Nixon, Haldeman & Laird on Vietnam War and Mining of North Vietnamese harbors

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We are on the threshold of a new relationship.

We consider all the differences around the premise and the cost of our lives.

We are prepared to continue to build on this relationship with you.

I want to make sure this is a good deal for you.

After the agreement, I ask you to sign a contract to vote for the state of your government for four months.

Make sure you vote for us.

And so often in the past few years,

enforced upon us by an enemy, that it shall utter contempt for every holy church that it may produce.

That is why tonight, I ask for your support in this decision, a decision which has only one purpose, to expand the war, not to escalate the war, but to end this war and to live in the kind of peace of the land.

With God's help and with your support, we will achieve that goal.

Yeah.

All right.

You all ready?

— 1 min 35 s with no transcribed speech —

How do you say coldly to them, it's your fault?

and still make the case and not do it in a way that you're accused of throwing a challenge down to them that they can't do anything about.

And it came off exactly the way you wanted it to.

That was 17 years ago.

I think I was the right one to put in the guy.

I didn't do it.

It fit.

It fit fine.

Now look, I'm a little embarrassed about everything.

It fit very well and it's gonna...

The reason for doing it is that for a whole lot of the people who send telegrams and write letters, that's damn important to them.

They want you to ask for God's help.

They do it themselves and they want you to.

They don't want you to say you're gonna run away then and think about yourself.

So is there a good point to that?

That's good.

I can show them up.

Show them that they can't figure it out.

You know, people say, you know, get an advance tax.

We sure don't even know the future.

What did we get, 17 minutes?

17, yeah.

It was good to get it down.

That's a really good one.

I got over 22 when I finally got off.

It was exactly right.

If you go shorter than that, it looks like you don't take it seriously.

If you go longer, I think you lose people.

I think you run out.

17, I think it was.

and this makes the case.

Did the mining sound ominous enough?

You see, I didn't use, you can't use the word blockade, you know, and rockers made that mistake.

I always say, but we're not doing it.

Did it sound, well, I guess it did.

I'm sorry.

I don't think there's nothing to do about it, but I think you can turn around and do that.

to point out that the Vietnamese have been mining and that this isn't a blockade.

I've been brushing around saying all the things it is.

But, you know, well, it must have stopped pretty often anyway, right?

Yeah, I said every ship would be stopped.

That was some pretty tough stuff.

That's all that we do right now.

Now we're starting to all of a sudden get any word of us that you want to hear.

No.

I don't think we can hear you.

Yeah, no, I asked him if he could come over to the O.V.

office, please.

What, what, this fellow, uh, come to, to finish up there, because when he's, when he's finished with the congressman, he'll come over to the O.V.

office.

What's he doing?

He's in with the fire titers, you know, to, to, I don't know, to work me up there on full water power.

How big?

Uh, they're, they're wanting him off, you know,

Why don't you take the cab and think of where it's going?

I guess, yeah.

I think, I don't think we're doing, frankly, as a candidate meeting, I don't think you needed to stay there, I think.

Well, I didn't want to do that.

I know you were going to track.

Well, I don't think he's going to be sitting on it.

Well, Bell and Moore were supposed to be there, and they were supposed to move on.

They got to take a quick look, but they were with Congress, and so they were extremely much more important.

Well, Congressman, I understand some of that.

You need to have the group because they're going to have to go to fight the Capitol people all they need.

Briefings aren't very important on this one, and that's the thing.

That's it.

You made the case, not with my argument, but with the guys.

I got a quote in the Senate, and they said, well, we don't know what he's going to say.

So you don't need to know what he's going to say.

What he says will be absolutely clear to you.

When he says it, it won't have to be explained.

And the key here is not to go out and sell this to anybody.

The president's going to do that.

The key is to make sure that the people who have been sold respond so that we get some reaction and start building the evidence to support it.

If there is any support, we can't build it.

We've got nothing to do about that.

It's there.

So all of our people always figure they've got a lot of support.

Okay.

Oh.

Yeah.

OK, that's ringing through.

So, well, I knew why you weren't there.

I knew you were doing one of our important things, working with Congress.

Good, good, good, good.

I appreciate it.

I know this is a tough one.

But let me tell you, the thing here, because I'm learning about it,

I don't want to indicate what the hell it is.

Now, incidentally, on the other hand, man is still ready to fight about how do we get to China.

Now, obviously, we're not going to jeopardize the Chinese relations.

We'll simply say that this is not directed against any other country.

We'll take the necessary precautions.

But we'll do what's necessary to stop the bull from sleeping.

But I think the more that you could be, I think you'd be a little more hoppy than I am.

Say that you're urging the president to get off.

And that'll help us a hell of a lot.

Also, get all your people there and ask the 50 to 12 people to say, well, you see, we may trigger something.

I don't know.

Was it done?

Right.

Would you send a fellow well down from me to that place and say, how did we send it to you?

Matt, oh yeah, yeah, we want to get you down here.

You are a new senator, well done.

Say, just say, Secretary of the United States, rather than talk to the president, say, well done, keep it up.

Okay?

The other thing, the other thing is, I was saying before today, and I want to make sure you know, I think now on our airstrikes, we ought to do, we ought to pick these targets.

In addition to the railings, I think the other thing should be P-O-L, P-O-L, P-O-L, P-O-L.

Don't you agree?

Because if you get the P-O-L, they can't run those hand trucks.

Right.

Okay.

Well, thank you a lot.

Yeah.

Bye.

Well, you just stick your old chin out there and get down.

Scarab.

Okay.

That's true.

He just doesn't sound strong.

He sounded scary.

He's bold.

He always wants to say what we're not doing.

He's a lawyer to argue the case and make it appear to death.

Here, we want to appear totally unpredictable.

It's a strange type of thing.

The way he runs through it.

He'll bounce from one side to the other.

I don't think anybody could do that broadcast.

That kid will be in motion.

And that's got to be, we've got to have that knocked down.

I don't know who the hell's going to come here.

There's so many of them now.

I think, I could be wrong, but I think it's, I don't know, it could be, could be, not deliberately, not deliberately, not.

You want me to write that one down later?

Hell no.

All the padded tiles get explored.

Better than you, but it's not a bad thing.

You'll have to get a new wire to support it.

It's going to be a pretty bad asset.

It's going to be sealed down.

It's going to be a lot of heat.

That's good.

That's why you don't need to...

Just say, well, it's not a blockade in the legal sense.

The rocker should say it's not a blockade in the legal sense.

That's interesting.

Maybe the president has ordered all enemies to not be a non-demand taking action.

He wasn't surprised at what he called the international hostility.

Also, he just wasn't very capable of making a political response.

Really, please.

Sir, could you make me a scotch and sort of just a light one, please?

Yes, sir.

Can I have a cooperation today?

Of course, sir.

All right.

We're sitting out there now, huh?

Yes, sir.

Well, we didn't set up an encounter.

I've got one if you want to.

commentary on our people, you know, the people calling in.

We were not supposed to call.

We didn't call.

We didn't.

I'm glad to hear that.

We should not.

We should not really.

See, some of these are people that we call, you know, on a regular basis.

You know what I mean?

I just don't want to go through that exercise.

We don't need it.

So...

What's up?

You know, when we had only one product, we traded it again.

We didn't accept it, except for the question, this is not a lot, Dave.

And I, for God's sake, had to die.

Thank God he carried the rest of the property.

Well, I had to back from Hague when he did it with the bastard.

But he kept saying, this is the best you can do to get the bomb.

Tomorrow we're going to bomb it.

I got that across from the cab.

I don't remember what is necessary.

I'm going to say, you know, five.

I wouldn't say anything about it, obviously.

I take care of it.

We'll be sure to change it.

Thank you.

All right.

I called the media and he said this is a great way to talk to me.

Who?

The media.

Did you call the media?

The police.

I called the police and he said, who is this man?

Okay, Lufthansa says, very much appreciate it.

Good to speak to you.

This sentence is great.

He's studying up the telegram.

Well, see, that's what we're after.

It's good.

It's not that.

I.W.

Abel says, forthright presentation.

Quite right.

You don't know what else he can do.

He's concerned with it all.

It's not something that he can solve on the right.

both the workers 100% support what we're doing is we're going to try to smoke out the ones that are with us and then move person support activity where we can get it.

We also have some educators that we're going to try and get some academics.

Yes, we can.

That's what we've got to do is some of the people aren't going to go to faculty because that's what makes the difference.

I said more than 100% for what he's done.

His opposition will have to search long and hard for a better approach.

All right, I have not been a strong supporter of the Vietnam policy, but this was a giant act on the president's part.

I think that's a little bit of a bad way to look at it.

Do you have parts of Eastern Kentucky?

and doesn't want the plus out of a common mistake.

Well, the reason was .

I don't know what I should say about his speech.

I don't know, but he said that was .

Well, the reason that was is he said, he said, if we shoot it out of the chest, that's going to end .

I said, I'm going to tell you something.

They are, they are.

That's a doubt.

I just don't want to get the final text of five years.

Do you think it was supposed to be?

Yes, indeed.

And there was not the transpiration that I didn't notice in the back of your mind about that?

I thought the picture was better than that.

Anyway, we got it.

We stuck it through.

Now that we've grown, we aren't going to screw it up.

Oh, my.

I just talked to Larry.

He said, fine.

He said, fine, John.

I said, I want you to be my boss here.

I want you to stick your chin out.

I'll do it.

I'm going to say it for the old troops.

But he did.

He said it.

Victor Rytel says this is easily the best and most effective speech the president has ever given in our Congress since 1947.

But what a mess he should have told it.

It was very modulated.

There was none of the evangelists who thought that it was hard to speak.

So it was evangelistic.

And it was God's help.

The editorial support we were after is that we've died.

And on a serious basis.

I think the overall effect will be good.

Buffalo evening news, extremely dangerous.

extremely courageous under the circumstances of what we had to do.

I'll hear over you, Senator.

The situation is very grim and there will be much reaction, but he needs all the support he can get and will have ours.

Senator, it's about time.

Don't forget to give a strong, sound speech.

Make a strong, sound decision.

It should have been a long time ago to display a certain amount of emotion as a result of the gravity of what he was doing.

Overdue to the Soviet Union, we're consistent with previous questions, including his own.

Oh, he's all right.

Go ahead.

Well, that's what we were covering.

I can try to get a meeting.

We're trying to get support.

Hartford Park.

Houston Chronicle.

We will support it, but we feel this will provide considerable care in the country for the men of protest and conquest in the nation.

That's right.

I would agree with you.

Taking a great rest from the surges, placing their factor, taking a great rest from the serious consequences.

I think our Vietnam will trade off with us, but definitely they will pull out in four months, someday in the year 1965.

They are healing us.

I'm afraid the speech the President has ever made had manifested his determination to achieve an honorable speech in a world without political wisdom and self-reproach.

It would be a serious setback for the President to get to Moscow.

We felt the President reflected desperation in time to carry the speech, but his tone was mostly that of determination.

This is probably his biggest crisis taking off.

Senator Brennan.

We worked on some mayor, you know, with the mayor and government supporting

the mayor of Spokane, probably most of the vote decisions ever made, part of the show plenty of guts.

Operating, show plenty of guts.

The president is supportive of that.

The mayor of Salem, when they're done, it's the best thing.

A lot of our running back is like the Cuban Missile Crisis, they couldn't deal with that.

Well, if you're going to have this, it can't be a mistake.

Well, if you're going to have the three-day breath-holding now, you know, while you're waiting for the mines to end.

The other shooter, huh?

And then the question is, what happens after the mines are dropped and the castle is sunk?

I think that I'm going to have to go out in the doldrums, though.

Are you?

I don't think so, even if they're ever opposed.

Never opposed.

Bill Hornby, effective editor, one of the best agencies made.

As long as he did not commit, we committed ground to it.

That gives the basic strength we have.

I am impressed.

I think the overall effect will be good.

Buffalo evening news.

Extremely dangerous, extremely courageous.

Under the circumstances, it's what we had to do.

Elliot Arrowhead, Senator.

The situation is very grim and there will be much reaction, but he needs all the support he can get and he will have ours.

San Diego Union, it's about time.

Don't be afraid to give a strong, sound speech.

Make a strong, sound decision.

It should have been a long time ago to display a certain amount of emotion

Oh, he's all right.

Go ahead.

Well, that's what we were covering.

Hey, I've been trying to get a meeting.

We're trying to get support.

We will support it, but we feel this will provide considerable fear in the country with a man of protest in Congress and in the nation.

That's right.

I look forward to taking a great rest from the serious consequences.

I think our Vietnam will carry on.

We worked on some mayor, you know, returning mayor government support.

The mayor of Spokane, probably most of the vote,

air sail arm

I don't know.

In fact, it's like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

There's gonna be a lot of that.

You've got this, you're gonna have this, it's gonna be a mistake.

You're gonna have the three-day breath holding now, you know, while we're waiting for the mines to come up.

And then the question is, what happens after the mines come up?

Well, the castle will stop.

I don't think they're gonna do that.

I sent a message to you.

You know, one thing I will say is this is a goddamn good, well written speech, but particularly good in 48 hours.

It really is.

It's duly constructed, making the case, laying out the decision, and summing it up.

Not a word to my head.

But that's not a subject not to speak about.

No, sir.

He doesn't know.

He's got a lot of stuff.

He's got the minutes, so he knows.

That's right.

Can I do it?

Very clever.

Should I go by and tally mine?

Yeah.

Yes.

You can say, Mr. Minister, you can say this, and there are not many panning relationships.

It's up to you.

You want good relations, but you're the government.

You're the government.

You can become president.

You're the man.

You're the senator.

You can become a preacher.

You can become a field reporter.

You've done that, right?

You told him that.

Okay?

Tomorrow, will you re-assert my ability before I get to Texas?

We aren't going to bomb near China.

Some of the edges are worried about China.

How did you inform him?

He's Chinese.

You're getting a little dumb.

Should we inform him?

They had already set it up, probably better if we get it cranked up.

There's nothing new about it.

It was already set up.

Well, except they could go in and have a little enthusiasm to blow up the head.

Well, if you don't, it could be okay.

I mean, I don't know how you think about it at all.

He's done it with all the goddamn things.

This is a very minor act.

It's the North Vietnamese mines, uh, what do you say, uh, like the Saigon River or something, all that sort of thing.

Yeah, but all of this is irrelevant.

What we have to look at now is iron determination.

It's the only thing that's going to save us now.

So Bob was there.

Didn't I need to get him to pay that?

He flew back to Utah.

He did it completely.

But I was impressed by Hayden.

I can only repeat, Hayden came back completely shaken of the congressional leaders on the rock.

Congressional leaders?

Yeah.

After I left.

After you left.

I want you to draw a picture of each other.

I'm saying, blockade, look, this is, the words are in here, Robert.

The president has made the decision that there is to be no more seaborne deliveries of supplies and we will carry it out, whatever is required.

You say that, okay?

Over.

I can convey to the press that we know what we're doing.

I'm not worried about death.

I am worried about our own safety.

Are you?

Yeah.

Well, blockade, I'm saying.

We don't show enthusiasm and conviction.

Our people will.

I don't mean our people.

I don't mean the White House people.

Anyway, you go to the party, and we'll have a session with him.

He just said he got it in.

No, he doesn't.

He's always trying to explain, be defensive, and all the rest.

But Laird's got it in.

I trust him with it all.

Well, Laird wants you to get it in.

Maybe I should come along with it.

I really, I'm not dying to do this sub-cabinet briefing.

It's just my, these guys do go back to their bureaucracy.

We'll find a way to do it.

Good luck.

You can scare that minister to death, will you?

Okay.

Henry?

Yes, sir.

Remember Lot's wife?

What's the question?

Never look back.

Nobody's looking back, we don't.

You've got more of a lot of, you've got as much of the line, as anyone's got more of a line than you, because it's as big as you.

I'm not the poet, but I... No, you're not.

The main thing is, he looked it all over.

He did what he thought was right.

Now that I know, let me say this.

Here's where I go first with you.

You have recollections for what we're doing.

It requires the devastation of Hanoi and Haifa to be done.

But I ain't gonna bomb this under the bench right into the stone age.

I understand.

I don't think it's required, but...

If it's required, it will be done.

Well, that's the thing.

He doesn't give the... Well, he was...

He doesn't give the...

I'm so...

I'm weak, you know.

I'm wearing this...

Gun billows, the boys get standin' and get out.

Goddamn, I...

He's just not a good man for this job.

That's... You have a cigar out there?

Yes, sir.

Now, that's the problem.

They were conning the job, I guess, and shit.

He doesn't care their ass off.

Well, let's see, what have we got here?

Choice?

And it's a different list.

Usually we try to get a cross section.

This time we were hitting the ones that we were all working for for support.

I just want to be sure we understood.

We care.

There's not a goddamn thing we can do about it.

We don't care about the... We weren't looking for a balance.

We've got to play a hard line, tough line here.

But we've got to smoke out where our support is and then ride it.

And we've got some.

That's... We've got some.

Where we thought we had it.

And we've got to see how far it goes, how much we can get out of it.

.

It's powerful.

It's intense.

Everybody loves it.

Right.

And they love it.

Sometimes.

At a certain level.

Last night, he was, he stood for a hell of a lot of hours before he knocked it off.

So it gave him a hell of a place to sit.

This year, it falls off.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

I need to check.

I didn't get him to hold on.

I think it would be an almost mortal shock if he did it right now, just throw, as in the hole, if he could throw two weeks.

I'm not certain then, but I just think if he did it right now, even though they know he's going to be safe, if he just throws two weeks, that would almost put him by, or 10 days, you know what I mean?

If the sun goes off,

for a couple weeks and the summit stays on, that he wanted to still go before you leave?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tell him we'd like to look at his sins on the summit.

Tell him we'd like to look at the summit decision.

It goes as we expect.

We'd like to have him leave just before that.

What?

Have him leave just before the summit.

No.

If the summit is canceled, then he ought to stay on.

He's got to stay on a couple more weeks because there'd be two blows in a row.

If the summit stays on, which I'm serious about,

It's very helpful if you could stay for a couple of weeks.

You and me?

Yeah.

Hey, we're only talking about two weeks, John.

Fifteen, a very good chance.

So, probably had to be the record of cresting this decision.

In fact, that's a god damn disgraceful way.

You just can't understand that.

That's just totally belittling.

I wouldn't understand it.

Land calls, you'd already have four calls.

That's all you can try to say about it.

I know some are important there, but I don't know if it's not bad to move them.

Well, I did an analysis on the river, and we were telling them that whether they're decent or even halfway decent, they've only replaced me with pictures of about 40 of us.

just a man and a woman is outside, you know, on the steps there, and there's a step to the side, you're not brought in on the seat.

You step outside, you're taken.

You're not reported to the members of the class.

You can do that in the district.

You know, the front door court, they'll have to call out except for the president.

I know a speech record.

Well, they don't.

No?

Kid Colson calls.

Hello?

Baby Bob?

Pretty good.

Is that President Lennon out?

Why is she eating tonight at all?

You did, huh?

You figured you probably didn't bother.

I think your girlfriend's calling you.

Really?

You getting more than you usually get?

I'll be darned.

What's their, what are they saying?

It's been great.

Yeah.

He's present his lifetime now.

He's busy.

Good.

In the Western Union, that's a real problem.

We had that before.

They tell him to keep trying.

See you guys this weekend.

Probably.

Good.

I'll stop here.

Okay.

Thank you.

He used to all crank up.

He said he always gets a bunch of phone calls after your speech, but a lot more of the same.

He said, well, I'm afraid he doesn't usually call.

He'll be popular.

He's great.

He's a great guy.

And some woman called and she was crying.

She was all upset that she couldn't get through to the Western Union and sent a telegram.

So she called me to have that telegram.

I'm much more positive about this than he was the other night.

Of course, on April 26th, we didn't send him.

I told you, we didn't send many people.

You know, we had to realize, you know, it was an elegant speech, much more elegant than this one, but I don't think it got there.

People understand that, you know, we can do something.

The people you're pushing for support, you're not having any trouble pushing.

Yeah, I saw some of those cars present.

They're willing to line up.

Okay, well, be sure we enlist them now.

Get them to start the labor guys.

We've already had marches.

Callow must enlist in the military.

It still shows through.

They don't make pieces.

Yeah.

Good.

Pay them off.

Good.

Right.

Oh, Pat, Pat, while we're calling.

You're done.

Good.

That's it.

We've got to work on that.

But that's not for free.

I'm not sure you can.

If you can, we got a little thing, but we'll decide that in the morning, but that's something we ought to think about.

It may be that we ought to, ought to, uh...

The problem is, he's obsessed with having his plan, this isn't a blockade, we aren't really gonna hurt anybody, and it doesn't really mean anything and all that, and that's exactly 180 degrees wrong.

The line here has gotta be, this is a blockade, we're gonna kick the shit out of them, and then have it.

We can't apologize, we can't back down or back off.

I'm not sure borders would be better.

But he gets into all the technicalities of how many decibels it takes to detonate the layers and all that stuff.

Layers would be better and Russian would be better.

Let's watch Russian while we're on TV, because Russian believes in this way down to the core.

All right, have you got any reason on telegrams at all?

Okay, well now it's time to start hitting Western Union.

Let's get the president up out of bed and tell him that we're getting calls from all over the country now that his goddamn offices won't take the telegrams and that we're going to make a national scandal out of them, that they pulled this before and, you know, just scare the shit out of them.

And tell them they'll probably have to lose their franchise wanting to get something better than communication.

Well, it's the same old story, but now's the time to start busting them on that.

And get that story out.

And tell the people, if any people have called complaining they can't send telegrams, tell them to call their local paper and TV station and say they can't get through to Western Union.

Good.

Well, that's the one that's starting me up.

We ought to now get the head of Western Union, as we've been waiting long enough now.

I just got a baby just sent a lady that you never heard of just crawled in and said she couldn't get through the Western Union and said she was crawling in.

Yeah.

Good.

I'm sure Ron knows that.

We put the full load of operatives on so there's no light.

Yeah.

What's your own personal view on that?

Yeah.

He'd like to deliver.

I'd call him Harris and send him a letter.

He'd suggest you check with Harris and send him a letter.

He'd read anything that they'd make.

See what their personal views were.

Call us back.

Yes, sir.

Call back the other night.

Yes.

He'll be up.

Yes.

Okay.

Did you get the, uh, Mr.

Rush, the deputy secretary of defense, please?

Kenneth Rush.

Kenneth?

Yeah, yeah.

He's gonna do the, the, the...

What is Chuck's overall marvelous feat?

The delivery was just exactly what Christmas

He's amazed by the reactions.

He thought we were going to have to push people.

He thought they'd be shaky on whether they should come in on this or not.

He said they're not doing that at all.

The people that they had lined up to move on are just all out.

So various, various problems.

Ask Ron his reaction to it.

Hello?

Yes, how are you?

Well, you're very kind to say that.

Let me say, you're going on in the morning, and I'd like to give you just a couple of thoughts.

Bill Rogers and Dr. Katzner and other studies out of Montague don't take that line.

Take the line that, well, the words are going on, what it is, and we're present in doing whatever is necessary to stop

Now that we've crossed the Rubicon, we're going to keep those passages, and we're going to be laying even more of them.

So take a very strong line with what's necessary.

The President is saying that the President has crossed the Rubicon, and now we can also decide that we've made a 423 line, which is

I appreciate it, I appreciate it, Chuck.

I don't know if it's great in any way, but the main thing is that we have a really strong land over there now.

I got a call there, and I got him to work that out by the right time.

And I said to him, I said, like, Mel, you've got to be more hawkish than I am.

He said, yeah, Mel is a decent kind of a guy.

He doesn't wait.

He doesn't look right.

Right.

I'm going to need to talk to him in the morning.

Right now, we've got to meet the corrosion.

All the way.

Okay.

All right, come on in.

Kick them in the ass.

Oh, you will.

Are you coming tomorrow night or not?

It'll be a nice little party where everybody, all the lawyers in the administration, sort of be there.

We'll remember both of them every year soon.

Okay, what?

He just said, well, here it is on the wire.

It's too late.

White House supporters jammed with calls, the overwhelming majority expressing strong support for Nixon's stand.

And they've already turned the wires on the Western Union.

And that's what we do, because they've got to make calls to Western Union.

places around the country and they're saying we can't take you they either can't get through because the lines are busy or they would say we can't take your telegram

You got that?

Go ahead, Ron.

Ron's been working the color thing on the basis of a determined, resolute, calm decision in early, working on the thing yourself.

All the options were carefully reviewed.

This was a deliberate decision in making that point so they don't get into any...

George, I just wanted to say that, you know, it's a family of our differences, but I just wanted you to know that I took this decision because I know you just did a great job.

And if you could support it, I would appreciate it.

And I understand that, you know, by God, we just can't let these people around us.

Alright, good to talk to you, Charlie.

We'll find something.

We'll find something safe early in the morning.

He wants you to pay.

Who's selling?

Should I look?

Pay, you should.

I didn't pay in one minute.

We have your assets.

Let it go.

... ... ... ...

That's very good.

All right.

She says she's got some caution that they've all said that they're getting through to

She said one that was interesting was Jack Colley.

She said you might remember Miles Laboratories.

And he told Rose he had never made a call in his life after a thing like this or anything, but that he just had to call him and say that he thought this was the greatest speech any president ever made, that would go down in history as being the outstanding speech by an American president.

And Charlie Ryan had called in from New York, where he was with a group of people.

And Charlie Ryan was very brave that this had to be done, and it was an outstanding move.

I don't want to recall the words.

By the evals that she had come to, it led me to join the SCM.

We thought it was absolutely great.

It was exactly what some president should have, someone should have done a long time ago before you even became president.

And it would be very courageous of you to step up and do it now.

And Rose said, she thought even after having worked on the speech and all and sitting watching it, that it was so plain and clear that that was the real value.

There was nothing confusing about it.

People understood exactly what you were saying.

And you made it so clear that you put it to the enemy.

They'd been talking about peace and making all these noises and all that show us.

And the Soviets in particular, you know, that it's now up to them to lay down the gauntlet.

And she had been over here.

No.

Yes.

Thank you.

We wanted to get up.

I think that's absolutely right.

You think the case came over all right?

Good.

I can see that.

We're getting a fantastic response here.

We can't do our usual check because of all the things that are all jammed up here.

I think we're going to get an enormous response because it seems to be a tremendous, around the country kind of thing.

We don't usually have, we always get a lot of our own supporters, but there seems to be much more than that.

Right?

Well, that's good.

Well, we'll just get a count of that with the evidence to support on the other side.

If the silent majority rank me, they'll speak up.

Why, uh, they could drown the others out.

It's not small.

Good hit, sir.

Okay to go, Lee.

Thank you, sir.

Bye.

This is my wife's squeal that said, whoopee!

They said you really laid it on the line.

The main aim is to stick to your guns and ride it out.

There's going to be a lot of people squealing probably, but this gives the real people in this country a sense of pride.

It was just tremendous.

He was amused at the reporters, and the commentators did not handle it afterwards.

They couldn't figure out how to be very creative.

He was very heartened by a report from London that I guess was on TV saying that the British were backing on this.

And also they reported that the Germans were expecting to back him.

The French will probably take no position one way or the other, but that was very good.

And they reported that the Soviets may be in jeopardy, but maybe not.

So it is...

He said the thing to do is hit it quick and hit it hard.

He said the press conference in Memphis tomorrow and at Birmingham on Friday, he'll come out strong and support and say, I know what I can do.

I said the other thing is we want to follow up the train.

We can get some help from his apparatus if we can get it.

They pulled out a few of what they thought were interesting wires that

We assure you are full of solidarity in your action taken today to protect the lives of our American soldiers in Vietnam.

I'm Michael Sinecroft, Chairman of the Hancock County Democratic Executive.

I'm not a worker.

Get those out.

You're welcome.

I've been laid off work ever since you've been in office, and I can't support all your weight issues.

However, I'm also a Navy veteran who was manning a gun mount for the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and I wholeheartedly support your position on the Vietnam situation.

The only night we would be actually seen necessary to take our person with you, let's just say it.

If you wholeheartedly agreed to this decision to lock me in your iPhone, the only night we'd stay in your iPhone.

Congratulations.

Keep the soft boards, but keep the big sticks when you come to the enormous World War II veteran, American Democrat, Princeton, Lester James.

I support you all in your decision to make this deal.

I support your advice for the peace, 100%.

The company I'm going to get is at the house.

Oh, yeah.

Get up to the press tonight.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

Don't get out of here.

Okay.

He said, first of all, he talked to the Western Union guy.

He's very embarrassed.

He's getting already gotten stuff from all over the country, the payroll system.

It's all screwed up, which is what happened before.

He said, God, I wish you told me.

That was one of the greatest.

He said, in fact, we didn't turn him off.

He kept slobbering about the speech.

He said, that's one of the greatest speeches I've ever heard.

If I'd only known the president was going to do that, we would have had emergency crews in all over the country.

But we thought about that.

We purposely didn't do it because we didn't want it.

See, then somebody at Western Union would have said we had ordered it up, but we'll see who put it on.

Much better than Jana, that he's putting out the statement, he's moving emergency crews into their central office in Pennsylvania, he's putting out a statement apologizing to Western Union customers and all that kind of stuff.

Which is, that's what we want.

Sendlinger, he said both Sendlinger and Harris were completely carried away, and Sendlinger said that this, it's...

exactly the attitude of the public.

He said, if you had written the speech to fit what the people want to hear, you couldn't, you see, you wouldn't have changed the comment, the entire thing.

He said, you've now got the ball in the Soviet court, which is exactly where it ought to be.

You did cancel the summit, and people don't want the summit canceled.

So I said, maybe, though.

Yeah, but you didn't cancel it.

And you were strong and firm.

And he said there was a complete hand strike.

And he said, I'm Harris.

He said he had kind of a problem because Harris fancies himself an international expert.

He wanted to go through it on the international analysis rather than as an upholsterer.

And he said, this is going to do it.

He says, this is the one thing you could have done to bring the Soviet around.

Call their bluff.

It's a master stroke.

He said, there's no question the public will rally behind it on the short term.

And he said, on the immediate basis, you'll have a massive public rally behind it.

If it's protracted for a long period of time, then something then happens.

It could erode, but it may not.

And he said, the president's closer to getting this worked out than he's ever been.

This will cause a Soviet state.

The idea of no other option comes through his shoulder.

So I think he will say something about being wrong.

About getting, you know...

He doesn't just hop out of bed.

Yeah.

to read the statement he had just put out.

Chuck, Chuck, he says, I can't believe it.

It's a very strong statement.

He says, I fully support the president.

I call on the American people to support him.

And he said, if he gets that one, he'll run for it.

Don't worry about it.

I'll rack this up and I'll do it tonight.

Let me get it all, you know, a barrage.

There's no point in fucking about it tonight anyway.

It's the morning, so don't do it.

and took so many .

Harris made the point that the point that you make that there was no other option comes through very strongly, and he picked that up in one of his commentary.

And he said also on the candor point that you laid out that your reputation for candor will be greatly enhanced by this because you laid the case out so clearly, both in the honesty and in the .

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

Last guts in the water.

Here's the hawk.

It's behind you 100% of the time last year.

Stand beside me.

Stand behind me.

Good.

And then it hunts.

Rack those up.

I'll sort the lid once out.

Whoa!

Nixon, Haldeman & Laird on Vietnam War and Mining of North Vietnamese harbors

AI Summary

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

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Also recorded on May 8, 1972

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Nixon, Haldeman & Laird on Vietnam War and Mining of North Vietnamese harbors

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on May 8, 1972

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Cite this conversation