The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The President’s Man: The Memoirs of Nixon’s Trusted Aide by Dwight Chapin

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

The President's Man: The Memoirs of Nixon's Trusted Aide by Dwight Chapin In time for the 50th anniversary of President Nixon’s epic trips to China and Russia, as well as his incredible Watergate downfall, the man who was at his side for a decade as his aide and White House Deputy takes readers inside the life and administration of Richard Nixon. From Richard Nixon’s “You-won’t-have-Nixon-to-kick-around-anymore” 1962 gubernatorial campaign through his world-changing trips to China and the Soviet Union and epic downfall, Dwight Chapin was by his side. As his personal aide and then Deputy Assistant in the White House Chapin was with him in his most private and most public moments. He traveled with him, assisted, advised, strategized, campaigned and learned from America’s most controversial president. As Bob Haldeman’s protege, Chapin worked with Henry Kissinger in opening China—then eventually went to prison for Watergate although he had no involvement in it. In this memoir Chapin takes readers on an extraordinary historic journey; presenting an insider’s view of America’s most enigmatic President. Chapin will relate his memorable experiences with the people who shaped the future: Henry Kissinger, his close friend Bob Haldeman, Choi En-lai, Pat Nixon, the embittered Spiro Agnew, J. Edgar Hoover, Frank Sinatra, Mark "Deep Throat" Felt, young and ambitious Roger Ailes, and John Dean. It’s a story that ranges from Coretta Scott King to Elvis Presley, from the wonder of entering a closed Chinese society to the Oval Office, and concludes with startling new insights and conclusions about the break-in that brought down Nixon’s presidency.

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Beacons of Leadership, Inspiring Lessons of Success in Business and Innovation. It's going to be coming out on October 5th, 2021. And I'm really excited for you to get a chance to read this book. It's filled with a multitude of my insightful stories, lessons, my life, and experiences in leadership and character. I give you some of the secrets from my CEO Entrepreneur Toolbox that I use to scale my business success, innovate, and build a multitude of companies. I've been a CEO for, what is it, like 33, 35 years now. We talk about leadership, the importance of leadership, how to become a great leader, and how anyone can become a great leader as well. Or order the book wherever fine books are sold. Today, we have an amazing author on the show. He's the author of the newest book that just came out, February 15th, 2022. The

book is called The President's Man, The Memoirs of Nixon's Trusted Aid by Dwight. Is it Chapin? Chapin, yes. You got it right. There we go. I usually ask that at the beginning of the show, but we got that right as a good guess. Dwight served as a personal aide and then deputy assistant to President Richard Nixon with responsibility for the planning and execution of the president's schedule and appearances.

He served as acting chief of protocol for the president's 1972 historic trip to China. After his time at the White House, he was publisher of Success Magazine, then managing director Asia for Hill and Knowlton Public Relations. For the last 25 years, he's managed his own consulting firm focused on communications and strategic planning, and he lives in Riverside, Connecticut, with his wife, Terri. Welcome to the show, Dwight. Congratulations on the new book. Thank you. Thanks very much, Chris. Thanks for coming. We certainly, we've had some people on that have written about Nixon, and it's wonderful to have somebody who's got firsthand knowledge because you work very closely with him. I did. I got to know him very well, and that's one of the reasons I wrote the book.

There you go. So what are your plugs, your dot coms you want people to go to to find out more about you and the book? Yes. The main plug is for people to go to thepresidentsman.com. We've got extensive information there, information on each chapter and how people can order the book. Yeah. Presidentman.com. And it's a beautiful book. We've got it right here and lots of great pictures and interesting stuff that are in it. It's quite thick tome actually too. So what motivated you to want to write this book and why have you been holding on to this for 50 years or

however long to write this book? That's a great question. What motivated me to write the book is that I had been retained to renovate the Nixon Library out in Yorba Linda, California. And in doing that project, I realized how little people really knew of Richard Nixon. They basically know two things. Either he went to China or Watergate. And the man was much more complex. He had accomplished all kinds of things as president. And so I thought, look, I have a responsibility here. I call it in the book a debt of honor. I have a debt to this man that gave me such an incredible experience as a young man. So I went back through my diaries, my notes, and everything I accumulated and put together this book, which I think really gives people

insight into the 37th president. So give us like a kind of an overview, if you would, so people can get a kind of an idea of what's inside. Yes. Well, the book leads off with my story as to where I came from, the plains of Kansas to Southern California and so forth, and then how I got involved with Richard Nixon to begin with. Most people say, how in the world did this ever get started? And I was 21 years old at the University of Southern California and needed a summer job and went into Nixon headquarters and did anything they wanted me to do, including running the Xerox machine. And that got me into politics. And so I take him there to Nixon's journey after he lost the governor's race in California.

This would be in 1962. He moved to New York. I moved to New York after graduating from USC. I went in and volunteered in New York. I moved to New York after graduating from USC. I went in and volunteered in New York. Mrs. Nixon herself taught me how to answer mail. They got to know me. I became trusted and that led to me being his personal aide. And from there, it was the 1960 election and on into the White House. Is there anybody next to him other than his wife that you would say was closer to him than you? Because it seems like you were really close and you spent a lot of time

with him. Yeah, I was close in an aide role. I was not a close advisor strategically. He had people like Henry Kissinger or his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, his campaign manager, John Mitchell, older men. I keep in mind at this time that I'm coming into the picture, I'm around 30 years old. So I got an incredible amount of responsibility. The highlight of my experience being handling all of the logistics for Nixon's trip to China. Dr. Kissinger took care of the substance for the meetings and so forth. I took care of taking 381 people to China. Wow. Wow.

Now, I mean, because you're not Kissinger and all the people that are the advisors and stuff, do you think you got more of a personal look inside of the man and his character? I think I did. I think I got a look into not only what he was all about, but also the people that you just mentioned that were next to him. And in The President's Man, I give pretty good profiles on all of these other players that were involved in that administration. So I was given a gift, I believe, of being a good observer. I was young, so I was a listener. And I put all this together in a way that I think people get a good picture of what Nixon was all about and what his people were all about. I've often contemplated Nixon because he was such a dichotomy. I mean, he did some great things for this country,

China and other things that you talk about in the book. And then he seemed to be at some point, I don't know if he was always as conflicted of a person, but he was very conflicted or there seemed to be almost two sides of Nixon as he, in the later part of the presidency. Is that an accurate portrayal or what do you think? Well, the writer Bill Sapphire, he wrote for the New York Times for years and he was on our staff and he characterized it one time as a layer cake, all of these different layers of Nixon. So Christian, that people that are in the public limelight, depending upon the view of the person that wants to give the description, whichever layer of that cake they want to accentuate is what happens.

And we had a complex man there. He was not, there's nothing simple about Richard Nixon. He was bright. He was an introvert and an extrovert business. He shunned meetings. He'd rather sit down and have a document that described to him what the pros and cons of a given issue were. He was kind of very, very different than the politicians we know now, which border on, the ones now border on almost being entertainers

or to that side of the spectrum. And Nixon was over to the other side of the spectrum, which was more of the intellectual side of his management of issues and how he thought. It's not easy to just capsulize it and say, well, there was this Nixon and there was that Nixon. We had a man here that had great dimension. We had a man that was an incredible strategic thinker. We had a man that the way that he would look at issues and take them apart and put them back together, it's what we need right now, very honestly, in my opinion. Do you think if he hadn't gone down the wormhole of the enemies list and some of the different things that he got into with, well, the, you know, Watergate, if it would he be regarded as a great president for some of the things he did? I mean, he definitely opened China and that technically changed the world. I think so. I think so. And but I also believe that we are in the process, we being history, historians of kind of going back and relooking at what Nixon was all about

and what he did accomplish and putting more into balance both China and Watergate. It got out of whack. When a guy gets beat up, like Nixon got beat up, and they continue to pound, it takes time before you can really come back and try to do some reassessment. In my book, part of my objective here is to lay out Nixon warts and all. I mean, the guy was a pure Christ-like figure, to say the least, but they took him to the other end. He was not evil. He was not out to rape the democracy of our system of government. And so what's needed here is balance. The pendulum needs to quit swinging and kind of settle in on really assessing it. Yeah. I mean, he respected our constitution and democracy too. What are some standout things that you think people are going to learn in your book or maybe favorite stories that you have you want to tease out on the book?

Yes, I think people are going to be surprised by the warmth of the man and the consideration of the man. One of my favorite stories is we were on our way into Rome and we were going to go be meeting with the Pope. And he called his military aide into the cabin and said, I want you to go through Air Force One and find out who all among the crew and the stewards and so forth that work on the plane are Catholic. And so the military aid did that. When we got to the time that we needed to go over to the Vatican, he took the official party, which I happened to be a part of, but all of us went. But the president told the military aid, he said, go find all the people

that are Catholic and they'll go with us. And I'll never forget seeing this Filipino steward standing there with these tears coming down his face as the president of the United States introduced him to the Pope. Wow. That to me was like so symbolic of something good that a man could do for this particular individual that people just wouldn't really naturally associate with Richard Nexon. Yeah, he was very complex. I mean, I remember, I think one of the photos that I always think about is, the photo I think was him on the beach in Huntington. He's wearing a full suit, walking in the waves.

And there's been a lot of, I've read some things where some people said that's kind of where he was in dishes he was having or whatever, but still it was an interesting portrait of a man who can't take the suit off and he's still stuck in that, that presence of being, but yeah, you're right. He's very complex,

very, I saw him on the beach many times, Chris, and he had no shoes on and bathing suit, walking the beaches. Oh, really? But all it takes is that one picture. That one photo. That one photo they get.

That's the thing. For any of these leaders, the art form of the Pazzerati is to get that one picture that symbolizes something else. And they love to get pictures. That's why he had a rule. He said, Dwight, don't ever forget, I don't wear hats. He didn't want to have that awkward picture of being in a hat taken of him and knowing that it would be used all over the country. So you started with him in 62. That was after he lost to Kennedy, correct?

Yes, he lost in 62 to Kennedy. Went back to California, and he ran for governor against a man by the name of Pat Brown, and he lost. He was trying to keep his political career alive, and that led him to move. After he lost there, he moved back to New York, which is where he wanted to live. The reason he wanted to be in New York was because everybody went through there and he was the kind of guy that would meet with world leaders and so forth when they came to the UN or whatever it might be. And so he went back east and then, unfortunately, President Kennedy was assassinated and that immediately took Nixon to a decision point as to whether or not he would run against Lyndon Johnson or not. And Barry Goldwater had already been picking up steam, a very conservative Republican. And Nixon went out and the joke among a lot of the Nixon people and others

too, was Nixon worked harder for Barry Goldwater than Barry Goldwater worked. I mean, Barry Goldwater had kind of a reputation of, I'll get into it, but I'm only going to do what I want to do. Whereas Nixon went hell bent on purpose, I might add, to get in there and to help Barry Goldwater realizing that was part of Nixon's comeback. I mean, he had lost to Kennedy. He had lost to Pat Brown. And he had a loser image that he needed to shun, get off of him. And so he went out there for Barry Goldwater. Then he went out in 1960s.

That was in 64. And then in 66, he went out all over the country and he barnstormed for republican candidates and republicans had an overwhelming successful 1966 and then that led into the 68 campaign and and nixon won every primary in 1968 knocked all of his other contenders out and went up against hubert humphrey. Yeah. Was it, he was vice president under Eisenhower. Did he always want to be president or did he just feel at the point that he'd been vice president that had to be the next stepping stone for him?

Well, that is a question that I've never been asked, but I can answer it. I think once he got into the vice presidency thing, the next logical place to go would be president. And I think he harbored that all the way through the Eisenhower years. And he was devastated when he lost to Kennedy. That Kennedy thing is interesting because the votes in Illinois were so close. And there is all kinds of implications that historically have proven to be the case, where Nixon really won Illinois and Kennedy didn't. They also had the same thing down in Texas. But Nixon graciously conceded that election to Jack Kennedy. He said

he didn't want to put the nation through the turmoil that would cause. And so the way that it ended up, I think he was probably a better president because of that wilderness years period that he had between 60 and 68 when he was out of office. And he had a lot of time to think about what he wanted to do with his life and that if he ever got elected president in 68 of what he was going to be doing. Because he came into office in 1968 probably as the best prepared president we may have ever had. Yeah, he definitely had the most practice on the warm-up for it because of everything he went through. What a bitter loss, the loss to Kennedy. And I think there's some other allegations or I think a lot of people written about some of the Kennedy mob and unionization, maybe stuffing ballots or running guys through the voting booths and different things. I think that was in New York or Chicago.

Really interesting. I mean, at that time, it was the thinnest loss ever for a presidency. Yes. Yes. And Mrs. Nixon really wanted him to contest that. She was very vocal about this, but he pushed back and said, no, we're not going to do that. Most people don't know, Chris, that Jack Kennedy and Richard Nixon were great friends. Oh, really? Joe Kennedy had contributed to Nixon's senatorial campaigns. They would get on the train together and go out and debate, taking different, but they

would take the train from Washington, D.C. to Pennsylvania. They would get up, they would debate, and then they would get back on the train and stay up all night on the trip back to Washington talking to one another. Their offices were right next to each other. Mr. Nixon, when he was in the Senate, he was the only outsider invited to Jack Kennedy's birthday parties that the staff would have for him in the office. That's amazing. They were good friends. And if it probably hadn't been for TV, because there's that classic story of the TV radio moment where they appear in the debate, if it hadn't been for TV coming of age at that

exact moment, he probably would have been president over Kennedy. Yes. There's historical evidence that supports what you're saying. Kennedy looked great on television. Nixon had kind of this pallid look, makeup, whatever. I can guarantee you that he learned that lesson because I'm the person that in all of the stuff that I carried around in 1968, I carried a sun lamp. Oh, wow. All sun lamp.

And Nixon used that almost every day. on weekends. We'd take off from the campaign trail so that he would be out in the sun because if he had a tan and kept the tan, his skin was like translucent. He could shave and 10 minutes later it would look like he hadn't shaved. But if he was tan, the

camera wouldn't pick that up. He learned the lesson. In 1968, he was a master of television. He mastered it and used it very successfully. Yeah. So yeah, that's really interesting. No, that's a lot of stuff I didn't, I've often wondered, kind of the reason I'm talking about this, I've often wondered how much of that wilderness era, the losses, the beating of Kennedy and everything else, if any of that led into sort of the mindset or unraveling road that he went down with, it took him into bad places with Watergate stuff.

But I think we're focusing too much on Watergate. And some of the negative aspects, what are some of their highlights in here that people are going to find? Russia, of course, is another thing. Yes, yes. He put together with Dr. Henry Kessinger the Strategic Arms Limitations. It's called SALT, Strategic Arms Limitations Agreement. And that limited the amount, number of nuclear warheads and started a reduction.

It was really the outset of what then Reagan took on and then ended George Herbert Walker Bush, but of the whole demise, if you will, of the Soviet Union. And he was very, very firm on us understanding the imperialist nature of the Soviets, of the Russians. It's a historical thing. What we're seeing right now with Putin roots itself right back from that. They want to reassemble the empire, and he's out there grabbing. And Nixon understood all that. He knew that he had to negotiate to keep balance with the Soviet Union, and that's one of the reasons he went to China,

because he, he had China and Russia and then the Vietnam war in that mix. And he's trying to balance it and get to a peaceful solution on the war and manage both China and Russia. He would, he would be startled to have seen, uh, the pictures coming over from the Olympics of Putin and Xi,

Xi standing there without any United States representation in that equation. Yeah, it was quite interesting. I saw the pictures where he meets Chairman Mao, and he's standing here with, was it Khrushchev or Brezhnev? Brezhnev. Yeah, I have pictures of the President's man. I've got quite affirmative pictures there that demonstrate many of the aspects of the book itself. Are you still friends with Henry Kissinger? There's a picture of him in 2016. Yes. Yeah, he's a terrific man, and he very graciously wrote a blurb for the back of my book.

It's interesting, Henry, who is now 97, 97 or 98, he would not do the blurb till he read the whole book. So he read my whole book, and he wrote me a very gracious email about my book and then provided me the blurb. That's pretty interesting. He met a lot of people. So throughout your book, you start in 1962. You tell part of your story. You go through the arc

of what gets him back in the presidency. What were some of the, did he feel really comfortable the first term in his presidency where he, like you said, he'd gone through a lot of preparedness of getting ready for that. Did he really grasp the mantle well, I guess? He did. He did. He took the reins and he knew what was going on. I think one of the interesting things, particularly when you think of modern history and you think of the words that we've heard, of the words like deep state or something,

Nixon told his cabinet in a meeting that they held before they ever took office on January 20th, 1969. They had a cabinet meeting before going into office. And he told his incoming cabinet members, he said, you have approximately three to six months to get in and get control of your departments before your bureaucracy takes you over. So whatever changes you're going to make, however you're going to reorient within those departments, get in there, do it right out of the box. Don't wait because they're going to engulf, such is the nature of the way that Washington works. And he knew all that.

Another interesting thing about him, I was watching a lot of the footage from the China trip the other day. And on the day that he left to go to China, he comes out of the diplomatic entrance of the White House. That's on the south side. And the helicopter is out there. And so Mrs. Nixon is with him. They're coming out. And he goes up to the microphone. And he says, I want to thank the bipartisan leadership of Congress for being here this morning.

Senator Mike Mansfield, who was running the Senate, Carl Albert, who was a Democrat in charge of the Speaker of the House. So he had opposition on the Senate side and on the House side. But those men were all there. In today's world, when the opposition comes to meet with the president, it's national news. Nixon had it, and I got the memorandum the first week we were in the White House. Nixon had it that the opposition, that the bipartisan leaders came and met with him every Tuesday or Thursday of the week. So it was a regular occurrence. It was not something abnormal. And so it's no wonder that they got so much accomplished. I mean, with a divided Congress

and presidency, they still passed a great deal of legislation. And a lot of Nixon's success was his ability to work with those men. And then you get into, you know, lead down into Watergate. And you were one of the first people to go to trial in Watergate. How did you get wrapped up in that or what was the role there? Very simply, I hired a young friend of mine who had been a roommate at University of Southern California to do what's called Dick Tuck type tricks. Dick Tuck was a democratic prankster. Okay. And he had pulled all kinds of shenanigans over the years on Nixon.

Things like redirecting, paying a cop 50 bucks to redirect a motorcade. So the motorcade is supposed to go left. The cop directs them right. And everything gets screwed up. Or changing the baggage call thing. Rinky dink stuff. But I was asked to find someone to do Dick Tuck's type stuff in the

1972 campaign. I found this roommate of mine, and he, I spent very little time directing him, but he went off and did this. When the Watergate break-in happened, in one of the notebooks, there was his name was Don Segretti. There was Don's telephone number. And it had been because Don had been moved from reporting to me, because I was working on the China trip, to reporting to somebody that was over at the committee to reelect the president.

And that's how his name ended up in the book. So when the investigation started and got under, Don was found. And that led to me in the White House. And I never got, I was never as close to the president as I became during the Watergate, because the minute that led to me, it led inside the doors to the White House to the president. That's how I got involved in the whole thing. I lay it all out.

Watergate is just incredibly complicated. And I have had several compliments that have been paid to the way that we lay it out in my book. It's very understandable. And by the way, we're coming up on the 50th anniversary of that, this coming June. It's the 50th anniversary of the break-in. And I think one of the reasons my book, The President's Man, is going to sell so well is because of the way that we've laid all this information out so that it is really

easy to consume. Yeah. And it's an interesting story. We've had Jill Weinbanks on the show. Have you appeared on her podcast yet? I think you may know her. She prosecuted with the Justice Department with Watergate. I'll have to refer you over to her.

She's amazing. So you go through that journey. You end up going to prison. Is that correct? I did. I went to a prison camp. So there was no barbed wire or cell blocks or anything like that. It was for white collar type criminals.

But I went there. I was there nine months. It's not something that anybody wants to do. I can guarantee you. But I had a very wise friend. And when I was getting ready to go, he said, Dwight, let me tell you about going to Lompoc. He said, either it can get the best of you or you can make the most of it. And I went in there. I was busy all the time. I kept a schedule. I read books. I set up a job

placement thing for guys that were on their way out of the prison to help them write letters to go get employment. So I really feel that while I didn't want to be there, it was a good time for me. It was an incubating time. Not many men in their 30s get nine months to stop and think about where they are in life and what they want to do and so forth. And so, yeah, you don't want to be there. It's not fun, but it's one of those things that if you have to do it, you can get through it. And by the grace of God, I got through it and was able to rebuild my career. Yeah. You mentioned in the book, it's chapter 16, you dedicate to this. I have only one regret. I wish I had gone to prison before I worked in the White House. One of the most valuable learning experiences of my life. There you go. Did you, so after you got out, did you

ever have any contact with Richard Nixon or his wife? Constantly. I have, we have a Nixon family, if you will. I would say that virtually all of the people, the alumni, are very close friends. There are exceptions. John Dean would be one exception, John Dean being the one that was kind of the whistleblower, the person that really, truly, unfaithfully served Richard Nixon. He was his general counsel. And in my book, we lay this out in spades. We have some tapes that have never really been highlighted that show clearly that from the time of the Watergate happening, for nine months, John Dean, who knew the truth, doesn't tell Nixon what happened. And that is one of the reasons that Nixon got into the mess that

he got into. Was he trying to protect Nixon for those nine months? No, he was trying to protect himself. He had been part of the original planning of the opposition, what they called opposition research, which was really an intelligence operation. Dean was right at the heart of that. And I believe that's one of the main findings that's in my book. The finding being the tapes that we have that prove without any doubt, because Dean's talking to the president and he does not know he's being taped. So we learned the truth that

was my question i have for you next to john do you know that the the white house was being bugged no nobody knew oh but only pardon me i shouldn't say uh only three or four people knew uh that the taping system existed and i i never knew i i meant was in and out of the office continually, and I never knew. I don't know if you talk about this in the book, but do you have any guesses as to who cut the, what was it, 18 minutes or something off the tape? The 18 and a half minute gap, I have no idea. I've sat through numerous dinners and cocktail hours, you name it, of people trying to figure all this out. And that's one of the discoveries that hasn't been made yet. I will say this, Chris, Bob Haldeman, in a letter that he wrote my daughter, Kimberly, Kimberly was working on her

junior thesis in high school. And she wrote Haldeman, Nixon, Ehrlichman, and John Mitchell, the Attorney General, and asked them questions, and they all responded to her. But Bob Haldeman made the point that it's going to be many decades before we know all the truths about Watergate. And at this juncture, even right now, we are discovering new information. There are four books, I am told, underway right now on what was the CIA's role in Watergate. Ah, there you go. I know Jill Weinbanks, who I referred to earlier, she was the person who cross-examined

and basically came out as a lie, I guess. It was found on the stretch of the Nixon secretary trying to answer the phone. Rosemary Woods. Rosemary Woods, yeah. Yeah. So very interesting stuff. What was the president like?

I think you talk about this, but what was the president like after he left office? Did he – he kind of went into exile for a long time. I remember seeing him come on to TV every now and then, and his perspective was very interesting. I'm like, they really should have him on more. He seems to know much. I think he came on Nightline or something once or twice. But watching the—I think most people have this perception of Nixon after watching the David Frost interview. It's very painful to watch.

You watch President Nixon, and you have to understand he's a complex man. You can't just hate him. You can't just like him. You have to realize he's the good, bad, and the ugly. And like you said, he's a really, maybe an onion is a good word for it. I don't know. He's a multi-layered cake. But what was he really like after the presidency? Did he just go back to enjoying his life for the most part? Well, there's an interesting part to this, but let me address the David Frost thing first. I think that's huge, that David Frost show. Out at the Renovated Library, we have a quote as you get toward the end of the exhibits where he apologized, where it's from the David Frost interview and where he apologized to the country, apologizes particularly to young people who would become cynical about government and think it was all corrupt. And he takes the responsibility. He takes that responsibility.

And then if that so you read that and then you turn and we have we blew up the cover of a Newsweek magazine. It's about eight feet high, five feet wide. And it's a picture of Nixon. And the headline at the top says, he's back. And the importance of that is, had he not made that apology to David Frost, I don't know that headline and that cover, he's back, would have ever happened. Because that's kind of how the universe works. And what happened is, Nixon, after he left office, wrote nine books, nine books. He was very active as an advisor to other entities, everything, wanted invitations to go have dinner with Richard Nixon out in New Jersey. Why?

Because he kept traveling the world. He had one time, you'll get a kick out of this. We were on an airplane in 1967, just the two of us. And he had just finished a meal. And we were chatting. And he said to me, and I'll never forget it. Obviously, I'm saying it to you right now. He said, Dwight, the most important thing you do in life is always keep your learning curve vertical.

Wow. And that's what he, and you asked about earlier about Henry Kissinger. That's what Henry does. Henry just wrote a book on artificial intelligence. The guy is 98 years old. You know, he's 98 years old, and he's writing a book on artificial intelligence. So the way that these kinds of brilliant minds, these men work. Nixon, yes, he went out to California. Yes, he had some physical problems and so forth, but he recovered. It took time. He recovered. He wrote his memoirs. It took him four years. The memoirs I have behind me here, it's over 800 pages, and it's one of the best presidential memoirs ever written, according to most historians. Wow.

Do you think that his legacy or his history or his memory in the American psyche after the last four years of someone who was impeached twice and didn't respect our democracy, clearly, in my opinion, do you think he's regarded as a much better president? I mean, I think better of him now because I'm like at least he respects our constitution resigned well i i really don't want to what is what is it that that is a common denominator between trump and nixon and the answer is they both got elected so i just think you look back on nixon you're like he really wasn't that bad of a guy really considering i i believe that the president's man, I'm trying to give enlightenment to what he was all about. I am not trying to whitewash the difficulties that he had and the mistakes that were made. They were made and so forth. But that's all part of the human aspect of this thing. At the Nixon Library in California, we show the

whole man. And that's why it's believable. It's not believable if you're just going to take these simple snapshots of a one-dimensional guy. Yeah. And that's why it's important that books like yours and others that we learn about the man and really what he was like and how complex it is. I'm kind of falling back a bit, but there was one photo then here that I thought was really interesting. It's one of the photos of him and President-elect Nixon and President Johnson in the Blue Room. And they're standing there in the Washington Monument and poses between them in the photo, which is really beautiful. Do you touch on in the book in any about the Nixon-Johnson scrape up with, who is that woman? Anna Chanel. Do you touch on that in the book any about the Nixon-Johnson scrape up with, who is that woman, Anna Chanel?

Do you touch on that in the book? That's a very important question. Yes, I do. Because I had to deal with that when we did the renovation at the Nixon Library. We had a historian that I worked with by the name of Frank Gannon who was very knowledgeable on the Anna Chenault situation. And the question was, did Nixon act in an unpatriotic way and try to disrupt the peace process that Lyndon Johnson had in going immediately before the 1968 election? Now, I mean, that can probably be worded better, but that's really the issue. And the answer is, from the Nixon point of view,

is a clear no. There are others who say that did happen, but the truth is no one can prove it one way or the other. So what we did out in California is we put all of the documents are right there. You could stand there and read both sides of this issue. Oh, wow. And then the visitor can make up their own mind as to what they think, because there is no way. Every historian that has worked on this has come away saying the evidence is not there one way or the other.

Is it true? Is it true that one of the key moments was that I think the semimoments was when Johnson was pissed, right? And calls him up and. No, he calls Dirksen. He called Senator Dirksen, who is the Republican leader in the United States Senate, and raises holy hell as only Lyndon Johnson could do. And he's banging away. And this is in the middle of a political campaign. And Johnson is upset. All I can say is that I believe that on my knowledge of Richard Nixon, the man, there is no way he is going to let a war be underway and young men dying for his own political gain. And it just does not ring true with me. It never has. The people that write have a distinct anti-Nixon slant to their stuff.

So it's one of these things where we just have a real difficulty trying to prove it one way or the other. I love history. The one thing man can learn from his history is that man never learns from his history, I always say. And so that's why I love stuff like this. I love having great authors on the show. Anything you want to touch on in the book before we go? Well, I would encourage people to go to my website, thepresidentsman.com. I would invite people to read the book and to make their own judgment as to how they feel about Richard Nixon. I have done my best to give a view of the man I knew. And as I say in the book, I know I'm coming at it from a position of,

let's call it prejudice or loyalty that others might be somewhat suspicious of. But get in it, read it, balance it with other things you might read, and come to your own conclusion. Well, thank you. I was so excited to have you on because I'm like, this is a guy who seems like he was very close to Nixon, probably got really behind the maybe veil that Nixon would put up. We all put up a mask for people, especially when we deal with them. A lot of people that have written about Nixon that work with him closely, like Bob Dean or Haldeman, Ehrlichman, everybody

else, they kind of want to protect their image a little bit too. I mentioned Henry Kissinger. I don't want to accuse him of anything, but I imagine there's a little bit that goes on where you really don't have a career to save or any sort of face to save on it. So I think your book is going to be a really good thing on showing us that. So I really encourage people to check it out. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Dwight. We really appreciate it. It's been an honor.

Chris, this has been fun. Thank you very much, and good luck to you. Thank you, too, as well. To my audience, go order the book up. You can get it wherever fine books are sold. Remember, stay in those alleyway bookstores. You might get robbed. Go to Amazon or wherever you want to order the book, The President's Man,

The Memoirs of Nixon's Trusted Aid. It came out February 15, 2022. Also go see the wonderful video presentation on YouTube.com. It's free for an unlimited time. Go to Goodreads.com for it's just Chris Voss, everything we're reading and reviewing over there, all of our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. Thank you for tuning in.

Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.