Original subtitles

this is the

first in a series of several tapings

which will extend

over several months and several hours

with president nixon

in the subsequent sessions we'll talk

about some of the

domestic and foreign leaders that he's

known and get his insights into their

lives and careers

in this first session we will begin at

the beginning

with his early life and political career

to begin at the beginning

do you have a first conscious memory

well curiously enough my first memory is

of running

i recall when i was about three or three

and a half years of age

that my mother was driving a horse and

buggy a very fast horse

she was carrying my younger brother who

was then one dawn

on her lap and a neighbor girl who was

about 12 was holding me

the buggy turned a corner and the horse

took off

and the neighbor girl dropped me i fell

out of the buggy

i got a crease in my scalp and i

jumped up afterwards and i was running

running

trying to catch up because i was afraid

to be left behind

it's a deadly uh i had uh a wound from

that for many years thereafter i wasn't

able to part my hair on the left due to

the fact that i had about 15

stitches down that scalp didn't you in

the 1946

campaign didn't you uh weren't you going

to mention that in a

in a biography and your press secretary

suggests that you're not

oh yes the suggestion was made that oh

you can't tell them that you got hit in

the head by a

a carriage or wheel because they'll

think that that's why there's something

wrong with your head

and so uh i haven't told that story too

often lately

didn't uh actually that did work against

uh wayne morris didn't it

yes joel mccarthy uh in i thought

one of his uh attacks that i thought was

uh out of line

they weren't all out of line but this

one certainly was he said the trouble

with weighing mars is that he got kicked

in the head by a horse sometime

and that that was why he was a little

nutty

your uh in your memoirs you wrote about

your parents that uh whoever

said that opposites attract uh was

describing

the two of them we have some photographs

of your mother

here the first one i think was taken as

a girl

in indiana and

the next one is a group uh

portrait very characteristic of the

times in uh

taken in whittier when she was a

teenager and

the last one i think is also

of her at that same time

it's remarkable how much she looks like

julie i think in these pictures yes she

does

do uh what do you think of uh what

characteristics do you think of

uh when you think of your mother in that

period in the early years well i have

said that

she was quite a remarkable woman

and i guess most of us say that about

our mothers

and really feel it and each of them is

each in a different way

but i think in her case those

characteristics that stand

out among many are first

great strength uh great kindness

she had a soft manner about her in her

speech and the way she acted i've never

recalled a time when she raised her

voice in anger about anything

but she could be very very convincing

in speaking very very softly about

something with which she disapproved

and in addition to that she had a great

capacity for love

which extended far beyond her her

husband whom she loved dearly

her children for whom she would do

anything she that capacity for love

seemed

to emanate to everybody to her sisters

to those she cared for when my brother

was sick

and all of this made her develop

characteristics that some

friends used to say they used to tell me

you know hannah

which was her name is a quaker saint

did i think you wrote somewhere that

were she alive

today that she wouldn't support the

strong law and order ethic that

underlies a lot of contemporary politics

she had too much compassion to do that

that's true

as a matter of fact i recall an incident

at the time that we had the grocery

store and

we were working there and one of our

customers

whose children were good friends of mine

in school and of dons my brothers

she found had been shoplifting and

uh under the circumstances uh

the sheriff came by and we met she

mentioned it to him and he said well

you'll have to report this and she says

i won't do it

because it will be terrible for her

and for her children so one day

when the lady came in and what she

picked up incidentally was so small it

was just to klept the maniac problem

because they weren't poor

not by the standards of those days she

had a pound of butter

and a little and some eggs and some

cheese

and she had slipped it into the bag and

she took it out and hadn't checked it

through

my mother followed her out to the car

and she said

i wonder if you would like to pay me

for those things the woman burst into

tears and said please don't tell my

husband he would kill me and it will

ruin with the boys

and my mother said don't be concerned

she says how much do you think you've

taken

and the woman estimated about 75 dollars

worth

she says i'll pay you back and for the

next year

she paid her back at five dollars a

month until it was all paid the boys

never heard about it her husband didn't

hear about it and of course she didn't

continue to come in the store

but that was the way my mother would do

it she she would never enforce the law

if some other way you could work the

thing out

uh

how's that look

your mother was a very community-minded

woman but she was also an intensely

private

woman even i think in her praying oh she

certainly was

she never believed in wearing religion

on her sleeve

we went to church a great deal i must

say and she insisted on that

as did my father i recall for example we

used to go

to sunday school and church in the

morning on sunday and christian endeavor

at church in the evening and then even

go to prayer meetings sometimes on

the middle of the week but on the other

hand

when it came to praying first we always

had silent grace

at table except on occasion she would

have each of the boys

repeat a verse so that she could be sure

that we were learning our verses

and when she prayed she would often go

as the bible

indicates you should in the closet and

close the door

she never prayed publicly

your father many of the people who

remember him think of his most

prominent characteristic as his temper

and i gather that even in the story you

had to sort of

insulate him from the customers well he

was argumentative he was combative he

was competitive

he he was a character there's no

question about that

the very opposite of my mother in that

respect

and she often had to soothe ruffled

feathers of customers who came in

because my father would pick arguments

with him he loved to

talk about politics or anything for that

matter

and she sometimes when people would come

into the store that he was having a

running argument with

one of the others of us would rush up to

wait on that customer to sure my dad

didn't get to him

and that's the way we handled him but on

the other hand

i don't get the wrong impression about

him as a real man

he too was remarkable in his way you

know he

my mother understood him my mother had

was was

quite well educated for those times she

was proficient in greek

and in latin and in german uh

she also knew something about the piano

helped me a bit when

in that respect uh she'd been to college

for two years and then

got married before finishing my father

uh only went through the sixth grade we

have a photograph here of him taken i

think shortly after he moved to whittier

he'd had a lot of interesting jobs

before that hadn't he

well as a matter of fact he went only to

the sixth grade not because he was dumb

but because his mother died

of tuberculosis when

he was about eight or nine years old and

from then on

he was shunted from family to family and

he worked in every kind of a job he

worked as a street car motorman in

columbus ohio

he worked in the wheat fields in

colorado he worked in the oil fields

he was an excellent carpenter as a

matter of fact he built the house that i

was born in

he was the greatest fireplace maker that

yorba linda or anybody ever had he used

to make fireplaces for all the people

when they were building fireplaces in

their houses

and then of course he uh was one who was

always ahead of the times he bought the

first tractor in yorba linda

and then he contracted out to all the

others to do work with tractors when

others were still using horses

he was one who

bought the first built the first service

station and store between whittier and

la harbor when

people other people didn't see that this

was a real

money maker so as i say we

i i think that the boys all of us

inherited from our mother

certainly some of her fine

characteristics but we also inherited

from our father some of his

characteristics in my case

i guess i'd have to credit him with the

competitive spirit with the

combativeness

uh et cetera didn't he uh believe

strongly

uh in work the importance of work above

all else even to the exclusion of

labor-saving devices oh yes oh you can

say that again

not only do you believe in work but he

had worked all his life

himself that didn't mean that he didn't

have concern

about people that couldn't get a job you

know his bark was much

louder than his bite and

while the tramps would come along as

they did in those days

particularly of the depression my mother

always fed him he always insisted they

do a little work

uh and uh his feeling was that uh

if you worked hard you could get a job

and you could keep it

and as far as labor saving devices were

concerned you see

in those years the depression we weren't

too aware of it of course but i can

remember very well

he said the way to get more jobs is not

to have all these machines to dig

ditches get people out there to dig

those ditches that's the way to have

jobs

so he was he would have done very well

in india

where they also opposed labor-saving

devices

did they have discussions at uh later on

about moving back to

pennsylvania where i think your mother

had fond memories of a farm and he had

very

realistic oh they they had discussions

not only of moving to pennsylvania but

just of going to a farm journey my

my mother had the most pleasant

almost mystical memories of her growing

up on a farm in indiana

and she remembered all the nice things

about it

the harvest time and the springtime and

the snow

and so forth and she used to talk about

it and dream about it and so forth

because she was 12 years old before she

left indiana

and so she used to say to my dad says

we've got to go to a farm and i remember

one time we drove clear up to oregon

looking for a farm

it wasn't just pennsylvania that's where

they eventually bought one after i came

to washington

but she wanted to go to friend and my

dad used to say

hannah forget it he says i've been on a

farm

i know what it is and then he would

describe the hard work of a farm the

backbreaking work

having to shovel manure take care of the

horses etc etc

having to run the risk of course of bad

weather destroying a crop

you know scratching and biting around he

says i don't want any part of a farm

but eventually of course she won as she

usually did they did go to a farm

just as she won on the matter religion

you know my mother was a quakers

i think we i everybody is quite aware i

referred to as a quaker saint

and my father was a methodist and

but when they married they compromised

they both became quakers of course

when they uh when they went to the farm

didn't he didn't he uh

disconcert uh visitors by the way he

named some of the

animals well yes he would name the

animals for certain political people

that he didn't like

and under the circumstances some of them

didn't particularly appreciate that

i think one was named for truman another

one for stassen and people like that as

i recall

this is a we have a photograph here of

the house that he built that you were

born in uh i think at one point in the

1950 campaign you went back there and

and

uh commented about how small coming back

to it how small it seemed to you after

not having been there for a while what

are your memories of early

life in the house it didn't seem small

then

i remember particularly christmas time i

remember you see the fireplace there

which the old man built

and it was a marvelous fireplace

throughout a lot of heat

and i remember of course we believed in

santa claus

and i remember coming down those stairs

we used to sleep upstairs my mother and

father's

room was over on this side of the house

uh

the bedroom in which i was born as i was

born in that house

and the but we come down and we'd sit

around the fireplace and it seemed like

it was a very

big room and a very nice room i guess

what i remember

most about that house though was uh

talking

there was no television then there was

no radio

but did we talk evening after evening

and

that's one of the reasons for example

that i think i

got an interest in politics very very

early because i can even remember my

my father berating my mother for having

voted for woodrow wilson in 1916. now

this was much later

about 1920-21 when he then was saying

now look you faked both the straight

republican ticket and yet in 1924

i remember very well that he didn't vote

the straight republican ticket he voted

for lafallette

because he thought lafallette was

against the trust lafallette was against

big business

la follette was for the little man and

uh he thought that uh coolidge was too

much for the big man

and so he was a he was it was all of his

talk of voting the straight party line

uh he was very independent his own his

own way given that uh that opposites do

attract

what do you think it was that your

mother saw in your father they met i

think at a valentine's dance

and within three months were married and

yet uh

the differences must have been

tremendous at the time she came from a

very refined restrained uh rooted

quaker family and he was sort of a

free-wheeling rambling kind of

rough yeah right i think she saw in him

first that he was a very handsome fellow

vigorous handsome he had a lot of

magnetism

and i think that emanated that affected

her to an extent

and i think another thing that affected

her was

the fact that she felt that

that he really needed her i mean my

mother had such a heart you know and i

think when

she realized that this boy hadn't had a

mother and incidentally hated his

stepmother

even though she and incidentally she

lived right near us in there

near yarba linda but he didn't like her

at all

and he had never really had much of a

chance in life

and he wanted desperately i remember my

father

always said to each of us you've got to

go on to school he says i didn't finish

you gotta and he insisted we go on

he wanted us to have a better time than

he had why didn't he like his stepmother

i think it's because stepmothers are

stepmothers

she was somewhat of a disciplinarian i

knew her

she was married as a matter of fact to

doc marshburn who was the father of

oscar marshburn who married my mother's

youngest sister

and quite an interesting coincidence

i met her i knew her i liked her but

she was a very strong personality and i

just think that my father

just he he was probably independent

probably as much fault his as hers

was it difficult growing up around a man

with a uh

with a valuable temper

uh to an extent yes but uh and if

it had not been for my mother it would

have been very difficult

but insofar as his temper was concerned

i should make it clear that he was not a

violent man

i remember for example to show you what

a soft touch he was

we used to love to go barefoot and in

the winter course we couldn't do that

but just as soon as spring came

we would go to my mother and say can we

go barefoot now because we in

school you wore shoes if you had them

which we did uh

and she'd say go ask your father and

he'd say go ask your mother

but finally it was always the old man

that gave in he said okay

go barefoot. as a matter of fact uh

he uh he well you're not supposed to uh

i suppose uh spoil you they say don't

us you you fail to use the rod you spoil

the child

but he was not one who could

use that physical punishment as much as

others did

and i can't recall it too much we have

some

early family photographs of you in a

chair

and uh some other ones with uh

didn't your father cut your hair that's

a very uh oh yes and why we hate it the

bowl look brings that my father you know

as i said he could do it all

and he was the barber too had he not

only cut our hair

of all when we were going up but

he insisted on continuing to do it even

after there was a barber in town

and i remember i think i got my first

what we call store haircut when i was

about

eight nine years old and i was glad to

have it because

i i remember sometimes my father had

clippers that sometimes they pulled

and getting a haircut with agony and i

just hated to do it

but he was a good barber it was a pretty

good job he did i thought and i looked

at those pictures

we have a couple of other ones i think

you had

there is a a young nixon amidst the

pumpkins

i think that's you below and harold up

above

that's exactly who it is yes i haven't i

don't think i've seen that picture

before

now the psychologists would say that the

the pumpkin papers were

prefigured in this photograph oh yes

they'd figure some way to

the psycho historians would figure that

that's that that had to have something

to do with whitaker chambers hiding the

microfilm and pumpkin pumpkins

uh 40 years later and this is uh

you and uh i guess that's arthur on your

mother's lap there that's

done don and i'm there three and a half

hiddon was two years younger than i

that's right they she named except for

don who was named after your father

francis mcdonald didn't she name you uh

she had historical always that yeah she

had an historical sense and

uh we were all named after the uh

the early kings of england of course

harold obviously richard

edward and arthur

it was a a remarkable

family i think jessamine west has has

written about some of the early

milhouses in the friendly persuasion

this is a photograph of your

great-grandmother elizabeth milhouse

which who is also jessamine west's

great-grandmother

huh they're the same and wasn't she the

mom cousins

and that as a matter of fact she was the

model uh

for the for the mother and friendly

persuasion

playing opposite uh gary cooper you know

in that marvelous movie which

incidentally

was uh mamie eisenhower's favorite movie

she saw it she told me a half a dozen

times

wasn't elizabeth milhouse was a quaker

preacher

remarkably capable apparently and very

famous

she was a preacher in the indiana iowa

area

now by a quaker preacher i should say

that

the quakers didn't have preachers in the

real sense but she would

she was one that had the spirit as the

quakers would say it she was moved by

the spirit

and she would go from place to place to

quaker meeting

and she would speak and she was in much

demand

i think one of the favorite family

stories and this is not apocryphal

because i've heard it from all the

people who knew her and i knew her too

because she lived to be 94

and i knew her and

of course admired her too anyway

she was uh scheduled to go on a long

train trip in order to do a

meeting in another city and because in

those days the food and the train was

expensive and this and that and the

other thing

she made some sardine sandwiches up and

she put them in her cape uh one of these

long

capes that she wrote on the train and

she got very busy preparing her remarks

for when she got to the meeting that

she didn't get to eat the sardine

sandwiches so she went into the

right in time to to give her sermon and

her theme that day

was the parable of the loaves and the

fishes and she was very apparently

expressive in her gestures

and when she came to the loaves and the

fishes she had had her

hands in her cape she threw out her

hands and out came the sardines

and the sang over the early over the

people right in the front rows so it was

a very graphic

illustration before the i guess some of

these modern television preachers would

love to have had that one

incidentally her eyesight was amazing

my dad used to have his socks they get

holes in him

and she insisted that she wanted to darn

the socks and she

could do it she didn't have to wear

glasses to do so

this uh is a photograph of your

grandmother milhouse

who had a very uh important effect on

your life and you see the great

grandmother was on my

my grandfather's side this is on my

grandmother's side what i would say uh

and uh

elmira was her name everybody called her

aunt ally

and she too lived to be very old 93

94. i have many vivid memories of her

she she was a poet not a great poet but

she used to write me and my brothers and

all

of her children and so forth on

birthdays

often in rhyme and she

she took a special interest in me i

don't know why but

but she did and i recall she'd always

give me very special presents when i

graduated one for example i recall

when i graduated from the eighth grade

she gave me a picture of lincoln and

beneath it was

the famous long fellow poem lives of

great men

oft remind us we can make our life that

kind and departing leave

behind us footprints in the center time

it's really i took off from that because

i was the the president of the

eighth grade graduating class and so i

gave the class history

i wrote the class history and poetry

myself

and i concluded it with these lines

lives of great man off remind us

we can make our life that sort and

leave behind us footprints on the tennis

court

well some of them didn't appreciate it

but i thought it was a pretty good line

in any event my my grandmother then when

i graduated from high school

gave me a biography of gandhi of course

she being a quaker

that meant a great deal to her and to me

and i read it from cover to cover

several times

i graduated from college she gave me a

leather-bound

bible and when i graduated from law

school

she gave me a marvelous illustrated life

of christ

which billy graham says is one of the

great classics but

more than that i think what she meant to

me was the fact that

that her her manner and everything oh i

perhaps

should mention that it wasn't just me

but she was

equally good and generous to all of

her children you have to understand she

was the mother of seven herself

and there were two others i mean she was

a mother of six and there were two uh

two others

and uh in addition to that there were

all kinds of grandchildren and

great-grandchildren all were treated

equally

and i remember christmas time she would

be

there we'd always have what we called a

family reunion

and it's not only the old man didn't

like to go to those reunions you know he

was

pretty cantankerous about it but he

loved my grandmother and she liked him

because she understood him just like my

mother did

and at christmas she would sit there in

a lovely velvet dress i remember around

the christmas tree

and all of us she gave incidentally to

us on christmas

every christmas five dollars five

dollars in little envelopes that were on

the tree and of course

that was a fortune in those days but

anyway

she'd sit there and we had presents for

her they were nothing things

but she'd make over those presents as if

it's just what i wanted

another thing that was interesting about

her you know my grandmother

always addressed us with what we call

the we quakers call the plain

speech she she wouldn't say are you

going she says richard is the going

and is this nine she did that with

everybody that she met including people

that were strangers

then in the next generation my mother

with her sisters

always broke into the playing speech

whenever they were talking on telephone

it was always very interesting to me to

hear them say she'd say is

martha or jane or whatever sister it

might be calling

i just thought that this thing of vine

was very good and so forth and so on

and then we got down to our generation

and we didn't use it at all my mother

for example never used the plain speech

with her children

she did with her sisters and of course

my grandmother with everybody

so it seems like a nothing thing at the

moment but it is a pleasant memory now

another thing i remember about her

though you know

she was a was a very devout pacifist as

a good quaker should be but i remember

often

on a sunday my grandmother would ask

one of us to drive her to sautel

which was the veterans hospital way

across town it took about an hour to get

there

and and she would pack some goodies oh

cakes that she had baked and cookies and

that sort of thing and she'd spend a

couple of hours over there

going among the wounded soldiers and so

forth this of course was after world war

one

and uh reading to them writing letters

for them and so forth

while she didn't while she hated war she

loved those that had to fight it

wasn't it uh her use of plain speech or

the use of plain speech amongst

herself and the um and her uh

and the sisters that uh convinced you

that

many years later during this case that

chambers was

telling the truth about part of his

memories of his one of the factors that

did yes

see the difficulty in the hiss chambers

case

when we were at that stage when we were

attempting to decide or prove

that his new chambers after his denied

having known him

was that although we had had from

chambers i prepared an enormous number

of questions

to chambers about everything he knew

about hiss and he was able to say

for example describe all of the houses

that hiss had lived in

describe the cars describe his family

describe his

wife's flushing when she was excited and

so forth and so on

but the problem was whether or not

chambers could have known all those

things and

didn't know them independent by

independently

the problem was whether or not chambers

could not have studied his

life and then told us about all those

things

without ever having known his himself

but i recall one time when i went up the

chambers farm

we were sitting out on the porch looking

over the

uh his cattle which he was very proud of

and mrs chambers it was a very hot day

brought us out some cold lemonade

and as we were drinking it

i uh asked him

to tell me a little more about the

background of

mrs hiss and i mentioned happened to

mention in passing that i was a quaker

and he said he snapped his fingers

he said priscilla was a quaker

let me just say that again i remember

that i happened

when i went up to sing i mentioned that

i was a quaker and he said you know

priscilla hiss was a quaker too

and then he snapped his finger and says

that reminds me of something

she always used the plain speech

or she quite often used the plain speech

when she was talking to alger and i

thought for a moment

that the way he said it i mean he could

have

others could have told him that mrs

hills being a quaker sometimes she was a

plain speech when she was talking to her

husband

but the way he said it so spontaneously

said this he's talking about a man he

knows not somebody he's read about

the the quaker families at that time too

were sort of extended families uh

in that when you uh for example when you

wanted to take music lessons or when

your parents wanted to uh

encourage your music lessons you went

and stayed with aunt jane

yes in lindsay

well let me say that when you speak of

an extended family you're right first it

was a very big family

and my first music lessons actually were

from my

my uncle griffith who was my mother's

half-brother he was

he was the the oldest

and a marvelous man and i took lessons

from him

uh about a time i was seven years of age

as a matter of fact

i got to do a little puffing here my

mother recalls that i

i played by ear which

i did before i ever took any lessons i

remember the first song i ever played

was the joy to the world

the christmas carol well after she'd

heard a little that playing by her i

could pick out tunes

and so forth she uh uh

had uncle griff give me lessons and

piano and violin

and then when i was in the seventh grade

aunt jane

who was a very accomplished pianist as

was uncle griffith

uh came down to the christmas eve

reunion as a matter of fact

and she heard me play a couple of pieces

says richard these

uh it's you have got to come up and have

lessons she spoke to my father and

mother about it

and so i went back with her and alden

and sheldon her children and my uncle

harold her husband

it was a great trip going back i

remember i remember it particularly for

a rather curious reason it's the first

time i ever saw snow

at least i had seen it on the mountains

before from yorba linda because that was

a

marvelous place in those days before the

days of smog you could see the snow in

the wintertime on mount baldy and

you could see catalina if you got up in

one of the little hills

off in the distance 25 miles away

but i had never been in snow and we got

out of the cars we went over the

tehachapi and i

played in the snow there and i was

really excited and

i said golly this is fun and aldon said

to me

rather sternly he says we don't say

golly at our house

i thought i'd been raised rather

strictly though and i got up there to

the beesons

believe me it was strict but she was a

marvelous teacher and i i became quite

advanced

for that age i could play sendings

russell of spring which of course

everybody learns to play who has any

advancement at all grieg

a few other things weren't you uh

i've read somewhere that you were sort

of the uh

class cut up there and that you and

one of your cousins did something with a

clove of garlic that got you in trouble

i don't think i recall that uh

i read that you uh that you ate a clove

before going into the class

and then breathed on the on the uh

the girl students next to you well

i i think i know what you mean now it

was it was very unpleasant and

incidentally

uh i really not like garlic ever since

then

as a matter of fact a little of it goes

a long way

aunt your aunt beth was

one of your favorites yes aunt beth was

uh

younger than my mother and she had a

marvelous voice

i remember her and

my singing for example in church

a beautiful soprano voice and she was so

full of life and so very pretty

and always jolly and fun always

cutting up and so forth and so on and

i'll never forget that one of the most

moving moments was and a very sad moment

was when she got cancer and and i

remember that

she went to all these quacks and one

time i'd clear back in the middle of the

country where somebody had some scheme

where you burn it off

and then she came back and then finally

she died and she was so young

and so pretty and so vibrant and left

three children i uh

it was a difficult time for us

the uh garcia let me say all of my ants

were something

too i mean my aunt edith which was the

oldest one my

mother's oldest sister she was married

to uncle tim

tim timberlake and he was an

excellent what do you call it the people

that deal with insects

and anyway uh entomologists uh and they

spent which has meant a great deal to us

they spent some time in hawaii uh and

then came back and then they were at

riverside

and remember at the family reunions

uncle tim would come there and

he'd always bring along one of these

nets and

he'd go out and collect butterflies and

insects and everybody thought he was a

little strange

and in our family too if i may digress

they thought he was a little strange for

another reason because he smoked a pipe

nobody else smoked you see in those days

my mother didn't drink or smoke neither

to my father and none of my relatives

that i know of except uncle tim he

smoked the pipe

one year incidentally i did do something

which

my mother really didn't disapprove of we

had

prince albert tobacco there in the store

and i got some we would sell it although

we wouldn't use it ourselves

and i got a big can of it and gave it to

him for christmas

but they always made him smoke his pipe

outside

but then my but he got up what was

considered a handsome salary of 300

a month over at the university of

california experiment station

and my aunt edith was so generous when i

went to duke to law school they didn't

have any money

every christmas she sent me 25 even

though she had three children

and i thought that was generous my aunt

martha who was the

my just the one between edith and

my mother was a nurse a

registered nurse and after all of her

children were grown continue to nurse

between the time she was 70 and 85 years

of age

enormously competent my aunt i i

mentioned a moment ago

uh ad olive who's still living you've

met her

gentle and kind and so forth uh she and

uncle oscar at 75 years of age

while i was president went way out to

kenya for a year with the american

friends service committee to work

in a hospital out there and so i had

just thought of one thing about my uncle

oscar

he of course being a quaker was a

conscientious objector in world war

one but it wasn't because he was afraid

because he volunteered to go over with

the american friends service committee

and so he went over to france and i

remember he brought back with him

a collection of shells and grenades and

so forth

and i remember that it was in the

bedroom that they had there at the big

house because they were living with my

grandmother

and my brothers and my cousins and i we

used to just

revel in going into the bedrooms and

taking up these shells being informed of

course that they were no longer

dangerous

but that was as close as we came to

world war one

and i'll catch

i'm going to ask you um again

about uh music lessons oh yeah you've

got to find

sure

frank are we going to

yes

all right

got it okay

they were quite a bunch of characters

weren't they yes they were marv

eisenhower used to urge you to refer

more to god in your speeches

and yet you resisted

why did you do that and and how do you

think of the what is the what is the

the legacy to you of your early quaker

family background and training well

first i would say that

eisenhower mentioned to me i don't think

from a crass political standpoint but

simply because he knew

that i had a religious background as he

did

he felt that i should refer

to god in my speeches as he did

uh because uh it was good politically

and also it was honest

the difficulty was that i goes clear

back to my

my mother's attitude and my father's too

that

while we during those early years

and they through all their years were

churchgoers regularly and

tithe and all the things you do if

you're a good christian and so forth

we never wore it on the sleeve and

consequently i just always felt

embarrassed frankly

uneasy i whenever i would say

use the word god in a speech to refer to

god

and so forth and so on it was too

familiar i didn't consider god to be

familiar

i couldn't uh billy graham and i used to

have it out on this several times billy

used to mention the fact that it was

very important to

for me to emphasize more my christian

background and so forth

and i just uh never could bring myself

to do it

uh perhaps it was a mistake if i had

maybe uh

would have won a close election that i

lost

the uh next to religion the quakers

place a

tremendous importance on education what

your college i think was founded the

same year that the town was

founded they built the church and built

the college uh

i think your mother taught you at home

before you went to school and that had a

great uh

influence my mother as a matter of fact

taught me to read

before i ever went to school and as a

result i skipped one of the early grades

i think the second grade

and also she influenced me greatly in

the whole area of music

because she could play the piano she

wasn't of course accomplished like my

aunt jane or

or my uncle griffith she was not a

teacher but her

influence in those early years was

enormous in that respect

my as i say from my father i got that

competitive

competitive arguing ability and perhaps

a tendency to gesture a bit at time to

time but from my mother

uh more the the dedication to

uh scholarship and an early start it's

just great to have

you know when you stop to think of what

a parent can do for a child

and people say well get them the best

tutors and ship them off here and there

and everything the best thing a parent

can do to a child

and mrs nixon does this pat does with r2

spend time with them spend time with

them and that's carried all down through

julie spends hours with her too jenny

and the little boy and

alex and trisha spends hours with

christopher and as a result they're very

advanced

i think they do that because they know

their mother did it and they know their

grandmother did it

your first uh musical uh rendering was

joy to the world

it certainly was i can still play it too

as a matter of fact

i played that by ear all of my playing

now is by ear in the key of g

and uh i also played in sunday school

in in church on occasion for many many

years

reading music i did not become a good

reader of music

but i had a very good memory and uh of

the

the classical numbers later on i picked

it up in college after i dropped it see

i

i dropped i after i went up to jane's in

my seventh grade then in the eighth

grade i was busy with other things

and i didn't continue and then in

college

i i didn't in high school years i didn't

take any music i played in the orchestra

of iln second violin not very well

but then in college a remarkable woman

margaret allman a concert pianist

heard me play something from memory that

i had played at some sort of a college

function

and she called me richard like my mother

did

rather than dick which all the other

kids says richard said you have a talent

here he says i want you to

take some lessons she said you've got to

get acquainted with

brahms and bach and so i took lessons

and

i don't know how i did it in that junior

year because in that year i went out for

football

i had the lead in the junior play i was

on the debating team

i did quite well on my studies in that

year

i worked at home uh in the grocery store

went to market every morning and so

forth and so on and yet took lessons

well doesn't show i am so great but it

does show she was pretty inspirational

because

i i appreciated brahms and bach in fact

my favorite number and i have been

trying to get brian clyburn to put it on

a record for me was brahms rhapsody and

g

which i can still play little bits of

we have a film uh of your mother

uh talking about your early musical

prowess

i don't know whether you've seen this

before i haven't no i didn't know that

i didn't know

i've never seen that before it shows my

mother must have had a good feeling

about politics that she would

allow them to film her talking on the

phone

did you ever consider being being a

serious musician

yes oh yes not not in the college years

but i think the time i considered is

after i finished at

lindsay when i was 12 years old and i

came back

and then i went to fullerton high school

and then it really came down to a choice

would i

where i did play the in fullerton i did

play the violin in the orchestra i came

down with choice would i concentrate on

music

or should i move to debating and other

areas

and i finally moved in the other

direction and didn't pick it up again

while i got to college

sometimes i rather regret it you regret

many things

when i was a kid i didn't want to be a

musician and i didn't want to be

a service station operator or a

raced car driver anything else i want to

be an engineer a railroad engineer and i

remember everett barnum used to come

on on the train from needles california

he had to run from needles to los

angeles and the train would go by and

you could hear the whistle at night and

boy i thought

wouldn't it be great to be a railroad

engineer not only to run the engines not

so much that but to see

different places and all that sort of

thing but in terms of the music thing

i have always had a feeling that i'd

like to be able to express myself in

music to be able to compose it

uh i've always felt i like organ music

particularly in the great cathedrals of

europe

and in this country as well and i've

always felt how great it would be to be

able to play a great organ and and to

improvise and compose

and i've also had a sort of a secret

yearning to uh

to really direct the great symphony

orchestra

but all of that's by the boards now i

mean it never came to pass

incidentally i should the

well that's enough i would bet you that

when these programs are aired you will

get offers from

half a dozen cathedrals to give you the

key and let you go in and uh

improvise at the at the keyboard oh i'm

past that point no

i don't have the flexibility in my

fingers that i used to have

you uh in the uh 46 and 50 campaigns

incidentally i should say incidentally

that

as i understand playing an organ is much

more difficult than the piano it's like

the difference between flying an

airplane and a helicopter

when you fly a airplane of course you

use your hand you fire a helicopter you

got to use your feet on your

hands and the same is true with an organ

so i have a hard enough time doing the

piano

i don't think i could do the organ if

you could uh

if

zaban metha came in and offered you his

baton and his orchestra

do you have a piece you would an

orchestral piece that you would choose

to conduct

well it would be symphonic without

question not

not modern music not rhapsody and blue

or any of the

although i like that uh none of the

musical comedies and so forth of course

beta probably wouldn't ask for those i

would think

uh and this is sort of in between

that i would like to conduct for example

a number that always

seemed to give me a lift and that was

victory at c the score from victory at

sea

which is a great score and another one

is uh

list preludes i have a interesting which

i

it's interesting but also a little i

think uh

rather exasperating anecdote about that

i recall that

in my second inauguration they asked me

what i wanted them to play

and so i mentioned this prelude the

orchestra leader

refused and i said why did he refuse to

play it

they said because it was one of hitler's

favorites

and i thought my god of course i knew

wagner was supposed to be

too close to hitler and so forth i don't

much care for bagnerian music anyway

because i'm not

that much of an opera buff but beethoven

hitler like beethoven he liked wagner

and so forth does that mean any like

list does that mean

that a great orchestra playing for the

inauguration of a president of the

united states and want to play it

i thought it was a little bit much

in the uh 46 and 50 campaigns you played

the piano

uh you played fairly often i think as a

sort of as a technique of campaigning in

those days people were used to gathering

around a piano and and

singing did you um uh

did you want your daughters to learn oh

yeah did you did they take lessons well

we we oh yes we went through that the

musical heritage though didn't go

beyond me both julie and trisha liked

music patta

naturally wanted to give them

opportunity to learn we bought an

accordion for one and

gave piano lessons to the other to

trisha particularly i remember

i remember an incident on that that this

is a

about i would say 1956

and at that time she would have been 10

years old

and she was taking piano lessons for the

first time and i was trying to help her

one night

and i was telling her you know honey i

said the most important thing

in learning to play the piano is to

practice i said it's tiring and boring

but if you practice you can

be as good as you want to be

she thought a moment and she looked at

me

said you know daddy you should have

practiced more

when you were a little boy if you had

you might have become famous and have

gone to hollywood

and they would have buried you in a

special place

do um

you uh the

the nixon market was uh a successful

operation added to the service station

one of the uh things that specialized in

were your mother's pies and cakes

did you participate in the work of the

market well let me say that not only my

mother's pies and cake but to show you

how

what competence the old man had when my

mother had to go to arizona with harold

who had tuberculosis and spent three

years two over two years there with him

my my dad made the pies and cakes

himself

in addition to everything else he was

doing they weren't as quite as good as

my mother's but they were good

the only problem that both of them had

is that when christmas came around they

made some excellent mincemeat but they

wouldn't put any brandy in it

one time don and i

uh don was working the store at that

time we

sneaked in a bottle and put some in and

they thought it was the best mince meat

they'd ever made but they didn't know

why

but be that as it may i remember my

mother

made those marvelous lemon pies and

apple pies not the kind where you use

that

the apples that are already cooked but

the ones where you slice them in raw and

then it bulges up the crust and so forth

their crusts were fantastic

and great mince pie and the prices were

wonderful too

what are they called lemon lemon 25

cents

apple 30 cents cherry 30 cents mince 35

cents

and uh anyway the

she also did she also was very good at

cakes

and her specialty rather than devil's

food was angel's food

which i guess tells us something too and

i remember so well that

she had sort of a fetish about it

however

she felt that it was important

to get the fresh air into it and so

instead of beating as you know with

angel food cake you take the whites of

eggs

and then you beat them like that or now

they do it with a mixer these are the

days before

mixers it was then at least and i

remember my mother in yorba linda and

later on in hoodie

particularly when she was baking them

for the store

she'd stand out on the porch on those

cold california mornings because

you know can be very cold in california

in the morning she's

beating those

egg whites for angel food cake and

believe me i think they were a little

better

with that fresh air in them

were you a serious child

most people think so uh that is those

the psycho-historians say so but as far

as my family is concerned

they they say that i i studied hard and

i worked hard

but that we also had a lot of fun

and we liked the garlic story and a few

others that you heard about

was your mother a disciplinarian as well

in a very quiet way yes

but she would do it with a look

if you did something that was wrong you

knew it and she just looked at you or

very

quietly very softly she would say

something incidentally i have something

about pies that will interest you

how i mentioned earlier my

aunt olive who was so gentle and kind

and thoughtful always of other people's

feelings i remember one family reunion

at olive

had made an apple pie

and we were eating it and uh

i said i was just maybe

eight years old at the time i said then

ollie says this is even better than ma

than mother's and olive didn't say

anything at the moment my mother says

that's right olive it certainly is

later on that olive took me aside and

she said richard

just remember nobody makes better pies

than your mother

and it was a lesson i never forgot here

we here i was of course

trying to praise her but not sensitive

to the fact that in praising her

it might have been something my mother

wouldn't breathe although my mother of

course was so big

that she sort of laughed about it

thinking about

apple pies i remember once you mentioned

how you were

thinking back to your mother's apple

pies how you were impressed with the

film

was it uh waterloo bridge yes

as a matter of fact i mentioned that to

jimmy stewart

jimmy stewart and waterloo bridge i

mentioned it to him

about eight years seven years ago when i

was at chasen's restaurant in los

angeles

and he was there with his wife gloria

and i went over to the table before

leaving and

said and paid my respects and

i said you know you've made so many

movies but i remember waterloo bridge

and i remember particularly

there was a moment when

you were talking to this girl who was

sort of a woman of fortune

and uh you were trying to tell her

uh what you thought of her and

what you said was that

you compared her and you're feeling

tortured with the way

you felt about your mother and her apple

pies

she said my mother made great apple pie

and she said after she died i've never

liked apple pie since because there was

nothing to compare with it

it was something like that but jimmy

remembered he appreciated the fact that

it had an impact

uh i read a story about about your

mother at the store

uh or at the time of the store that you

had taken some grapes from a nearby

arbor and she as a matter of fact that

occurred earlier

when we were in yorba linda

which was a very small town

everybody knew everybody else of course

and one of our closest neighbor was mrs

neighbors

this is true blood it's not a great

quaker name as you know

and uh mrs trueblood was a very kind

lady and a very good friend of my

mother's

and one day uh my brother and

i i think it was dawn and i we were over

playing

near the true bloods and the conquered

grapes were just come in and they were

beautiful

and so we took some we ate them and we

got home why of course those conquered

grape was all over our face and

my mother said where did you do get

those what happened and

we said we got him at mrs truebloods she

said no you should not have done that

and she gave each of us five cents and

he said you take that over and give it

to mrs trueblood

well i remember we gave the five cents

to mrs true blood and

she didn't want to take it and i could

see i remember even to this day she

seemed to have tears in her eyes

but of course she had to take it but we

never forgot that we didn't get any more

grapes so we didn't take any more there

any place else during the time of the

store

your father which is surprising in a man

who was as

uh as as tough a dealer as he was burned

by some

tire buyers oh yes once but never again

you have to understand that we were

operating in the store

in the years just before the depression

and during depression

and it was on a very close margin and

because of the illness in our family

our budget was pretty tight and so

therefore

we had to be concerned about any uh any

losses that might occur

but one of the biggest profit items in

the service station uh

was tires and incidentally when i give

you these figures that

show you that tired is one of the few

items in america

that has not gone up in price because on

this occasion

a fellow came along one day he was in a

big car

it was a big buick as i recall and he

had three children

and his wife with him and he needed two

tires

and so he picked up two of the best

tires that we had it cost 67

for two tires uh and so the old man

changed the tires uh put them back on

the wheels and so forth

and the fellow uh was very

impressive looking gave gave him a check

for him for 67

and my father was so appreciative of

making this very big sale where you'd

make a profit of about 10 bucks on

67 that he gave each of those children

i remember candy bar and then so they

drove off

two days later the check bounced and

i must say that my mother and father i

heard them talking about it at the

dinner table they couldn't understand

all that could have happened

but from that on then on at in my

father's place unless he knew the people

it was cash and carry

were you although we did have credit let

me say

and a lot of people never paid the bills

and we didn't press them too hard either

this was the um a time when a lot of

important historical things were

happening uh

in the outside world at any rate do you

have any

memory of the first world war or its

impact on the town

well the first world war i have a vivid

memory

of when it ended a pharmacist's day now

i understand i was only

then five years old but i can remember

this day

we lived in yorba linda then we went

over to placentia

they were going to have a parade the

american legion had a parade

and i remember they had an effigy of the

kaiser

hanging on a

a one of the floats and i thought it was

the real kaiser

that they had him hanging there

do you remember getting the first radio

oh very well

as a matter of fact it was called a gill

filling

i don't know that they even make it

anymore it's a great big thing it's like

as a matter of fact when i went to

russia and to china i saw the huge

radios which of course before you get

minute duration

miniaturization is the way it was and it

reminded me that old guildfield and

radio

and the reason my parents got it however

was not for the music

but they got it for the religious

programs uh they love

listening to amy mcpherson and bob

schuler

and the great evangelist on the radio

and so they got this they made the

expenditure for that but i remember

radio even before we got

that fancy one my brother harold

was very good on mechanical things too

and uh

we got a crystal set and you know you

take that you you you did various things

i don't know he was better at it than i

was and

and we used to tune in on things on the

crystal set

including a boxing match now and then

how things have changed

but as let me say not having radio

and not having television was not all

that bad

because we made up for that in

conversation and in reading

and so consequently i've always said and

fortunately pat totally agrees with me

and both tricia and julie did limit

people on tv

because you miss so much if you miss

reading and conversation

people just don't do that anymore they

don't know how to talk what did you read

as a child well

we had access to

a wonder world set it was sort of a

i suppose a children's psych

encyclopedia

and i remembered particularly that i was

interested in the history

i was in the greek mythology and that

sort of thing

we also had a book i remember a book

that we had

of uh which i think my father gave to me

of the great heroes of early america and

i remember mad anthony wayne and

nathaniel greene who was the quaker who

fought in the revolutionary wars i s

those stick of mine but i read those

stories over and over again

and then there were magazines the ladies

home journal which my mother took

the saturday evening post uh and the

national geographic which we didn't take

but which my

uh the marshburns uh my uncle oscar and

and olive took and i used to go up there

and borrow it

uh i've learned since of course never

loaned it because they seldom come back

but i

love to turn through that page of that

magazine and think of the far off places

i wanted to go

well the other thing we read was the

bible

and and i don't say this

simply because it's expected to be said

but

the bible is not just a great book it's

it's

a great collection of books i remember

one who

was not particularly religious of my

college professors

albert upton as a matter of fact i think

he was an agnostic

but he once said to me the greatest book

ever written was ecclesiastes

and it is a great book and you can read

it today and the profundity of it and i

and i don't think that we missed a thing

by not having quite as much to read but

having higher quality

so we i read the old testament and the

new testament and

and then of course anything else that

happened to come out it wasn't too much

but what we had was pretty good

counting is one of the major historical

events at the time

from your point of view must have been

your first baseball game

oh i remember that very well

shorty hedges a neighbor and i

and classmate when i was about

12 years old we took the streetcar

the big red car they called them pacific

electric over to l.a

los angeles to see a baseball game at

wrigley field

that was when the los angeles angels was

a mainer

minor league a double a but minor league

and they were playing the san francisco

seals and a doubleheader

i don't remember much about it except

that i remember that the

the angel's catcher was named truck

hannah

he was a great catcher and he could hit

but he couldn't run

and so he never made the major leagues

and the picture that day and this i

remember very well because he won the

game was charlie root

who pitched for the angels and later

went up to

the the cubs and he was the one that

threw the gopher ball to babe ruth when

babe ruth pointed

and then hid it over the fence charlie

root was the pitcher and i followed that

i followed incidentally sports we spoke

of what i read i read the newspapers

i read newspapers from a very very early

age we took the los angeles times

and it was delivered in the are linda

and later in whittier and i used to read

it from cover to cover

and i used to really read the sports

pages and i can tell you about virtually

everything in sports from big bill

tilden and tennis

to the olympic stars to the basketball

et cetera et cetera

but getting on to this baseball game

well i remember the games and i remember

that the angels i think

split the the two games what i

particularly remember

is the hot dogs uh and shorty and i

bought hot dogs and each of us

you get them for 10 cents each and we

each had a dollar to spend

we each had six and the guy came around

at the last the

place wasn't sold out and he had two

left and he says look i'll give you

these for a nickel of peace

she already said no way i don't have

room and so though it was a bargain that

was one time

we didn't take it

this uh this was the time and you've

subsequently written about the the

sadness

of it that your brother arthur died

you had just uh come back from

being with uh aunt jane in uh

lindsay i believe and he uh developed a

headache that

well from this picture you can see he

was a

very very handsome fellow young fellow

uh he was five years younger than i and

he was of course the favorite of the

family

we had a very close tie as a matter of

fact i remember

when he he came up with my mother and

father and dawn

to pick me up at lindsay they drove up

there

and uh when he got out of the car and

saw me he ran to me and he kissed me

very

rather quietly and not too much

notice on the cheek later my mother said

that on the way up

he had asked her would it be all right

if i kiss richard

on the cheek and she said okay which of

course is another indication

of the way that we we are quite proud as

a matter of fact

i've taken a lot of heat from many of

the people

many of my my female supporters and

non-supporters and critics because

i just don't believe in the public

kissing it's very difficult i don't mind

busting somebody on the forehead or the

cheek and so forth but

we just don't do it i don't mind if

others do it it doesn't bother me a bit

but with pat as you note and so forth

it's it's just a sense of privacy it's

something we didn't do we didn't grow up

anyway we came on down with after we

backed that we came on down from lindsay

and after we got back

arthur complained of a headache uh

incidentally in retrospect

uh we might have guessed that it might

have been because of cigarettes

because uh he uh he had a mind of his

own

and i remember when about two years

before that when he was five years old

he got a package of cigarettes

out of the store and he took it out in

back of the store and he proceeded to

smoke

one of them and a nosy neighbor reported

to my mother

and i must say i didn't much care about

that or her sense but anyway

it wasn't cigarettes this time

it took turned out to be

tubercular meningitis

nothing could be done about it

absolutely nothing

and so i recall so well

uh oh the days before he died

uh and uh i recall particularly

you you hear my father this tough rough

diamond enough i never forget it after

the doctor dr wilson

from whittier had gone up and diagnosed

the case

after they'd make a spinal chap and

found that mr berker meningitis and

said that there was no hope he came down

the stairs and

my father said they say he was crying

uncontrollably says they say the little

darling's gonna die

well anyway we then two days

after that a couple of days after the

doctor did it gave that

prognosis we went up to see him

and he was awake he'd come out of a coma

and he asked his mother if he couldn't

have some tomato gravy

he liked to made a gravy on toast and so

he hadn't let him eat much and so i

remember she brought it up to him and he

had that

and then shortly thereafter

he uh just went to sleep

and so that was the end

some years later when you were in

college you wrote a uh

an essay about your brother

about arthur that uh that your mother

kept

and uh it opened uh the essay opened

with a reference to the picture

and that was always kept in the uh in

the sitting room

and uh i wonder if you could read some

of it

from some of it all right let's see

i'll put my glasses on for that

when this was written in about 1930

as a uh

or just before as a high school

composition this was written in 1930

uh written in 1930 when i was uh a

freshman in college

freshman in college written for freshman

english i remember

well it isn't great literature but uh

perhaps it indicates

how the that particular event affected

all of us

i was just i was describing him i

remember how his eyes changed from their

original baby blue to an almost black

shade

and how his hair blonde at first became

dark brown

and how his mouth toothless for five

months was filled with tiny white teeth

which by the way were exceedingly sharp

when applied on soft fingers or toes

which

happened to get within their reach and

how those little coherent

incoherent sounds of his finally

developed into words and then into

sentences how he learned to roll over

and then to crawl and funny to walk

although i do not remember many

incidents connected with my brother's

early childhood

there were some which made a clear

imprint on my mind

there was one time when he was asked to

be a ring bearer at a wedding

i remember how my mother had to work

with him for hours to get him to do it

because he disliked walking with a

little flower girl

another time when he's about five years

old he showed the world that he was a

man by getting some cigarettes out of

our store and secretly smoking them back

of the house

unfortunately for him one of our gossipy

neighbors happened to see him and she

promptly informed my mother

i have disliked that neighbor from that

time

and again i shall never forget how he

disliked wearing sticky

woolly suits as soon as he was able to

read he used to search the mail order

catalogs for suits

which weren't sticky

there's a grave now out in the hills but

like the picture

it contains only the bodily image of my

brother

and so when i'm tired and worried and

i'm almost ready to quit trying to live

as i should

i look up i see the picture of a little

boy with sparkling eyes and curly hair

i remember the childlike prayer i pray

that it may prove true for me as i did

for my brother arthur

the prayer i was referring to was

just before he died or the day before he

died and

went to the final coma he

had his my mother come to the bed

and he said i want to say

the my prayers and

the prayer of course is the very

well-known one which i'm sure

everybody's familiar with now i lay me

down to sleep

i pray the lord my soul to keep if i

should die before

i wake i pray the lord my soul to take

and then that was the last words he ever

spoke

you started

school or started

high school in 1926

right what kind of a uh what kind of a

student were you

i was a pretty good student uh not

because i was so

with any inherited genius but i worked

hard

and uh i was i was very good in latin i

had four years of straight a's

perhaps a lot of help from my mother in

that i was very good in english

very good in history they were easy for

me

and i had however great difficulty with

math and science

but i managed to do them well because

it's always been my theory in life

that the real test of a person is not

how you do the things you like well but

how you do things you don't like well

not how well you do the easy things but

how well you do the tough things

and so whenever i had something in math

or science it was real tough

to me it was a challenge and i'd work

harder on that than i would on

like my english composition which was

like fall off a log for me you once

told the story about a a geometry

problem that that if you got if you got

the answer to the problem you didn't

it gave you an a for the course yes the

teacher was miss earnsberger

she was as i recall and she was

she was very good a german background

and

and she gave us the challenge this is a

very difficult

geometric problem and she said it anyone

and they got the answer to that problem

we get an a for the course well i took

it home

and i worked all night i remember it was

a very very cold night

because uh i i came downstairs

from the upstairs bedroom where we were

sleeping and

came down to the kitchen and sat at the

kitchen table

i lit the fire and the stove

which was a gas stove opened it up the

oven as opposed to heat the room

and just as the dawn came up i got the

answer and i got the a

i have the slightest idea as i recall

what it was about

but i got an a for the course and but it

was because of an all-night vigil

you were uh you were active in in debate

and dramatics in school i know in sports

in dramatics i i think you made a uh you

made a very impressive

dramatic debut well it was

uh it's in retrospect uh

my first dramatic appearance

was should really have been my last

because it was an almost unbelievably

horrendous experience

i mentioned the fact that i was fairly

proficient in latin

and at whittier high school

we always the the which had a very

strong latin department

in fact it was a requirement for at

whittier no longer but was that

for graduation for those that wanted to

go to college but any event

in this particular year

was my senior year the latin play

not in latin but in english was the

aeneid virgil cena which of course we

had studied

it's the fourth year latin course in

most high schools was then at least

and i played the part of aeneas and my

girlfriend olaf florence welch

played the part of dido well

it was quite an experience

in two different ways first at one point

a very dramatic moment the script

calls for aeneas and dido to embrace

in fact he calls for aeneas to kiss dido

i wouldn't do that

but at least we agreed that we would

embrace and i'll never forget

and i threw my arms around uh

uh dido uh i.e all of florence

the hoots and the cat calls and the

whistles from all the kids out there

we both turned red and got through the

play but what

was really made it worse was that i was

in excruciating pain

i had a uh they rented costumes

and i had to have silver boots and they

came in from the costume people i was

only about five nine at that time i

didn't get up to my 5 11

until i got to college but at any event

they must have thought they figured

tried to guess what my shoe size was

they didn't realize my feet were already

11d which they are today which is pretty

big

even for one who's 5 11. so they had a

5-9

boot well it took two latin teachers and

the school

janitor to get them on me and i walked

around that stage and every

every step was the most excruciating

experience

and let me say this i've never worn

boots since

i'm just thinking i have for at least

10 pairs of boots had been given to me

in my campaigns

campaigns in texas in 652 56

1960 again in 1968 and 1972

and i've given them all away i can't

stand boots because i remember the

horror of having to wear boots in that

play

you uh you were also very active and

very successful in debate

at this time and and i i think you've uh

uh or i've heard you say that the

teacher who taught you a natural sense

of speaking

uh or natural style of speaking as

opposed to the rather

florid type that was popular at the time

accounted for a lot of your subsequent

success in debate and in politics

i i remember his name very well h lynn

schuller he was called

many didn't like him because he was a

very tough grader

but i have found incidentally that my

best teachers in retrospect were those

who were toughest on me

i remember for example that my

my teacher of history jenny levin

was was awfully tough grader uh

in u.s history so tough as a matter of

fact the parents complained so much

they made her teach study hall

and which was a great loss

but in any event uh

i can i can remember that h lynn

schuller used to

was it would have been great in today's

television age i think

because he would have told people what

they need to hear and that is be

yourself

be natural those were the days when

there were oratorical contests and i

won quite a few of them when you had

automatic gestures you know

and great flights of oratory and so

forth but sheller used to say over and

over again

remember speechy speaking is

conversation

if you have an audience you may raise

the level of your voice

but don't shout at people talk to them

converse with them and so i have used

to the greatest then possible the

conversational tone ever since and i

think it's particularly suited for

television

i think this is our uh

you