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Speaker 1: The Michael Berry Show. Welcome to the Saturday Podcast. Today

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Speaker 1: we are shining a spotlight on Kenneth kochegian I Hope

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Speaker 1: I pronounced that correctly, a distinguished political strategist and one

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Speaker 1: of Ronald Reagan's most trusted speech writers. Katchigean, not koch

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Speaker 1: I think it's Kachigian, played a vital role in crafting

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Speaker 1: speeches that defined the Reagan era. He would also advise

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Speaker 1: Republican campaigns across the country, shaping American politics for decades,

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Speaker 1: from behind the scenes stories to the art of creating

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Speaker 1: speeches that still resonate today, he's going to share with

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Speaker 1: you some unforgettable anecdotes about working with President Reagan, highlighting

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Speaker 1: President Reagan's wit, which everyone remarks on, his warmth and

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Speaker 1: the enduring power of the spoken word. John F. Kennedy

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Speaker 1: said of Instant Churchill after Churchill passed that he mobilized

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Speaker 1: the English language and sent it into battle, and he did.

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Speaker 1: We've played some Churchill speeches on here, and we will

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Speaker 1: play some more. So this is Kenneth Kachigean at Hillsdale

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Speaker 1: College telling his favorite stories of working with the man

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Speaker 1: that Rush Limball famously called ranaldus Maximus.

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Speaker 2: We hope you enjoy. I thought the best way to

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Speaker 2: tell this story was to tell it on the basis

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Speaker 2: of how I traveled through my career with President Reagan,

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Speaker 2: and I can tell it with these pictures and a

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Speaker 2: narrative and how I got to know him, and on

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Speaker 2: this topic of the Reagan I knew, and to tell

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Speaker 2: you how I got to know him and through the

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Speaker 2: stories and experiences I had over this fabulous, wonderful career

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Speaker 2: I had, And it starts with this didn't start with

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Speaker 2: this wonderful This is my favorite. Actually, this is my

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Speaker 2: favorite photo of the two of us in the Oval

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Speaker 2: office where he's telling me, probably telling me a joke,

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Speaker 2: but this is my favorite picture. Okay, So no, Actually

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Speaker 2: I was a great fan of Ron Reagan back before

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Speaker 2: he ever knew it. I was a fan of Death

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Speaker 2: Valley Days. He was the old Ranger back in nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty four. He was the host of the Death Valley Days,

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Speaker 2: and I used to watch it on television. So I

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Speaker 2: was actually a fan of him before he even knew it.

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Speaker 2: And then when I was a student by President at

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Speaker 2: UC Santa Barbara in nineteen sixty six, one of the

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Speaker 2: duties I had or privileges I had was to introduce

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Speaker 2: guest speakers on campus. And he was running for governor

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Speaker 2: of California in nineteen sixty six, and he was campaigning

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Speaker 2: at Santa Barbar for governor, and so I called the

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Speaker 2: local Republican headquarters and I said, I asked if Reagan

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Speaker 2: would want to speak on campus. So actually I got

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Speaker 2: to meet him at the campus and introduced him, and

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Speaker 2: I still have the remarks that I wrote for him.

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Speaker 2: So that's his remarks that he gave. That's his story

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Speaker 2: about the remarks he gave on campus in nineteen sixty

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Speaker 2: six when I first met him as a twenty one

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Speaker 2: year old. And then that's a picture of me and

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Speaker 2: President Nixon because the reason I put that picture in

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Speaker 2: there is because I worked with President Nixon on his

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Speaker 2: memoirs in St. Clementy, And it was through Richard Nixon

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Speaker 2: that I got to actually meet Ronald Reagan as as

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Speaker 2: a speechwriter, because Richard Nixon and I worked on his

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Speaker 2: memoirs and then the David Frost interviews from nineteen nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty eighty. This was after his resignation nineteen seventy five

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Speaker 2: through seventy nine, and then after that was completed. He

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Speaker 2: introduced me to President Reagan's campaign former campaign manager Stu Spencer,

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Speaker 2: who got me on the airplane with President Reagan. And

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Speaker 2: the reason I do that is to tell you is

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Speaker 2: that the way you build a bond and forge any

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Speaker 2: relationship with somebody like President Reagan, and the kind of

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Speaker 2: relationship I built with him over the years on the

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Speaker 2: theme of this presentation, the Reagan I knew, was that

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Speaker 2: you build it in the crucible of a campaign, the

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Speaker 2: difficulties of the campaign that we had where President Reagan

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Speaker 2: or Governor Reagan at that time, was behind Jimmy Carter

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Speaker 2: throughout most of that campaign, right up until the end,

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Speaker 2: and when I joined him with five and a half

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Speaker 2: weeks ago, we were behind most of the time. We

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Speaker 2: were having a lot of difficulties, We were being protested

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Speaker 2: a lot of the time. And I joined him when

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Speaker 2: he really needed some help writing speeches because they were

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Speaker 2: sending ponderous speeches from the campaign, and Spencer asked me

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Speaker 2: to join because they needed somebody with experience that I

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Speaker 2: had developed during my time to the Nixon White House.

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Speaker 2: So I began joining Reagan in September of nineteen eighty

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Speaker 2: and that's me on the campaign playing with him. We

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Speaker 2: used to start the every day on the beginning of

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Speaker 2: the campaign by Reagan rolling a orange down that campaign

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Speaker 2: aisle to the son of William Nelson singing on the

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Speaker 2: road again. We must have been at a college campus

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Speaker 2: where they had him a basketball. That's Jim Brady sitting

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Speaker 2: behind me, and begin each day like that. Reagan really

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Speaker 2: he would stand there right next to me, and we

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Speaker 2: didn't begin to really know each other. He was not

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Speaker 2: easy to get to know very well. He was very

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Speaker 2: cool with people that he didn't really know at the outset.

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Speaker 2: And so that's why I put this in here, because

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Speaker 2: this is when we're starting to forge a bond. But

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Speaker 2: in the campaign, you're beginning early of your early baggage calls,

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Speaker 2: you're working late at night, you're eating drinking cold coffee,

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Speaker 2: eating stale doughnuts, you're on deadlines, you're going from city

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Speaker 2: to city, and he's on He's sixteen, nine years old

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Speaker 2: and he's working very hard and we're trying to make

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Speaker 2: news every day. And to build this kind of relationship,

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Speaker 2: I had to come up with some lines that kind

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Speaker 2: of to make the news, to make news for him

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Speaker 2: every night, to try to get Jimmy Carter off balance,

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Speaker 2: and the economy at that time was eighteen percent inflation

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Speaker 2: rates excuse me, mortgage rates thirteen percent inflation, unemployment at

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Speaker 2: eight percent, and the economy was really in a bind.

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Speaker 2: And we were trying to come up with a way

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Speaker 2: to demonstrate that to the public and make some news

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Speaker 2: every night. And so finally to get the confidence of

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Speaker 2: the candidate, to get him to know me, for me

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Speaker 2: to create a bond with him, I had to every

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Speaker 2: night come up with something. And we were finally at

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Speaker 2: a campaign rally coming up at Langhorn, Pennsylvania, at the

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Speaker 2: Oxford Mall. And I don't know where it came so

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Speaker 2: out of my head under the stress of campaign pressure

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Speaker 2: or whatever it was, but we were campaigning at the

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Speaker 2: Oxford Mall in Pennsylvania, in Langhorn, and there it was

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Speaker 2: look around you at the price of food, the price

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Speaker 2: of gasoline, the interest rates you have to pay to

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Speaker 2: buy a house, the amount of taxes taken out of

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Speaker 2: your paycheck. Look around and ask yourself, are you better

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Speaker 2: off today than you were in nineteen seventy six? And

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Speaker 2: that was the birth of the iconic line, one of

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Speaker 2: the most iconic lines in politics. Ever to be heard.

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Speaker 2: He tweaked it as you saw later in that movie

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Speaker 2: that you saw earlier today in the debate with Jimmy Carter,

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Speaker 2: he changed it just a little bit to are you

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Speaker 2: really better off than you were four years ago? But

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Speaker 2: that's where that line was born, coming out of my

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Speaker 2: electric selectric typewriter at the Oxford Mole in Langlorn, Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 2: And from there on Reagan got a little more confidence

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Speaker 2: in me in terms of that I could help him

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Speaker 2: out and come up with rhetoric that would help him

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Speaker 2: get elected. And it worked. So based on that and

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Speaker 2: the fact that he knew that we could collaborate. After

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Speaker 2: the election, my intention was to go back to California.

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Speaker 2: I had no interest in going back to the White House.

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Speaker 2: But they wanted me to work in the White House,

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Speaker 2: and so he asked me if I could spend at

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Speaker 2: least the first hundred days. And so we started with

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Speaker 2: the inaugural address, and we had a couple of meetings

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Speaker 2: and so I worked on a draft of the inaugural address.

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Speaker 2: And just so you know, Reagan thought of himself. He

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Speaker 2: didn't like the people to write his speeches for him.

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Speaker 2: He thought of himself. He said in Hollywood, I was

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Speaker 2: known as a good script doctor, not a good script writer.

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Speaker 2: So we worked on the inaugural address, and I presented

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Speaker 2: him with a draft and he basically rewrote good parts

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Speaker 2: of it, and I oversaw the preparation of it and

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Speaker 2: everything else. And then there a day before the inauguration,

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Speaker 2: I presented him with what was called half sheets. He

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Speaker 2: liked to work off of half sheets like this. These

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Speaker 2: are half sheets of tapwriter paper cut in half. And

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Speaker 2: he worked off of half sheets. And so that's presenting

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Speaker 2: the inaugural address film the day before he delivered it.

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Speaker 2: And there he is on the West Capitol steps for

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Speaker 2: the first time delivering it. And I want you to

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Speaker 2: notice something. There's no teleprompter there. He delivered the inaugural

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Speaker 2: address without a teleprompter, just like he delivered all of

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Speaker 2: his campaign speeches without a teleprompter. He used half sheets

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Speaker 2: all the time like this without a teleprompter. And the

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Speaker 2: teleprompter has become a tyrant for all the politicians today.

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Speaker 2: But he never used a teleprompter. So after that he

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Speaker 2: came to the White House, and after all those years

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Speaker 2: at General Electric, where he traveled the country, this crusade

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Speaker 2: that he had of cutting taxes and lowering government and

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Speaker 2: cutting spending and just taking control of the national debt

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Speaker 2: and making a stronger country, a stronger national defense, a

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Speaker 2: stronger foreign policy. It was just in his soul that

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Speaker 2: he wanted to change America. The crusade came to the

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Speaker 2: White House and he was like a kid in the

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Speaker 2: candy store. And so these are our first cabinet meetings.

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Speaker 2: And this was probably January twenty second this picture is taken.

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Speaker 2: I'm on the far left hand side there in the corner,

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Speaker 2: taking notes. I took notes constantly during this whole time.

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Speaker 2: And that's why my book is so well documented, because

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Speaker 2: I took notes at every meeting I ever went to.

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Speaker 2: And there he is Cap Weinberger must have been gone

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Speaker 2: that day. So that's Frank Carlucci there to his president's left.

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Speaker 2: And al haiged was right. But he set in that

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Speaker 2: first meeting to the cabinet, he said, you know, we

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Speaker 2: came here to do things differently. He lectured his cabinet.

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Speaker 2: He wanted to make a big change. He wanted that crusade.

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Speaker 2: He called it a crusade, just like you saw in

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Speaker 2: the movie. But it was not just about foreign policy.

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Speaker 2: It was about domestic policy when he said, and that's

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Speaker 2: a direct quote, we came here to do things differently.

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Speaker 2: He wanted to up end the government. He wanted to

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Speaker 2: cut taxes, he wanted to cut back on regulations, he

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Speaker 2: wanted to get He thought there was so much waste

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Speaker 2: in government. And he kept lecturing his cabinet over and

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Speaker 2: over again in the first three, four or five six

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Speaker 2: cabinet council meetings. And I remember that so distinctly, and

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Speaker 2: it's in the first three chapters of his that I

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Speaker 2: described in as opening of his president tency. And then

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Speaker 2: it became a mission for him that was very, very important.

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Speaker 2: And this is a January twenty eighth meeting with his

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Speaker 2: economic advisors, and this isn't important. The reason I put

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Speaker 2: this slide up is that this is an especially important

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Speaker 2: meeting to me is because he has his This is

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Speaker 2: George Bush to his left, and his economic advisors, Don Reagan,

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Speaker 2: the Treasury Secretary, Murray Wiedenbaum is head of Council of

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Speaker 2: Economic Advisors. David Stockman, who was from Michigan by the way,

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Speaker 2: who became OMB director, and Marty Anderson and Reagan stopped

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Speaker 2: in this meeting and gave it an important economic lecture

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Speaker 2: to all of us. It took about ten or fifteen minutes,

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Speaker 2: and you saw a little fracture of that in the movie.

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Speaker 2: But he went on and on about how government got

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Speaker 2: too big and about have bothered him so much, and

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Speaker 2: that he wanted to make such important changes, and he

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Speaker 2: was upset with his staff that they weren't doing enough.

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Speaker 2: And one thing I'm just I'm going to just quote

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Speaker 2: one thing that he said. We've been living on borrowed time,

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Speaker 2: and we can't cure it instantly. What we can do

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Speaker 2: is bring the rolling boulder to a stop and then

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Speaker 2: start pushing it back up the hill. We've talked for

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Speaker 2: forty years about cutting the size of the government, but

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Speaker 2: that's never happened. No government in history has voluntarily reduced

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Speaker 2: its size. Does that sound familiar to you. Sounds like

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Speaker 2: what's going on today, doesn't it? Anyway, this is what

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Speaker 2: he wanted to do. However, it didn't take long before

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Speaker 2: he was disappointed. I left the White House because I

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Speaker 2: was on temporary assignment, and I went back to California.

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Speaker 2: But it didn't take long before he called me back

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Speaker 2: in June, and he called me to a meeting in

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Speaker 2: Camp Date and that's the Aspen Lodge in Camp David.

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Speaker 2: That's the President's lodge in Camp David. And we had

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Speaker 2: a meeting to discuss two important speeches he wanted to give,

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Speaker 2: and I discussed that in my book where he says

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Speaker 2: he put the yellow pad down and he said, Ken,

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Speaker 2: he says, you know, the staff. The staff has gotten

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Speaker 2: away from our central mission. They've gotten away from the

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Speaker 2: things we've talked about in the campaign. They've gotten away

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Speaker 2: from the crusade that we brought to government. And he

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Speaker 2: was already disappointed that his own staff was not pushing

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Speaker 2: the mission or did not absorb the crusade that he'd

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Speaker 2: wanted to bring to government. And this was a problem

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Speaker 2: that when you look at the Reagan presidency, there were

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Speaker 2: members of his own staff that really did not believe

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Speaker 2: in what he was doing. And most of the had

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Speaker 2: not traveled with us in the campaign. They didn't have

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Speaker 2: that same sense, they didn't have the same bond with him,

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Speaker 2: the same connection with him. Those of us who campaigned

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Speaker 2: with him had about cutting taxes, about cutting state government regulation,

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Speaker 2: about the same notion of the taxes were too high.

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Speaker 2: And so he was disappointed with them about all those things.

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Speaker 2: So this is a very important feature. I think of

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Speaker 2: the message that I have to tell you about the

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Speaker 2: wrong Reagan I knew, and the message, it's a very

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Speaker 2: strong message in my book. Anyway, it doesn't mean that

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Speaker 2: we didn't try to sell the case. So we did

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Speaker 2: have an economic recovery plan in early nineteen eighty one.

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Speaker 2: It was called the kemp Roth Tax Cuts, cutting taxes

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Speaker 2: and cutting the budget. And what made him the great

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Speaker 2: communicator was how he he sold his case, and for

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Speaker 2: those students here to learn how to communicate and how

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Speaker 2: to best sell anything. Instead of using if you're giving

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Speaker 2: a speech, instead of using raw statistics, Reagan knew that

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Speaker 2: the best way to sell something about the economy was

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Speaker 2: to use illustrations. And in this case, the way he

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Speaker 2: did it was this is Reagan on February fifth, nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty one, which is the speech I worked with him

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Speaker 2: on that he and I collaborated on. He wanted to

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Speaker 2: talk about how inflation had eroted the value of a

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Speaker 2: dollar bill. That's a dollar bill he's holding in his hand,

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Speaker 2: and he wanted to talk about how inflation had eroded

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Speaker 2: the value of a dollar from nineteen sixty to nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty one. And he held the dollar bill in his hand,

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Speaker 2: and then in his pocket he had a quarter, a dime,

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Speaker 2: and a penny, and he that dollar bill. From nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty to nineteen eighty one, he had gone to thirty

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Speaker 2: six cents. I said, mister President, are you sure you

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Speaker 2: can do that on TV? Live TV? Take out the

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Speaker 2: dollar bill and take out thirty the court of the

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Speaker 2: diamond the penny. And he was insulted. I should have

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Speaker 2: never questioned the great performer, but that's how he made

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Speaker 2: the illustration. And then on February eighteenth of nineteen eighty one,

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Speaker 2: we did a joint session with Congress speech, and he

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Speaker 2: was outraged at the national debt. Now, the national debt

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Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty one, I don't know if you want

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Speaker 2: to guess what it was, but it was not yet

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Speaker 2: a trillion dollars. Today it's thirty six trillion dollars. Then

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Speaker 2: it was like a nine hundred and eighty nine billion.

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Speaker 2: But he was really outraged at the size of the

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Speaker 2: national debt, and he wanted to illustrate to the Congress,

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Speaker 2: you and the Congress, I've got to do something about

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Speaker 2: the national debt. So we've got to do something about it.

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Speaker 2: And I want to tell you how bad it is.

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Speaker 2: So he put out his hand and he did this

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Speaker 2: all he by the way. He did it by long division.

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Speaker 2: But I don't know how he got to it. But

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Speaker 2: he said, instead of if I hold one thousand dollars

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Speaker 2: bills to make a million dollars in my hand, it

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Speaker 2: would be four inches high. If I hold one thousand

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Speaker 2: dollar bills in my hand to reach a trillion dollars,

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Speaker 2: it would reach to the sky. Originally he said eighty

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Speaker 2: eighty miles high, and then we had to correct them

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Speaker 2: because his math was just a little bit off, and

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Speaker 2: we found it was actually sixty seven miles high. But

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Speaker 2: this is how he liked to tell his stories to

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Speaker 2: get the point across the Congress. But the national debt

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Speaker 2: was absurd, but that was much better than saying, hey,

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Speaker 2: the national debt's going to a billion dollars or trillion dollars,

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Speaker 2: and that's out of line. So that's how the great

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Speaker 2: communicator made his point. Now, another great story I love

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Speaker 2: is this is after his assassination attempt, and this is

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Speaker 2: April twenty eighth, nineteen eighty one, and I was one

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Speaker 2: of the few people who got to meet with him

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Speaker 2: after he started recuperating, and it was about probably about

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Speaker 2: April twenty first, I don't know the exact date. We

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Speaker 2: got to meet with him in the residence, and naturally

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Speaker 2: we were going to exploit as much as we could

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Speaker 2: the fact that there was all this national sympathy for

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Speaker 2: him after the assassination attempt. We wanted to sell his

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Speaker 2: economic recovery plan. So we were going to do his

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Speaker 2: Joint Session speech, and I thought it would be make

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Speaker 2: a lot of sense to add zest to the speech

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Speaker 2: by finding a letter from some from some somebody that

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Speaker 2: was get well card or something like that. So I

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Speaker 2: asked the correspondent the section, and they found this letter

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Speaker 2: from this second grade boy from Riverside School in Rockville Center,

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Speaker 2: New York. And there he is. He pulled it out

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Speaker 2: of his pocket. It was not in the advanced copy

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Speaker 2: of the of the text, so it was a surprise

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Speaker 2: to the Joint Session, and it was from Peter Sweeney,

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Speaker 2: this little second grader said, and he pulled it out

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Speaker 2: of his pocket. He says, I have this letter from

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Speaker 2: this little second grader who says, dear mister President, please

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Speaker 2: get well quick, or you might have to give a

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Speaker 2: speech to your pajamas, and then he paused, and you

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Speaker 2: can see you can see Tipple and' neil laughing back there,

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Speaker 2: and then he and then he paused, and he says

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Speaker 2: and he read, ps if you have to give a

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Speaker 2: space in your pajamas, remember I warned you. And they're

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Speaker 2: laughing back there, and he had him in the palm

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Speaker 2: of his hands. He was such a great performer anyway,

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Speaker 2: those are some of the great communicating skills he had.

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Speaker 2: So the Reagan you don't know is what some of

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Speaker 2: the stories I wanted to tell you. And this is

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Speaker 2: us at Camp David once again. Now we're filming the

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Speaker 2: Morning Morning in America, ADS, and this is the scenes

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Speaker 2: that you never saw anywhere. This is me when I

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Speaker 2: was forty years old. This is a long time ago,

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Speaker 2: and the President and a fellow in the back of

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Speaker 2: the Phil Dusonberry with the tie on as the producer,

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Speaker 2: and I say, it's the Reagan you don't know is

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Speaker 2: because Reagan was un comfortable with people that were strangers

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Speaker 2: in his life. A lot of his staff he didn't

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Speaker 2: feel comfortable with because he wasn't with them, as I

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Speaker 2: say in the Crucible of the Campaign, or it wasn't

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Speaker 2: around them a lot. He knew ed me, he knew

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Speaker 2: Mike Deaver, he knew Bill Clark, he had been around

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Speaker 2: him a lot. But there was a lot of people

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Speaker 2: on his staff that were just staff people. He didn't

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Speaker 2: have a bond with them. And he and I had

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Speaker 2: created a bond over the years that was so special.

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Speaker 2: And I know it sounds pretentious and precious sometimes, but

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Speaker 2: that's the part of Reagan. Reagan was always genial, and

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Speaker 2: you could see him in a crowd laughing. You could

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Speaker 2: see ten people around him laughing and cheerful, and it

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Speaker 2: was seem to you he doesn't Reagan. He would seem

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Speaker 2: like he knows and loves all these people, but he's

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Speaker 2: probably telling a joke or telling a story about Doris

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Speaker 2: Day and some movie he did. But that's because he

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Speaker 2: was uncomfortable around them. That's the way he would deal

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Speaker 2: with a discomfort. So when he was in a situation

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Speaker 2: like this, that's why they called me in because they

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Speaker 2: needed somebody with whom he had some kind of bond

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Speaker 2: with which to make this commercial. So about a week

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Speaker 2: before they did this, they say, hey, Kotchigan, we're filming

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Speaker 2: this commercial with the President. We're going to need somebody

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Speaker 2: to sit across from him to do these takes that

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Speaker 2: he knows a familiar face, and so that's going to

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Speaker 2: be you. And so that's that's the sort of the

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Speaker 2: story about Reagan, a special side of him that a

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Speaker 2: lot of people don't know. And of course Missus Reagan

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Speaker 2: was there because she's someone that he always wanted around

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Speaker 2: in situations to give him a comfort level. And there

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Speaker 2: she is. I don't know what she's doing, picking something

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Speaker 2: out of my eye. But she's also a real flirt.

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Speaker 2: I'll have to tell you about that. But there's another

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Speaker 2: slide of her. Sometimes if you're on the wrong side

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Speaker 2: of her. She wasn't. She was just the opposite of

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Speaker 2: being a flirt. And this is another After filming the

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Speaker 2: commercials at Camp David, we filmed also part of the commercials.

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Speaker 2: That's the South Portico south Portico of the White House,

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Speaker 2: a really special place by the way, when you look

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Speaker 2: out at the south lawn and we're filming another ad

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Speaker 2: and it's the same thing. They needed somebody to start

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Speaker 2: talking to Reagan while the camera starts, and then I

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Speaker 2: would be out of the view. The camera would keep

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Speaker 2: rolling while he's talking to me or George Schultz or

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Speaker 2: George Bush or somebody else. So if you watch those

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Speaker 2: that morning again in America Film, which you can get

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Speaker 2: on YouTube, you can see this all in action. I

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Speaker 2: call this when the President needed friend. After the election

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Speaker 2: of eighty four, we were in that massive landslide, which

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Speaker 2: was just wonderful. He was going seventy to sixty eight,

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Speaker 2: sixty percent in the polls. He was going great, and

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Speaker 2: then Chancellor Coll of West Germany invited him to Germany

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Speaker 2: to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the end of World

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Speaker 2: War Two, and so they sent an advanced team over

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Speaker 2: to to Germany to advance the trip. And the idea

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Speaker 2: was for him to do a commemoration of the visit

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Speaker 2: by laying a wreath upon the soldier's graves, and one

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Speaker 2: of the soldier's graves was to show the the Fellowship,

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Speaker 2: and by showing the fellowship, they would put a wreath

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Speaker 2: on the grave of German soldiers as well. It turns

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Speaker 2: out that those graves were covered with snow when they

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Speaker 2: did the advanced trip, and then when the snow melted

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Speaker 2: in the spring, it turns out that those graves were

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Speaker 2: of Nazi ss Wolfing soldiers. The wolf in SS the

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Speaker 2: worst of the kind. And so this big explosion took

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Speaker 2: place of our controversy of accusing the president of being

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Speaker 2: anti Semitic, that he opened the wounds of war, that

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Speaker 2: he shouldn't be going there, headlines in the Post, the Times,

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Speaker 2: and all the newsweeklies, and you can see that this

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Speaker 2: is just one headline out of dozens and dozens Congress

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Speaker 2: passed resolutions. Nancy didn't want him to go, but he

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Speaker 2: got his back up and he said, I've got to

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Speaker 2: do this chance. And we had pershing missiles in Germany,

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Speaker 2: by the way, so that was another There was a

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Speaker 2: national defense reason why we had to go. So in

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Speaker 2: order to make amends. And this is the Time magazine

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Speaker 2: article about this, a misbegotten trip opens old wounds. And

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Speaker 2: that's the look on the face of President Reagan as

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Speaker 2: Ellie Wizzell was lecturing him in the White House. So

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Speaker 2: they decided, in order to do an expiation of this visit,

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Speaker 2: he would go to the bergen Belsen concentration camp and

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Speaker 2: give a speech to try to get out from under

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Speaker 2: this horrible controversy. As polls that dropped fifteen percent. I

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Speaker 2: was not in the White House. I was no longer

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Speaker 2: the Who House, but I would get called in on

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Speaker 2: special assignment. Missus Reagan wanted me in on this speech.

433
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 2: So I got called in with a short notice, and

434
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 2: I sat down with the President. And this is the

435
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 2: look on his That was the kind of look on

436
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 2: his face when I walked into the old Office. He

437
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 2: was stricken, he was saddened, he was down. He said

438
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 2: he just couldn't believe that anybody could consider him that

439
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 2: he would be anti Semitic, or that he would ever

440
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 2: dare have those views. And so he gave me some

441
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 2: basic ideas, and so I had to go back and forth,

442
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 2: and we worked very hard. And it turns out when

443
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 2: I say this is when the President needed a friend,

444
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 2: he did need it once again. He needed a friendly face.

445
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:46,239
Speaker 2: He needed somebody that he could collaborate with, Somebody that

446
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 2: was familiar to him, somebody that was not a stranger.

447
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 2: He had he had six or seven speech writers in

448
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 2: the White House, but there wasn't anybody that could sit

449
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 2: down with him that he he had a feeling with

450
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 2: that was brought him a comfort level that he could

451
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 2: work on that speech, that knows that it could bail

452
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 2: him out of this situation. And we worked on that

453
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 2: and it turned out to me he delivered that speech

454
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 2: at bergen Belsen, which has been called Reagan's greatest speech

455
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 2: and Gregan's greatest commemorative speech. And if you ever get

456
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 2: a chance, I hope you can try to watch it.

457
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 2: It's very it turns out to be very moving. Reagan

458
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 2: the competitor. Sometimes again you see the genial side of

459
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 2: Reagan and that he can, you know, take it easy

460
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 2: with people. But I call him the competitor. And he

461
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 2: tells the story about in the movies dealing with I

462
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 2: love this story because revealed different side of him. Errol

463
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 2: Flynn was a big camera hog, he said, and in

464
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 2: the movies and they had competition with one another, and

465
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 2: and Errol Flynn would try to get in front of

466
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 2: him in front of the camera. So one time he said,

467
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 2: there they were in a break in a scene during

468
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 2: the Santa Fe Trail, and so Reagan says, during the

469
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 2: breaking says, I I took my boot and I started

470
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 2: making a big mound with dirt and it got it

471
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 2: be about eight or ten inches high. And when the

472
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 2: when the director said action said, I stepped up on

473
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 2: the mound so I could be up above Ero flann

474
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 2: So I just always loved that story. So there was

475
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 2: that side of him. He loved to compete. This picture

476
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 2: I put in there not to show you the two

477
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 2: of us working, but if you picture Missus Reagan being

478
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 2: in the seat that I'm in, and picture me being

479
00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 2: across from them in a bench, we were on Air

480
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 2: Force one, the three of us when in October of

481
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty four campaign, I tried. I came back

482
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 2: for five months to work on the campaign. And in

483
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, and Mondale had been attacking Reagan ferociously,

484
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 2: just ferociously, and Reagan was upset because the speech writers

485
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:29,240
Speaker 2: were instructed by Jim Baker not to put Mondale's name

486
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 2: in Reagan's speeches, and he and Baker instructed me as well,

487
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 2: But I wasn't writing the speeches, but nevertheless I was

488
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 2: getting the blame for it, so missus anyway, But the

489
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 2: bottom line is is that Reagan made sure that Missus

490
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 2: Reagan got the message from him to her and from

491
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 2: her to me to make sure that Mondale's name got

492
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 2: put back in the speeches. And when Missus Reagan wanted

493
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 2: to make something clear, he made it very clear. And

494
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 2: so my point is is that when Reagan got his

495
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 2: back up about something like that, he could make it clear.

496
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 2: Now whether he did it or she did it didn't matter.

497
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 2: And so it ended up that he Just a few

498
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 2: days later, we had a whistlestop tour through Ohio. That's

499
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 2: Harry Truman's give him Hell, the car he rode in

500
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 2: nineteen forty eight. We took the same car through southern

501
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 2: Ohio on October twelfth, and I wrote that, I wrote

502
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 2: I got the assignment to write that speech. I used

503
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:45,959
Speaker 2: Mondale's name like just about every other line, and Reagan

504
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 2: was very, very happy. And this is me delivering his

505
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight speech to the convention. What's interesting about

506
00:33:56,160 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 2: this is that Missus Reagan and the President different on

507
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 2: what this speech should be like. This is one of

508
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 2: those rare occasions where I had to sit between the

509
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 2: two of them at a at a lunch where they

510
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: were discussing this speech. Now, Missus Reagan wanted this speech

511
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 2: to be all visionary and warm and fuzzy, but the

512
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 2: Democrats had been attacking Reagan throughout their convention very harshly,

513
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 2: and Reagan got his back up and disagreed with Missus

514
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 2: Reagan and missus. Reagan wanted this speech one way, he

515
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 2: wanted this speech another way. I knew who I worked for,

516
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 2: and so I had to write it his way. But

517
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:44,359
Speaker 2: the point is is that when he made up his

518
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 2: mind that he wanted to respond to these Democrats, he

519
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 2: got it his way. So I delivered a tough speech.

520
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 2: And that's that's anyway. That's how it ended up. Finally,

521
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 2: I want to end up with these treasured moments I

522
00:34:57,520 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 2: had with him, because this, this is the other Reagan.

523
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:07,439
Speaker 2: I knew here. We are an air force one, and

524
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 2: I can't tell you what a pleasure, how much fun

525
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:15,879
Speaker 2: it is to write on the presidential aircraft. And on

526
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:19,839
Speaker 2: this occasion, I don't I don't remember where. I think

527
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 2: we were flying from Chicago to Washington before working on

528
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 2: a General Assembly speech, and I was sitting on that

529
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:34,719
Speaker 2: bench that I was just referring to, and Reagan was

530
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 2: wearing he always wore cuff links, and I looked over

531
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 2: his cup links and I said, mister President, there's a

532
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 2: date on your cuff links. And he said yeah, And

533
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 2: I said, what's that date? What is that date? Well,

534
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 2: he said, that's the date of our anniversary. So I

535
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:06,719
Speaker 2: grabbed his wrist, I said, what's the date. So that's

536
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 2: me grabbing his couplings. And that's a look on his face.

537
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:15,959
Speaker 2: You see how smug he is. And he got it right.

538
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 2: But that's the kind of relationship we had that I

539
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:24,280
Speaker 2: could do that to the President of the United States. Otherwise,

540
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 2: I mean, otherwise he probably would slugged me or something.

541
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 2: Missus Reagan wasn't. You can see the look on her face. Oh,

542
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 2: you touched the President of the United States. This is

543
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 2: another churichh moment I had. We were going to meet

544
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 2: Missus Reagan for lunch. We were going to work on

545
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:47,919
Speaker 2: the anti drug speech to just say No speech back

546
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty six. And she was late. She was

547
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 2: with her lady friend somewhere, and she was ten minutes late.

548
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 2: And I got to the weir Ath Century Plausa hotel

549
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 2: well and he said. I walked in and said, Ken,

550
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 2: come here, let me show you what I've been doing.

551
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 2: I said, what's that, miss President? He said, well, look,

552
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 2: and he'd been flying paper airplanes off the top of

553
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:26,800
Speaker 2: the balcony at the Century Plaza using White House presidential stationery.

554
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 2: Now only now the president we all had presidential stationery,

555
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 2: but only the President has this special sort of mint

556
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 2: colored White House stationary that he gets and this picture

557
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 2: which was captured by Pete Susan, the White House photographer,

558
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 2: and he sang literally saying to me, WHOA, look at

559
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 2: that go and and the and the plane, the paper

560
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 2: airplane is just floating down like this, and he was

561
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 2: like a he was like an eight year old kid,

562
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 2: so proud of himself about smoothly that I know. And

563
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 2: it was going to the I think the Century the

564
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 2: Fox Studios lot was just below, because we're on the

565
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 2: Century Plaza Hotels on the Century Fox lot, and there's

566
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 2: got to be some workmen down there cleaning up about

567
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 2: fifteen paper airplanes. I wonder what this White House stationary

568
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 2: is all about. And finally you saw the film from

569
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 2: the Rancho del Cielo when we were working on the

570
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:39,879
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight convention speech that has farewell address there.

571
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:42,760
Speaker 2: I am. I'm not carrying the nuclear football, by the way.

572
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:48,359
Speaker 2: So we had lunch at the patio with he and

573
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,359
Speaker 2: Missus Reagan, and so I just arrived on the on

574
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 2: the ranch to work on the on the speech with him,

575
00:38:56,239 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 2: and on my wall he wrote notations on all the pictures.

576
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 2: He gave me and he says, I can't you arrived

577
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 2: just in time where cutting wood just up ahead, And

578
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 2: so I had just come to work with him. And

579
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:14,399
Speaker 2: then when I after we had lunch and finished working

580
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,360
Speaker 2: on the speech, he took me to his little house

581
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:20,440
Speaker 2: showed me. He said, I want to show you all

582
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,400
Speaker 2: the wood work I did on the house and the

583
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 2: floor he laid, and how proud he was of all

584
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 2: the work he had done, and it was just so

585
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 2: special that he was just a normal guy. It bothered

586
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,400
Speaker 2: me that I never told him. You know, he was

587
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 2: so used to seeing me in suits and formal clothes

588
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 2: and everything, and bothered me that I ever told him that.

589
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 2: As I grew up in the same way about you know,

590
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 2: cutting brush and doing work like that on my farm

591
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 2: growing up in Vaisalia, California, on the sixty acre form

592
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 2: I should have told him. He probably would have liked

593
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 2: to hear that. And then and this is the end.

594
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 2: As I was leaving to go back to my car

595
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 2: that take me back to my hotel from the ranch.

596
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 2: This is a president driving me at such a special time.

597
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 2: That have the most special chauffeur in the world. I

598
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 2: call it driving mister Daisy, and that's to the president's

599
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 2: right as a secret Service agent. And then you know

600
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 2: who's standing above that is the White House doctor, just

601
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 2: in case the President does something stupid and gets in

602
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 2: a car rerecord or something like that. Anyway, I couldn't

603
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 2: have been more special than that. And then this is

604
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,839
Speaker 2: one of my final favorite pictures of him and the

605
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 2: President me in the Oval office. That's such a beautiful shot.

606
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 2: And he inscribed it with a typical Hollywood inscription. He said, Ken,

607
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 2: you and I should have been both of us should

608
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 2: have been facing the camera, and we should have both

609
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:06,240
Speaker 2: been closer to it. And it sums up such a wonderful,

610
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 2: beautiful trip I had with the President of the United States.

611
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Thank you.

612
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 3: Mister Kitchian has agreed to sign copies of his book

613
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 3: behind closed doors in the room with Reagan and Nixon.

614
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 3: We now have time for Q and A. If you

615
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 3: have a question, please make your way to a microphone.

616
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 3: Student questions will be given preference.

617
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 2: Well, first, thank you for a fascinating speech. Since you

618
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 2: have the ear for words. How would you compare Nixon, Reagan,

619
00:41:49,920 --> 00:42:00,360
Speaker 2: and Trump. Well, obviously different styles. Nixon Nix was a

620
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:04,759
Speaker 2: great It was a much more formal orator. Nixon was

621
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 2: a great communicator in his own right. Nixon campaign. I

622
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 2: will tell you something interesting about Nixon. He never used

623
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,320
Speaker 2: never used note and when he campaigned, never used notes,

624
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 2: never used a teleprompter, so all his campaign speeches were

625
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 2: all extemporaneous when he spoke. When Nixon spoke at events,

626
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:41,440
Speaker 2: for example, as president, he spoke extemporaneously. We provided him

627
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 2: with background information, suggested remarks, and then he would study them,

628
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 2: take notes, and then speak extemporaneously. It was formal addresses,

629
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 2: he used texts, and from the Oval office he used

630
00:42:55,120 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 2: the teleprompter. But I think Nixon was He worked very

631
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:08,759
Speaker 2: hard at his presentations. He admired Reagan's communicating skills. But

632
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 2: I think Nixon in his own way was a great communicator,

633
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,360
Speaker 2: but in a different way, much more formal, much more structured.

634
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 2: I think Reagan was unparalleled in a lot of ways

635
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 2: because of he had artful He was an attractive man,

636
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 2: he had great voice, He was skilled from all the

637
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:37,759
Speaker 2: years in Hollywood, for all those years he spent on

638
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 2: the time with General Electric traveling throughout the country. He

639
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:48,240
Speaker 2: was a good storyteller, and he was a creature of radio.

640
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 2: So for those of you who are my age who

641
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 2: can remember radio and radio had to create word pictures.

642
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 2: I grew up in an age of radio, so your

643
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 2: mind created word pictures that that helped regular a lot.

644
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 2: Trump is a good communicator in the sense that he

645
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 2: goes to people's guts. And that's what made him a

646
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 2: good communicator in twenty sixteen, and why he won the

647
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 2: election is that he spoke to what Scamming and Wanttenberg

648
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:39,360
Speaker 2: called the real majority. They wrote a book in nineteen

649
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:43,319
Speaker 2: seventy called the Real Majority and what Joe Kraft called

650
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,920
Speaker 2: the Forgotten Man, and he knew how to reach to them,

651
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:52,280
Speaker 2: so they all That's how they all different in different ways.

652
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:57,040
Speaker 2: I think Trump is much cruder. I think he's I

653
00:44:57,080 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 2: think he could be less excessive in what he does.

654
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 2: I think he should give shorter speeches, and I think

655
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:07,280
Speaker 2: Trump should not use a teleproblemter as much as he does.

656
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 4: Thank you, mister Kashegian on kind of the same note

657
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:19,839
Speaker 4: as the previous gentleman. There's been quite a few opinions

658
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 4: in recent years, particularly from a certain sector of the

659
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:27,359
Speaker 4: conservative movement, that Trump's policies, particularly in the realm of

660
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 4: foreign affairs, and maybe some of his economic policies relating

661
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 4: to tariffs are kind of a move away from Reaganism.

662
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 4: Would you consider that an accurate interpretation or no? As

663
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 4: someone who worked in the Reagan administration, I.

664
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 2: Think what I can make a much a better answer

665
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:58,760
Speaker 2: on domestic affairs, and that is what he's doing domestically

666
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 2: is what Reagan intended to do in nineteen eighty one.

667
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:07,919
Speaker 2: He's kicking the table over. You heard what I said

668
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 2: about Reagan. We came here to do things differently. Reagan

669
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 2: really wanted to do a lot of the things that

670
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 2: Trump is doing now, and I think there was he

671
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:22,760
Speaker 2: would have I can't you know, I can't speak for somebody.

672
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 2: I can't tell you what he would say, but I

673
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 2: think he would be envious of the way he's cutting back.

674
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 2: And Reagan was prevented from doing a lot of the

675
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 2: things that he really wanted to do. He wanted to

676
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:41,600
Speaker 2: make all those cuts he wanted. He was so tired

677
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:44,880
Speaker 2: of the bureaucracy. And that meeting we had at Camp David,

678
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,840
Speaker 2: I showed you where he said, the fellows have gotten

679
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:50,799
Speaker 2: away from my crusade, and he was bothered by it.

680
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 2: So I think he would be very supportive of the

681
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 2: kind of cuts that were made. And he was very

682
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 2: on the other hand reage. You know, there was some

683
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 2: meetings where he say he was sensitive. He was a

684
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 2: child of the depression, and he said, well, you know,

685
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 2: I'm really sensitive to the people that are losing their

686
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 2: jobs because I remember it was like to lose jobs

687
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 2: of the depression. So he wanted sort of a soft landing.

688
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 2: But then again there but then he was so bothered

689
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 2: by the excesses of government. You know, he paid taxes

690
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 2: at ninety percent when he was in Hollywood, or ninety

691
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 2: one percent or whatever that high tax rate was. And

692
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 2: then he would tell his story. There's this. I know

693
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:38,320
Speaker 2: I'm going on too long, but this is a story

694
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:41,720
Speaker 2: that this is a story that's important for me to tell.

695
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 2: He used to go to these he used to be

696
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 2: a spokesman, and he talked about going to these events

697
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 2: where he would be an MC and he talked about

698
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 2: the Pillsbury bakeoff. You remember the Pillsbury bakeoffs and these ladies.

699
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 2: This is a different era. The ladies would compete to

700
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:06,360
Speaker 2: make their special recipes. They'd have a contest Pillsbury bake Off,

701
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:09,360
Speaker 2: and the ladies would win and they'd get an award,

702
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 2: and Reagan would be in an MC at these events,

703
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 2: and Reagan would tell the story that the ladies would

704
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 2: get the award and they'd get a cash check, and

705
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:26,240
Speaker 2: he said there'd be an irs agent off stage waiting

706
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 2: to collect the share of that award just as they

707
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:32,839
Speaker 2: walked off. He told that story several times that had

708
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 2: really made him angry. So that's the kind of thing

709
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:37,640
Speaker 2: I think he'd be envious of a lot of the

710
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 2: things that Trump is doing.

711
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:45,360
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for your presentation. You mentioned that

712
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 5: President Reagan was sometimes disappointed when his crusade wasn't moving

713
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 5: as quickly as he wanted it to. From your vantage

714
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 5: point as a speech writer, did you ever feel that

715
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 5: there was a discrepancy between the vision you were presenting

716
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 5: in the speeches and the political reality.

717
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:06,839
Speaker 2: I've been asked a lot of questions. I've never been

718
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:16,759
Speaker 2: asked that one. I think there's always you have to

719
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 2: have a division between vision and reality because otherwise you're

720
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 2: not going to have some changes. You have to say

721
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:31,359
Speaker 2: things that are over the horizon, and I think that's

722
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 2: what Reagan would do. He would say things that maybe

723
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 2: would spark something that would be maybe a little beyond

724
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 2: what people would believe or think, that would trigger a

725
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 2: thought that nobody would ever think of before. And so

726
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 2: you have to say things that were different and that

727
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:56,799
Speaker 2: maybe not be real. But I don't but I don't

728
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:59,919
Speaker 2: think you would ever say the outlandish that was ever

729
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 2: beyond total reality. But he was he liked, He was

730
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:08,880
Speaker 2: a story He was a born storyteller. And I had

731
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:11,720
Speaker 2: to I had to pull him back a few times,

732
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 2: and we had we had to fact check him, you know,

733
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:18,439
Speaker 2: when the presidents had presidents have to be fact checked.

734
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:21,239
Speaker 2: We had three researchers in the White House that did

735
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:24,280
Speaker 2: nothing but fact check all this, all the president's speeches.

736
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:27,719
Speaker 2: And that's the first thing among the things I did

737
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:30,799
Speaker 2: when I hired the speech fighting staff. I hired three.

738
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 2: I brought back three researchers. And the President would get

739
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 2: upset when he would put something in a speech like

740
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,880
Speaker 2: that business about the stacking the thousand dollars bills. He

741
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:47,759
Speaker 2: came he came back with eighty miles high and I

742
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:50,240
Speaker 2: had to pull him back to sixty seven miles high.

743
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:53,359
Speaker 2: But he did it by long division, and I had

744
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 2: to go to the Bureau of engraving and mint and

745
00:50:56,600 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 2: get the right answer. But I said to miss President,

746
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 2: any time you utter anything, the press is going to

747
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:10,040
Speaker 2: go back and check every utterance you make because it

748
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 2: goes down in history. So we had to make reality

749
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 2: checks on everything.

750
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for your talk. It was amazing

751
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 6: to hear all those stories. We have a oratory competition

752
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:27,719
Speaker 6: coming up here in a couple of days, and I

753
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:30,160
Speaker 6: wanted to get your opinion. What is one piece of

754
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:33,799
Speaker 6: advice you'd give to speech writers, not about the presentation

755
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:36,759
Speaker 6: or the performance of it, but actually writing a memorable

756
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 6: speech that will impact people.

757
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 2: How do you write it? There's no book on speech writing.

758
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 2: There's You have to have a message. You have to

759
00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 2: have a core message. You have to come up with

760
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 2: That's the first thing. You have to come up with.

761
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:05,319
Speaker 2: What's your what is your what is the message you

762
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 2: want to convey? And how do you get there? And

763
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:12,520
Speaker 2: then once you come up with that, Once you have

764
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 2: that message, then what's the pathway to that message? And

765
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:24,920
Speaker 2: then you start. You know, sometimes I wake up in

766
00:52:24,920 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 2: the middle of the night coming up with things and

767
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 2: I put them and I grabbed my iPhone and I

768
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:35,239
Speaker 2: dropped things down the there's so much, so many. I

769
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 2: wrote a whole book on this and that bergen Belsen speech.

770
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:45,399
Speaker 2: I wrote the best lines I came up. I wrote

771
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:52,959
Speaker 2: on a napkin at a bar in Georgetown, and that line,

772
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 2: are you better off than you were in nineteen seventy six?

773
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 2: I don't know where it came from. Sometimes you just

774
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 2: have to keep thinking and thinking. But at the core

775
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 2: you have to have what what is that audience? What's

776
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 2: going to move that audience? What do I want them

777
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 2: to know? It's like it's like a preacher's sermon. What

778
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 2: do you want them? What do you want them to

779
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:26,239
Speaker 2: leave the room thinking? How about that? Put that? Put

780
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,040
Speaker 2: that at the top of the page. What do you

781
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:30,799
Speaker 2: want them to leave the room thinking? That's number one?

782
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 2: And then start from there. And then then the first

783
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 2: sentence is the hardest thing to do when you're right,

784
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 2: When you write an essay, it's the first sentence of

785
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 2: the heart. Otherwise I don't have there's no book on it.

786
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:50,799
Speaker 3: Sorry, we now have time for one more question.

787
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,080
Speaker 7: Thank you so much for your presentation. You mentioned that

788
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:58,080
Speaker 7: you grew up on a sixty acre farm, You went

789
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:00,400
Speaker 7: to UC Santa Barbara, and then you ended up speech

790
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 7: writer for a president. What brought you through all those

791
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 7: different experiences in life? What values, what virtues held you

792
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:08,800
Speaker 7: fast through all those different experiences.

793
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Can you repeat for me? Come closer.

794
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:20,919
Speaker 7: You mentioned you grew up on a farm, you went

795
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:23,280
Speaker 7: to UC Santa Barbara, and then you were a speech

796
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:26,399
Speaker 7: writer for the president. What sort of virtues, what sort

797
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:29,400
Speaker 7: of values did you hold fast through all those different experiences.

798
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:40,440
Speaker 2: I see the virtue is I came up from My

799
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 2: dad was a survivor of the army and genocide, and

800
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:52,640
Speaker 2: he taught me a lesson of very hard work. I

801
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 2: had three brothers. We worked on a farm. I started

802
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:59,400
Speaker 2: driving a tractor at six years old, and so I

803
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:09,320
Speaker 2: was a farmer and he uh and and when I

804
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:14,080
Speaker 2: when I begin this process in politics, politics, it was

805
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:21,480
Speaker 2: UH to always uh never, don't expect to start at

806
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:28,319
Speaker 2: the top, be prepared to do whatever you're asked to do.

807
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 2: Be prepared to start at the bottom and work your

808
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 2: way up. And it's it's a virtue to to be uh,

809
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:41,920
Speaker 2: to be willing to always put extra effort into anything

810
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:49,840
Speaker 2: you do. I to leave your ego aside. It's not easy.

811
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:58,480
Speaker 2: I flunked my English entrance exam at UCSB, I had

812
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:03,839
Speaker 2: to take what was called boneheaded English. It was called

813
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:07,400
Speaker 2: subject Day, but it was called bonhead English. So I

814
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:12,920
Speaker 2: had to learn how to write like baby steps. So uh,

815
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:17,319
Speaker 2: and then I my my job. My first volunteer job

816
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:21,400
Speaker 2: in the Nixon campaign was in the correspondence section. And

817
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:24,719
Speaker 2: I really wanted to be like a research assistant or

818
00:56:24,719 --> 00:56:27,000
Speaker 2: an intern. But they said, now you've got to start

819
00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:28,959
Speaker 2: at the bottom. You've got to be a do these

820
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:36,440
Speaker 2: menial correspondence So and it's you have to be. Uh.

821
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:43,319
Speaker 2: You have to be to show that you are just

822
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 2: willing to put your shoulder to any task that's given

823
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 2: to you. I can't put it anywhere. I mean, it's

824
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:53,759
Speaker 2: just like anything else that you want to achieve. It's

825
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:58,560
Speaker 2: like Hillsdale College didn't when it started before dtor Arne

826
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 2: got here and put it to the top.

827
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:07,640
Speaker 3: Please join me in thanking our speaker, give your.

828
00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:11,600
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829
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830
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831
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834
00:57:34,440 --> 00:57:38,640
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835
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837
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839
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843
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844
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845
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