2008-05-12-ODL Robert Odle Interview Transcription Page 1 of 45 May 12, 2008
2008-05-12-ODL Robert Odle Interview Transcription Page 1 of 45 May 12, 2008 Timothy Naftali Hi, my name is Tim Naftali. I'm director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California. It's May 12, 2008, and I have the honor and privilege to be interviewing Rob Odle for the Nixon Oral History Program. Meghan Lee will be joining me in asking questions in the course of this interview. Rob, thank you for doing this. Rob Odle Thank you, Tim. I'm looking forward to it. Timothy Naftali Well, let's talk about how you became interested in politics. Let's talk a little bit about Young Americans for Freedom in the 1960s. Rob Odle Well, I grew up in Port Huron, Michigan, and went off to undergraduate school at Wayne State University in Detroit, and that was kind of a hotbed, if you will, of liberalism in the 1960s. And, you know, it had the influence of the Students for a Democratic Society, and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and things like that. And so I was more attracted to the Republican club there, and later Young Americans for Freedom, and at one time or another, I headed both organizations on the Wayne campus. And it was -- those were difficult, those were difficult times, the late '60s. President Nixon said in his inaugural speech a year or so later that we cannot really learn from each other until we stop shouting at each other, and my greatest recollection of those days on that campus were that, sadly, everybody was shouting at each other.
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