel on board, we're not going to go very far, we're going to be pretty light, do you want to see if the President, Vice-President would like to take a maximum performance take off. And I said, Oh yeah. So, I went back to see him, and he said, "What's a maximum performance take off?" and I said, "You're going to have to buckle in." Because he didn't like to buckle in anyway. I said, "You're going to have to buckle in, but we're going to go off and then go up very steeply and very fast. And he said, "Like a sky rocket." And I said, "Yeah, something like that." So, he said, "By all means."
So we went
out, and Bill Cohen and I hauled that thing up and we went out, it was just magnificent. And right
behind us the press plane
was another like ours
in the same shape, so they did the same thing and the ambassador said later that
Khrushchev really
was chewing somebody out in
his crowd after this thing went on.
It was a real good show.
We landed in Moscow, or rather in Warsaw
and it was a Sunday, which meant people had the
day off and there
was no publicity about our visit.
And the route we were going to take was never
published. But anyway, they did have a welcoming guard put up. And as we left, the guard as we were driving out fell out from their formation and all clapped as we went past and then when we got outside the gate, the whole route, all the way, was lined with 4 and 5 deep and some places more, with people. And I was in the third car and I bet I kissed a hundred babies on the way in, and the Nixon car was just loaded with flowers and people were cheering us and they were
almost frantic with good humor
and good support for the United States.
They later on, I
think was, I think
it was either JFK or his
brother went over,
and they gave us 250,000 people for that welcome. The Kennedy party got more people, but they did it on a government supported basis, people pretty much had to show up.
But that was a very good trip and we came
home on a high note.
And the next place I'd
like to talk about is the campaign of 1960. The Boss committed himself to doing a 50 state campaign. It had never been done. So he
made that promise,
and we kept it, but it meant it was going to be a killer of a schedule.
Our first official trip was
to Hawaii, then we came back, that was the
first state that we visited. So, then before we went out again, we made a trip to Greensboro, North Carolina. And
as he got out of the
car, the heavy
door slammed on his knee. And I saw it happen, I couldn't stop it, but I saw it happen. And I knew it hurt, it had to hurt. But he never, he went through with that. Then for about a
week he was complaining that
the knee was bothering him, so
we finally got him to get to our friend, Dr. Takash, who was the assistant White House surgeon.
So, he
forced him to come
out to Walter Reed to get it looked at, he said "
If you don't
you are going to be
campaigning on one leg." So he went out, the President went out, and they found that he had a very, very serious staph infection.
So, the issue was, what's he going to do, what are you going to do? So, they said, "Well, we need to do a series of tests, but more than anything we need to get him off his feet so we can
start healing this thing." Well, he was,
and this went on
for several hours that he
was resisting it and he
had finally sweet talked him
into something like,
well, if I get up in the morning, and then do this for two hours but don't put any strain on it, then I work for four hours.
It was one of those things .
And they were reluctantly just going along with it. And
I just bolsted up my nerve and I went in there and the Colonel is in there and I said, "Can I see you for a minute?" And he said, "Yeah, okay." So we take it out in the hall.
And I had one bullet left in my quiver, and that was, if this didn't work, I was going to call
Mrs. Nixon. I said, "Well, sir, what really should be done." He said, "He ought to be here for two weeks
,
we ought, this is what we are going to do."
I said, "Well, you go
right back in and tell him that. Get rid of the other people." So, he did. And the Boss finally took it. And he was there. He did stay about two weeks, I think
it was a
little
less when he finally got out.
But then, then that
was led into the first debate in Chicago and that was
a very short time after we
got out of the hospital and he looked like the devil.
He had that hospital palor, and his heavy beard only increased that, he'd lost about ten pounds, and his collar was
much too big for him
and he just didn't
look well at all and Kennedy
came in and looked like
he had stepped out of Esquire, and he was tanned and, well, you know the rest of it. The bottom line was that the people who saw it on television said Kennedy
won and those that heard it on the radio said Nixon won. But he was under a tremendous handicap and
we didn't, that was the first time he didn't let them use makeup. From then on, he did. And then the second part of that was my
favorite and that was
when we took a train for
I think about five days and
we went on it the Truman-like train ride through various states and
we wound up, I
think we wound in Detroit,
I'm not sure, or Chicago. But anyway, that was where I was in the front seat, Secret Service on one side and we were at a crowd, it was the last crowd before the snow, two days before we quit. I
was bending over trying to see something because it was getting dark and an egg, somebody threw an egg, and it
hit and it broke right over my head.
And I got the whole thing on the head.
Well, of course, the Boss and
Pat were in the back, and
they thought that was hilarious. Anyway. The problem was
that the train didn't
have any showers, so for two days it was quite uncomfortable. So, I don't recommend trains.
Anyway, the trip continued
and I'd like to emphasize here what it is like to
be in a campaign like that,
the pressure is absolutely
unbelievable. The pressure on the staff, the pressure on the candidate and on his family.
You finally wind up with
just sheer exhaustion
and that is just about the only
way I can describe it.
Your whole attitude changes,
people that were real happy-
go-lucky, become not-so-happy-go-lucky.
And you're past the fatigue period, you're in exhaustion. I recall a couple of instances, and one of them is rather unusual,
was he and I
were standing in the wings,
getting ready for him
to make a speech and, as usual,
he never, he would sort of get himself ready to go out. And
at that precise moment, the band
started to play tadatadadadarara.
So he said, he grabbed my
arm, he said, "Don, why are they
playing 'The Bear Went Over the Mountain?'" and I said "I don't know, sir, but I'll find out." so I started off but then I said "Wait a minute. Sir, that's 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.'" Oh. This is part of what you're faced with. The next one, the example I use, you may have read about it in one of the books that was published recently about how he kicked a seat that hurt me and I walked off the campaign. Well, this was in Iowa and we're getting toward the end and tempers were ruffled, everybody was tired, everybody was working and overworking and I was in the front seat of an open convertible along with the Secret Service. Secret Service got out. We stopped. Something had happened. I was in touch with Bob Halderman who was a senior advance guy. We were in touch by walkie-talkie. And it was something came up
that had come up three or four times before and it had come up again. It bothered the vice-president. Anyway,
he was furious. He did.
He kicked the back of the
seat which hit me and I went forward.
So, he went on his way
and I just walked off
into a field to cool off a
bit. Well Halderman thought I was quitting, heading home. And he came charging after me. The book said
that I walked off the campaign.
Well, if I had walked out there, I would have walked right out of the Air Force too.
The point was, it was just pure
fatigue and exasperation. The last one, along that line, that I remember was up in Stockton when it was really close to the end, and Bill Rogers, later Secretary of State, spent some time with him in his room and he got ready for bed and they continued talking
and Rogers came out to me
and said, "You better get down there, because he's
sound asleep and I can't move him." So, I went down and he was sound asleep, but I managed to get him up
and sort of get him in bed.
It sounds, it was easy, I did it, I don't know how I did it.
But he opened, he opened
one eye and then looked at
and he said, "Don't worry, God is with us." And then he closed that eye.
But you're dealing with the emotions that were just overstretched. We came to Alaska and then from Alaska
we went to Chicago,
the last night before election
day, and I had
promised him, I made a
promise to him that I would give him an hour free time before we left for the final engagement in
Chicago and he
got out the shower and
he was just looking forward to a rest and Halderman called me on the phone, he said, "We've
got five thousand people
down here so he's got to come down." So Halderman and I went at it.
Course, I realized what we
had to do, so I went in, and I almost cried when I told him. Because he, he didn't want to move. Anyway,
he got dressed and
he went down and of course,
the usual thing, he did a great job.
And then we took off after his, the
last item we did
in Chicago and went down, landed about 2
o'clock in the morning at Ontario
and there were, I guess about
15000 people up there waiting at 2 o'clock in the morning for us.
And that wrapped up the campaigning. But it brought in
the most
memorable day of my life.
FDR had a quote about the 7th of December being a date that would live in infamy. Well, this date that, the post election day
in 1960, 1960,
yeah, I'll never forget that, every detail. Because, the
Boss and Pat got up
about 7 o'clock and they voted about 7:30 over here in their hometown. And the press were there and so forth. When
they voted and started to get back in the car and the Boss came over to me, he said, "Just come with me, Sherwood's got a car waiting for us,"
He said, "Send Pat
back to the hotel," and he
said, "We'll see her later."
So, alright, so I said
"What are we going to do?" He said, "Just come with me."So we did, we got in the car. John Debata, was a Los Angeles policeman, he was driving.
And he drove all the time for us when we were out here.
And it was the four
of us, John was driving, Sherwood
was in the front seat and I was in the back seat with Ross.
So, I said, "Where are we going?" He said, "Well, I was going to take some time and show you guys where I lived and what I used to do and places I grew up in a
nd places I remember. I'm just going to take you for a ride. He said, "
Don't touch the radio.'
He said if we don't want, the
radio stays off and
he said that there
will be no talk of elections
or politics or whatever.
He said, this is,
we're going to enjoy this. So I said, ok, yeah, this is going to last 17 minutes. So we kept going, and he did, he took us around, showed us all this.
And finally, I kept saying, after a while I began to realize, because we were out of touch for an hour, an hour and a half. I said, "Let me call Finch." He said, "No, no, don't you, no."
No, just kept going.
They finally said, "Let's go have a drink.'
And I said, "Well, sir, you can't have a drink.
It's election day." And he said, "That's right. Let's go to Mexico." I said, "This isn't going to go." Any minute we're going to turn around and go back. The next thing I know, I was driving and I'm going through the town of San Diego. And we stopped, before we went though, he was asleep in the front seat with me, and I woke him up and says
, "You're sure
that there's nothing in the
Constitution about a
candidate being out of
the United States on election day. He said, "Don't worry about it, let's go." So, we asked the guard, where's a good restaurant. He recommended
the old Heidelberg, so we went down there, by now it's eleven o'clock in the morning, and he still wouldn't let me call Klein or Finch or anybody, even Rose. so went over to the old Heidelberg, and the guy quickly realized what he had and he
opened up.
So we had a private booth and all that. We ordered
Mexican food and we had
Margaritas and pretty
soon the Mayor came in.
He joined the party. And one of his assistants came in and he joined the party. And we were there until about 1:30 or 2 o'clock
and finally, at about
1:30 I guess he said,
"Okay, call home,
tell him where we are."
I called Finch and
let me tell you what Finch
called me but they
were mad and he
said, "You're where?" I says, "We're in Tijuana." So anyway, he didn't know what question to ask next. I did think
he did say "Are you coming home?"
Anyway, we cleared that up and we started back.
And I was driving again.
And I was speeding, and of course,
I got motorcycle police pull me over. And he said, "You got the Vice President in there?" And I said, "Yeah, I do. He's asleep right here." So he looked
in, and he said, "Yeah that's right, boy they're sure looking for you."
So we kept driving
and every time we'd pull up
to a stop light, you know
a car would pull up and
either side and they look
over and back and then
over again and finally we got to grand San Clement, San Juan Capastrano,
and he
said that "I want to
go in there," and he said
to me "You're a
Catholic, I am going to show
you an authentic Catholic church
and school" and so forth.
So we went in and
they opened the door,
and it turned out to be a classroom.
And he quickly shut it but
the windows were here
so the nuns could see what had happened, that's where the flying nuns started, they all
came out and then he
said, "Let's go into the chapel."
So, just he and I
went into the chapel and we
stayed for about, I'd say ten minutes.
And we sat there very quietly,
didn't talk and just
sat there.
And finally we got up and finished the trip. Well, we go to the hotel and he started up to his room with Sherwood and I figured I better find someplace where they don't get me, so I decided I never had a massage before, so I'll go to the massage parlor, because I know they won't look for me there. And that's what I did. I went and got a massage. And by that time he'd cooled off, Finch and Klein. The rest of the evening spoke for itself.
We, we took the news
as same as you all
did. And to wrap it up, we went back to Washington. Then we went for three weeks to Key Biscayne. And while we were there, we were there about ten days, I think. He called me one day, I was
outside his room.
He said, "Come here." And I went in and he had a phone in his hand and he said I want you to go over to the airport to meet flight number so and so.
I said, "Who am
I looking for?"
He said, "You'll know." So, I went over. And there off to the airport, the flight
came in and off the door came Carole,
my wife,
Betty, Herb's wife Marge, and they stayed the remainder of the
visit with us. That was the famous Kennedy visit where he came down and visited the Roths and they had a very nice exchange. It was one very interesting
thing there, Rose
Woods, God bless her,when she had a temper, she had a temper. And there was a newspaper reporter, not her favorite, Bill Lawrence, I think he's dead now, but anyway, he stood there and
they had Kennedy staff buttons.
And I remember she stood
over and she looked up at him and she said, "You SOB that should say 'Kennedy Staff' not 'Kennedy Press.'" He didn't know
what to do but that's
the other point
I want to make on this.
Along the line somewhere, the
Kennedy camp was quoted as
saying that Nixon did not
have any class. So, a
way to refute that, the way
I think it should be refuted
is with three events. One is the way we left office. We had our offices in the capitol building. And we had to
work, Lowie and Rose
and Cushman and couple more.
We worked until 6:30 in the morning of inauguration day to get our offices cleaned out. We didn't even have the courtesy of another week or so to do it slowly, we had to get out then, so we did. We made it. Then
fast-forward to the day after inauguration, the Boss and Pat were going back to Key Biscayne and we
did not want to put him on a commercial airplane.
It was going to be
too, the day after
and so forth. So, Earl Blake, famous football coach at Wespoint, he was executive to the owner CEO of Nav Corporation
and they had, in those
days, it was a private airplane.
It was an old D-18
that had been plushed up a little bit.
By todays standards, it was
a wreck, but it was then adequate. So, that 's the
way they went off, by themselves,
with no fanfare. The three of us saw them off. There was myself and Cushman and Sherwood and I think a couple of the girls from the office. And then you'll fast-forward to
1963 when
they had the JFK. He called me, I was stationed at the Pentagon, and he called me and he said, "Do you think you could get two tickets for Pat and me to come into the
funeral" and I said,
"Yes, I think
I can, but weren't you invited?"
and he said "No, I wasn't invited." So I called Kennedy's, Rose Woods, his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, I knew her very well.
I went over.
She said, "Come on over
to the White House."
So i went over and she gave us two tickets and we had a borrowed limousine and
we made the funeral the next day.
And then, to fast
forward to January, the
day after his inauguration in 1969,
while we are
in the transition, he called
me up and he said, "I'd like you to call Senator Humphrey and tell him that my aircraft is at his disposal, wherever he and Muriel want to go. And he said I want you to have a beautiful bunch of flowers and I'll have
a personal note waiting
for them when they get there. And that's the way that they went out. So when you can compare class, it shows you who has the class. And that brings me to the
last point I want
to make. When I came back to serve as a military assistant, it was a different ball game. I was responsible for all
of the support that
goes in to the office
and I think Jack said about 2000 people. So, I had the responsibility for all support to the staff and to the President. Sometime,
I think I had too much responsibility, and I'll give you two examples.
In the presidential mansion, it was staffed by what they call a Filipino stewards. They were the young navy *** who left from the Phillipines and their
grandfathers and great grandfathers have done the same thing.
And they used to be in
the Navy and they're stewards, they serve food
and they, do all of that kind of work.
Well, the best of them wind
up in the White House. Anyway, the first trip
we took as a President, we went to Clarringe's in London
and once again
I was getting set up
and I got a call, "The President wants to see you." So I go up to see him and he was furious.
And he
says, "What, what do you mean by bringing the bed?" And I said, "What bed?" He said, "This one, it's my bed from the White House." I said, "I don't know anything about it." It turned out of course that these guys had just been trained by the Johnson administration and they
always took his bed
so I told them, from
now on, "If he did it don't do it."
And the last one
I'll tell you that's worth listening to is one that I'll never remember. Many
of you have seen the ceremonies
in the White House lawn. I was responsible for those too. Brennan wasn't; we
had somebody more capable. And
the ceremonies were tremendous.
You had the fifty state flags, you had a huge group of all the military services. The ritual was about the scene, it was a
parade and the 21
gun salutes and this was
a perfect day, with everything going just our way.
The only thing that
changed in these is
what they called "the passing review."
And that is
the point where a contingent
marches past a guest of honor and back.
Well I hadn't checked, and in this particular case
the guest of honor was the prime minister of England. And when it came time
for the passing
review, out from over here came the contingent. They did everything but limp. They had their full colonial uniforms on,
they had ragged flags, and they had muskets and spears, and they
slowly walked past with the band playing Yankee Doodle. Well, I could see the President's hands clench and his knuckles went white and I did too. Henry Kissinger, was standing right over my shoulder, and he's been known to never let a opportunity to pass to get a good kick in. So he camped, "Well, Hughes, I'll say this for you: when you win one, you never let them forget it."
So I went bak to the office thinking I'm going to
get a phone call from the
Boss, or I'm going to get a nasty note from Halderman. And I never did. And I finally figured out why it was. It was because Nixon did not like this guy.
So, so I think he
was not too unhappy about it.
Well, thank you very much.
I hope I
haven't taken to long. No, no, no, no, no. Thank you, thank
you, thank you, General. We always have gifts and today is no exception. And it is our wonderful
limited edition signed mug, "What Would Nixon Do" and this man is probably the only one you'll ever meet that knows the answer to that. Ladies
and gentleman, please mark down March
9th, from this podium
you will hear Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, who is coming here to talk about his book, which you will be hearing an amazing amount of press about,
come the first week in
February when it is
released - Known and Unknowns: A Memoir