adds a “Part 2” to last issue’s mention of the memoir by Nixon’s and Reagan’s speech writer, Ken Khachigian. Totally captivating! Enjoy!
to see book recommendations in all 20 management buckets (core competencies), and
for more book reviews. Also, read my recent review of
Your First 90 Days? How About Your First 90 Hours? Behind Closed Doors (Part 2)Honest! I made 74 notes on the front blank pages of
Behind Closed Doors. You’ll love the fascinating details behind every single highlight. (
Really.) But here’s my problem: I spotlighted 10 stunning sections that are still competing for my attention-getting big opening.
In my
last issue I alerted you to three books and a movie that were in the queue. Here’s the first book:
Ken Khachigian’s hot-off-the-press page-turner reads like today’s headlines. Honest! If you’re watching the breaking news this week from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (or like some of us old timers, comparing it to the 1968 Chicago convention), you’ll love the author’s tutorial in Political Speechwriting 401.
Known as the “Word Donkey” for the speeches he wrote for both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Khachigian’s 496-page memoir includes this entry from October 15, 1980 (Incumbent Jimmy Carter versus Candidate Reagan, former governor of California):
“…Carter seemed to embrace a tax increase when he flubbed by claiming that among the factors causing inflation was ‘the government wasn’t taking in sufficient revenues to meet a greatly expanding budget.’”On Reagan’s campaign plane from Sioux Falls, S.D., to Lima, Ohio, Khachigian had orders to craft a new speech in response to Carter’s blunder. “Not a little panicked and stressed, I hoped my fingers would find magic words to emerge from the IBM typewriter to exploit Carter’s weird [
there’s that word again!] connection of inflation and high taxes.”
“Fortunately, I was able to concoct one of the more inspired punch lines of the campaign. I rushed it to the typists, Shirley Moore and Michele Davis; Shirley put it onto Reagan’s half sheets for speaking, and Michele into press release format after Reagan made his edits. They used
Wite-Out to correct typing errors, dried the pages under the plane’s air vents and typed over them.” (Reminder: 1980 campaigns had no email, no iPhones, and no Internet.)
The punch line for Reagan’s speech: “We now know what Mr. Carter plans to do with four more years.
Catch your breath, hold on to your hats, and grab your wallets because Jimmy Carter’s analysis of the economy means that his answer is higher taxes.” Khachigian adds, “The ‘catch your breath’ line made all three networks that night, so the last-minute change was successful.”
Now, during this 2024 campaign, you should listen for a replay of Reagan’s words (including these scripted by Khachigian):
•
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?”• “Jimmy Carter is fond of quoting presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, but I’ve noticed that there is one Democrat that he doesn’t speak much about, and that is Jimmy Carter.”
You’ll appreciate the down-to-earth simplicity of Reagan’s campaign speeches
and his presidential speeches. After Reagan won, Khachigian notes that “As president, he was now empowered
to go beyond preaching the gospel and put it into practice.” A few more zingers:
•
“There’s no such thing as federal funds. ‘It’s your money.’”• “Business taxes aren’t paid by business; they’re paid by you.”
• “…there are seven million Americans caught up in the personal indignity and human tragedy of unemployment.
If they stood in a line, allowing three feet for each person, the line would reach from the coast of Maine to California.” Khachigian’s robust memoir gives leaders and readers a front row seat to two U.S. presidents—and a reminder that back then, those speeches were crafted on an IBM Selectric typewriter! For more on Nixon,
view Ken Khachigian’s talk and Q&A hosted by the Richard Nixon Foundation on July 23, 2024.
In his recent talk for the Richard Nixon Foundation, author Ken Khachigian describes the hilarious fact-checking for Reagan’s word picture that the national debt was approaching $1 trillion. (Today, it is $35 trillion!) View Khachigian’s talk here.Reagan’s word picture: “If you had a stack of thousand-dollar bills in your hand only four inches high, you’d be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of thousand-dollar bills over eighty miles high.” Khachigian was skeptical of the math and asked Reagan:
KK: “…if you’ll excuse the question, Mr. President, where on earth did you come up with the number for the thousand-dollar bills reaching up to the sky?"
RR: “Well, by long division.”KK adds: “I chuckled quietly while picturing him with a yellow pad dividing mysterious numbers into 1,000,000,000,000.”
So Khachigian asked his staff to fact-check that 80-mile high number, noting in his recent talk that there is no shortage of “nerds” that work in our government agencies. The stats on $1 trillion came back:
• Loosely stacked, the pile of $1,000 bills would be 67 miles high.
• Bound together, the stack would be 63 miles high!
Reagan’s memorable word pictures reminded me of bestselling author Chip Heath and his practical book for leaders, speakers, and writers:
Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers.
Reagan’s landslide victory on Nov. 4, 1980, was stunning (489 of 538 electoral votes). And Khachigian was close to the action, including at Reagan’s first cabinet meetings in January 1981. The “Reagan Revolution” agenda? The author quotes David Stockman, “the young OMB director,” who said to the president,
“I recommend you do what you pledged in the campaign.” (
Really? You can do that?)
According to the author of
The First 90 Days (my 2010 book-of-the-year), “The president of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself [or herself?]; you get 90.”
Yet Reagan didn’t need 100 days, or even 90. How about 90 hours?Khachigian writes about Reagan: “His energy and enthusiasm were infectious throughout
five cabinet meetings crammed into less than two weeks to cut the budget, reduce taxes, and deregulate government. The weight of his presence was greater and more emphatic than history has given him credit, and seated behind him, I took notes to preserve a record of his historic undertaking.”
Where were you when President Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981? (Joanne and I were in Manila in the Philippines. I remember paperboys in the streets hawking newspapers that featured “second coming” headlines.) Khachigian was asked by Vice President George H.W. Bush’s press aide to help draft a
reassuring statement for the nation. (Imagine!)
And how timely: Last week in the
WSJ, Peggy Noonan contrasts then Vice President Bush with current Vice President Kamala Harris. Read “
The Vice President’s Biggest Speech. In July 1988, George H.W. Bush was famous but unknown—and down in the polls by 17 points.”
You’ll love this front-row seat from a gifted speechwriter’s perspective. Captivating!
Here are a few more teasers:• Press secretary Jim Brady on being selected: “I don’t know which of these is the worst. Number two is getting it; but number one is not getting it.”
• A second-grader’s letter to President Reagan following the assassination attempt:
“I hope you get well quick or you might have to make a speech in your pajamas. P.S. If you have to make a speech in your pajamas, I warned you.” (The President used that in his next speech!)
• Having served Nixon, Khachigian became an important go-between for Nixon’s political advice to Reagan. Fascinating! The 75-page appendix includes copies of actual letters and memos from Nixon, then based in San Clemente, Calif., to Reagan and the author.
• Nixon quoted
Churchill:
“History will treat me well because I intend to write it!” (Khachigian conducted research for
Nixon’s memoir, all 1,136 pages.)
• Robert Novak, the legendary syndicated columnist and TV commentator, would often meet with Khachigian when he was in California “over pasta at Orange County’s acclaimed Antonello Ristorante.” (Note: I also read
Novak’s memoir, all 662 pages!)
•
The best speech of Reagan’s career? “In the decade of our collaborations, the eulogy Reagan delivered on May 5, 1985, at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp stands alone as the most significant and consequential.” I was unaware of the pre-speech fallout from this momentous day. Chapter 20, “Crisis at Home,” is a case study in the
Crisis Bucket—and it’s
my favorite chapter.
• Chapter 18, “Morning Again in America,” is
also my favorite chapter! (
Yes, you can have two favorites.) Khachigian describes his key role in creating the “
Morning Again in America” documentaries for the 1984 re-election campaign and the GOP convention. He notes: “It can be more difficult to write a thirty- or sixty-second commercial than a twenty-five-minute speech.
Telling a story in 110 or 115 words is agonizing…”GOOD NEWS. This is not a puff piece on Nixon and Reagan (or the author). Khachigian has harsh words for many White House senior staffers (“wannabe speechwriters”), and ego-driven officials who “were smitten with the disease of proximity to the Oval Office.” His relationship with Nancy Reagan (“chief of staff”) deserves its own book.
TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: IN THE ROOM WITH REAGAN & NIXON, by Ken Khachigian (July 23, 2024). Listen on
Libro (16 hours, 37 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
BONUS: Watch the trailer here for the new movie, “Reagan,” starring Dennis Quaid, and opening Aug. 30, 2024.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books
Part 16: Keys to Memorable Speaking and Writing
Book #87 of 100: 15 Minutes Including Q&AFor your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #87 in
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
15 Minutes Including Q&A:
A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations
by Joey Asher
Books #87 through #91 spotlight five memorable books to enrich your speaking and writing competencies. Q&A is “presentation duct tape,” says the author of
15 Minutes Including Q&A. “It fixes everything.”
•
Read my review.
• Order from
Amazon:
15 Minutes Including Q&A •
Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson).
When speaking, begin with “the hook.” Asher writes, “Start by putting your finger on the business issue that your audience cares most about. A good way to arrive at your hook is to think,
‘If I were to ask my audience what worried them most about the topic I’m going to talk about, what would they say?’”“The hook often starts with the following phrase, ‘I understand that you are concerned about…’” Your three points should be like bumper stickers: short and memorable, supported by stories. “Great speakers use lots of stories.”
And thinking about political speeches, I loved this line from then Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger who asked the press,
“Does anyone have any questions for the answers I’ve prepared?”
CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN
