Nixon, Colson & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Public Opinion Polling

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Well, I'm sure that I, yes, sir.

The question is, the wires have been, the wires have just been carrying page after page.

He went for a full, in questions, he went for a full 45 to 50 minutes.

CBS carried the entire portion of the news, the new news shows.

He was, you know, he was just as firm and as tough on our policies

just the way that we wanted him to be.

And he had the great tea done by him.

He said, how do you say it?

Well, I said, the American people have always supported the president when arguing on the issue.

There's a no time for quidditch or for a lot of talk about the instant surrender.

I don't think the American people want to cry on the board.

A bug out of the shovel, and he just went on and on.

They kept pressing him, and he wouldn't name names.

They kept pressing him.

So it was fully ducking him, saying, bug out, surrender.

Christ, and he said, well, there's thousands.

Yeah, he said, just play the, the record is being made, and I think it's quite clear who it was.

Why don't we start naming names?

Well, I, our co-authors, our co-authors, when I say our co-authors, Scott and Ford had a press conference this afternoon at 230, they were excellent.

Larry has always been an audience member.

I agree, but it's got four name names.

They went right through the list.

They just broke them, so I don't know how well.

They probably won't get much to play.

They won't play both, but at least they took them off.

So the three networks were there with Scott and George, and one of the network reporters came over to kill a friend.

Scott said, you know, he said, I've never seen your voice any better in coverage.

They ran out of copies of the ORSC poll, but we had to take it and have 25 more reviews.

During the president, one of their boys said, this is over our city.

This is the end.

They've never done a damn thing.

We've never picked a poll yet.

That's absolutely right.

We haven't.

We can't.

They are not fixable.

Interestingly enough, similar to this quote, the president came out with almost two points difference.

based on a sample of 600.

If you put it out, you put it out to a grunt.

And there's funny wires from New York and others.

And it's also called a press conference for more and more.

Yeah, some shit said, well, something about, how can you say that when the people are so opposed to this?

There's something about it.

So you launch the RRC phone.

I think it would get some trouble.

I'm asking because the people are so opposed to it.

What is the actual suspect in the New York Times editorial?

I mean, I'm picking up from that.

I don't know what context you mean.

The New York Times editorial says the people are...

The old thesis of the Times editorial is that the House and the President made this action, which is so totally opposed to it by the American people.

Yeah.

They said the old media is dropping in at the close.

The great majority of the American people are opposed to this.

Can you take an ad in the Times on this case in front of an authority poll?

I mean, they hear what the Times said in the editorial period, what the polls said.

They won't take a look at the other ones, do they, Mike?

I'd do it.

No, I'd do it.

I'd do it.

I'd stick it right into the title.

I think the best would be to stick it up their ass.

That's right.

And it's all about this division.

You can use a certain word, Vietnam, or somebody from Mars.

It's exactly the same thing that the press said.

Well, exactly, exactly how all of the people were, that the people were overwhelming before the president was found through intelligence in the flight to, I have some teeth for this.

The flight to Mars was going on, and then all of a sudden, but then the press reported, the next, the office, but the people reported.

You have to read the Washington Post section.

The sports section, we don't read Washington.

I'm sorry, we do.

The headline in the Post sports section is, Pundit Ted Williams Splinters Nixon's Critics.

A problem.

Headline.

And then it says, Ted Williams was sitting in the lobby of the Lord Baltimore Hotel sweating out the rain.

He was washed out at 19 in the Orioles.

And it's a thoughtful Americans everywhere to talk today about President Nixon's decision to minority and not support him.

And quote, Nixon had to do it, regardless of the consequences.

We have 60,000 guys over there we have to protect, said Williamson, by the end of World War II.

He's the greatest president of my lifetime, added Williams, who once buzzed the stir when he questioned President Truman's guts.

Williams cut across party lines by praising the president's evils and other evils.

Those four guys make me cute.

You can put that in your column.

Obviously mellowing in his middle years, the manager did not identify the four guys.

In the view of the last 400 hitters, Nixon always makes the right decisions, at least he makes the effort.

Someone questioned him about the reaction of the Soviet Union to the mining way in Chautauqua.

I'm not afraid of the Russians.

William's staunch defense and chief executive came as no surprise to anyone who visited William's old office in R.M.U.

Stadium.

Mr. Nixon's photograph on the internet.

While he was about it, the Rangers' manager took a swipe at NBC's Today show, which he charged this morning interviewed more opponents of Mr. Nixon's policies and profiles.

That was horse shuffling, as he said.

Then you ask the clowns on the street to come in.

Who is he?

Who is the clowns?

Those long-haired colleagues in the baggy clothes don't pay taxes.

That's pretty cool.

I think they've got to get some martyrs.

The only thing I can say is I don't think the language is colorful enough.

I agree with you greatly.

It's a horrible language, and we need to get a condamnative soundbite or we're off.

You can get into the jail cell if you please.

sensational telegram, sensational telegram, saying, you know, you're asking to protect the 60,000 Americans and so on and so forth.

It goes into the merits of the thing.

And then he says, as foes, we stand 100% behind you and your efforts for world peace and to make a better country domestically.

Well, I was going to say, Bob, the thing about this is that when I say the colorful language,

Maybe the best thing I could do this weekend is spend my time thinking about what I have to do, so tell me how to do it.

I work by Carol, I just kind of never remember anything.

Sitting there on the black operations, or you've got the goddamn CIA office ass, you know, put out all the bullshit, all the bullshit.

The fight is...

The great success that I have, and I did in this case, I was the main one that I knew how to get the words out.

We've got to get the words out.

And our people, we don't have anybody really who understands words.

You know what I mean?

When I say we haven't anybody, I mean everybody's a political man.

How do we get the words?

All right.

He's not a man.

What I'm getting at is, Bob, who can you get who can write words, words, words, words, more or no?

What I'm getting at is some way to...

Where is he now?

Get his ass over here and put him to work.

Will you do that?

Well, could we do that?

Yeah.

If he's that good.

And give him the idea that we want to first particularly label it as a fetus and all the other, you know, interdiculums.

Come in.

Let's take out some of that.

We just had a little discussion, Henry, and you said you should disarm all of the planes and let them go off.

Yeah.

I ran into Bob Mench, who said he can talk to 6,000 people in the back, and they're very low-key.

So here we can bet you about a dollar he did.

Did you have a regular wife?

And you just mentioned the credits.

What the president really was just saying is we're going to not talk out of it.

He said it's the most moving thing he's ever done to us.

Sikes, before, had a report from this television station down there that has a talk show, and they somehow got a thing going where they said

I had lunch, I don't know if you know anymore, but you know,

Yeah.

Embarrassing, you know, for your little friend.

I'm glad that he was there.

He said, it's great, anything I can do to pick up your phone.

Well, those guys are all cranked up now, this thing.

The pole and this shot, I would say.

They're getting a feel of blood a little, and so they're having some fun.

Jerry Ford said to somebody at the time, he said, Pennsylvania, there was a street pole in some town, and it was April 1, 1936.

Mr. President, 76.2 support.

That's the same question that ORC got 74.

We've got a support of 23, and ORC got 86.

That's not the one we're going to put out.

Don't worry about it.

We haven't put out the test question yet.

Let me say this, Joe.

On the colorable language part, I'm going to go to San Jose this weekend.

I also sent to you, Henry, if you know a memorandum that you

and not satisfied with their black authority.

And uh, who did it?

Well, the one who went through World War II.

Goddamn it.

What we needed the communists with us.

The goddamn communists were in the OSS, and that's why we were able to put out fake stuff.

Now we need a new communist working on our side.

Apparently that's our problem now, in the goddamn place over there.

The trouble is that the whole CIA is a communist outfit.

What is the trouble with it?

Have you seen any American nation out of that bunch?

No, I haven't.

would you not agree that this is the time, for example, I had three reporters give me a couple of ideas, and I just threw them in there, but then I said, I want you, the individual, Bob, you, Carl, the general, you, Carl, to get this fat ass, and I want him to independently work on this problem, and not just be within all of your arms.

But for example,

In the South, I would indicate that the North is being devastated.

Their people are starving.

Their people are a grand object.

Their riots are occurring.

Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

Do you understand?

In the norm, I would put out that whole regiments have been decimated.

I would put out also, it's all in my memory, I would put out also another version of it.

Which I think is very good.

Regiments are being decimated.

They're running out of food, of this and that.

Huge strikes are going on.

And so forth.

I think the idea that

Right now, we want to run the propaganda heavy on the people.

And we haven't been doing this enough.

Not so much for that.

Now, you were, uh, I guess before you would leave by the truck.

They gave Henry a quick little rundown.

He says, Larry was so cursed.

Yeah, I saw him.

Who was he?

Well, I saw him for 15 minutes on the replay, and he was really good.

Well, he was tough, and he was fun.

He was hard in the critic's shoes.

He was slightly screwed up when he was getting out to the normal kitchen.

But if you're asking,

He said, no, that's what we should do.

But he was, he, the thing that I call his best friend, you've seen him, but he was just animated.

They would bore him with questions and he would cut into his acts.

It's okay.

He'd change his face.

He really is, sometimes, very stiff in his presentation.

He was slow and measured towards the end.

He was just back and forth.

I guess he was just

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I know Mel can be on the second point, but I'm going to ask you on the other thing you told Henry about.

You said Scott Ward ripped the shit out of him.

This guy, Ripman, Scott Ripman had the trust in him since the 1930s.

Scott had never been better.

Very good.

One of the key people who moved it over was Scott.

It's a good thing that Semlinger comes out the same day.

Yeah.

Semlinger will have a press conference tomorrow.

He wants to pick up again this line.

There is more stronger public support for this president than there has been for any government since 1953.

He said that his commission is still in the political arena.

He's running the whole political activity now.

He said it was 54, 55.

He said there's just a rally of people in the company that answers.

Deliberate, weighted responses to people's questions.

A feeling in the country that is in the position to take things to service.

Okay.

Good afternoon, good afternoon.

Let's listen to this.

Richardson, by the way, was also ex-president.

But the cabinet members must have thought about the Georgia Jews.

Even if I put that on the agenda.

But he said that they had no choice but to vote at the time.

It was just what they had in school.

I don't think that Hibson said that.

It wasn't Richardson.

Hibson said that at the embassy party last night.

That was the way it was.

By the way,

I told all the cabinet people that the president has said that the president's words were so carefully selected and so he knew.

Just to say, well, look, I don't know anything about that.

I'll stand with what the president has said.

Always say that, Chuck.

It's all you can do to me.

It's my bag and not a beggar's.

No, don't understand it.

See, this wasn't how he was going to do this because I was going to say an unfortunate statement when it's not as good as it is.

Okay.

Don't, don't, don't be ready for it.

The point is just everybody should know, must be very careful in the Soviet Union.

Just let that ride itself because when they break the summit, I want the blame to be on them and not on us.

We don't want to force the confrontation.

Do you understand?

Yes, sir.

Good.

Thank you.

That was the reason he brought me in.

Maybe trying to suck you down the river.

Slap us down.

they're working with them on all the details of who you know goes in what rooms and all that kind of stuff

I think you ought to see this.

I think I'll record it as soon as I can.

The only thing you want is to

.

I think you should know those as well.

I, Mr. President, I think the president himself is trying to say to me, but I think there are others that are trying to say that he isn't sitting here without any information of what's going on.

He said also that he discussed what he said.

I made a very strange speech in regard to the soldier.

He said that he complained about the captain.

He said if you could keep this, it was invented.

I've heard more of it than you have.

But the whole problem is, for example, let me give you the rules.

We have the Declaration of Principles, which I'm proud to do.

They gave us a rule, too, in the beginning, which is slightly more complicated than ours, which has slightly bothersome aspects that are not really meant to happen.

So he said, can you accept it?

He said, look, let me be honest, the whole Politburo group, if President could say, would leave with it.

If we're going to take that, then I'm not going to overthink it.

And look, the way to handle it is that, why don't we leave it open?

Let President Reagan do that.

That way we don't have trouble with .

Right.

Then there'd be something that .

So, you know, people are talking.

There was no question whatever about this meeting thing.

Or they can turn around and .

They can turn around by noon tomorrow .

On the other hand, if it is, we're not going to work.

On the other hand, Mr. President, in the event that this is now 48 hours, and that you've had another tremendous break, the Truman Treaty has been put off for the week.

Really?

Yes.

What's been going on?

Uh, I don't know.

Why?

Why not?

We screwed it up.

You screwed it up?

Well, I screwed it up only to the extent that I was used to send a message to Barr here, to Barr, and therefore Basso.

just wouldn't buy the proposition that we bought it in.

That's correct.

Yes, sir.

On the plane.

Well, you know, they have to be here at 445.

Go ahead.

Hello?

Yes?

The President would be delighted to see the Trade Minister at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

And the subject will be exactly as we'll have discussed.

10 a.m. at the White House to discuss all the professional matters.

coming through the front, you know, the way you're coming to my office, through the north, through the lobby, yes, through the northwest gate.

And I want to mention the issue of that principle.

Right now.

Okay.

It smells to me now, Mr. Besson, I would put it that the chances were about in 10.

I'd say now it's 46.

Well, you've got to tell me.

Peterson reported it at that time.

Let them bring it up.

Okay.

No.

You never know.

Whatever it is.

Their attitude is one that they can't turn on us talking.

It's an amazing...

And now the things are going pretty well for us because if they do it on that very time, the treaties are closed.

So you don't have to do things like this.

And they think we have it out there, but they go back and they die.

But I think the correct invitation, one phone call from us would impact it.

The absence of that phone call just wasn't up to, I think, some of those on the phone calls.

I don't afford them.

And you see, in order to pass this through these things, some of it must be conserved.

They can't pass through it today, obviously.

And they can't keep the thing in limbo.

How absurd it is.

But anyway, they can't keep it in limbo because they must make it through.

The Chinese have gone out.

I think it's alright.

They couldn't go to town.

They couldn't stay here.

a pair of tacks around what it is that has knocked out the enemy attack, the expected enemy attack on what it was going to be.

Is that the reason?

I'd like to have a short term, sorry.

It's a good short term.

I have, again, 46 big shots.

At any rate, if we have a two to one shot, then they will not go out of view, even if they cancel the service.

I don't know if it was even a setback or not.

As long as nothing's going in, what the hell do we care

We are now tracking them.

I don't give a damn what these white guys are saying.

The oil, we're getting the oil, we're getting the railways.

They just, they have to buy, you know, 50 cubic foot of this out.

Redirect to, of course, we make it up to them to repair their air and evacuate their population.

Now, that and the oil.

How the hell can any of them do all of this?

I don't care if they get out.

They had never had a whole lot on the floor.

When Johnson was back with them, he wasn't minding them, and they were fighting much themselves.

He didn't have a big cap nation.

And for the Higgins, it took a bit of time to get it started.

After nine months of putting all the supplies into place,

What about that promise over there?

So they are in a completely different situation.

And after Tet, we knocked off the bombing in the north.

After Tet, four weeks after Tet started, we moved the bombing down to the 20th.

That's why.

That started on February 14th.

Also, aren't they quite aware of our options in terms of the Chinese?

Yeah, they're very good.

I don't know.

It's like their nightmare.

The trouble is, if they try to break our blockade, they have to do it through China.

So they are the establishments of China's predominance, and I don't know if it's their version of China.

China's development is that if they break the blockade, that means the Russians have to run trains through their territories, airways, so the Chinese aren't suffering any problems.

This is a cold-blooded term.

I mean, every time we made a sudden move into China, all our doctors told us that the Russians, the Chinese, can't have a cancer.

Every time they were wrong.

Every time.

It has magnified their division.

That's what I'm asking.

They must be wearing shoes.

And that's why I don't understand it.

Well, he can't be done without pressure.

No, no, but he's already agreed to that.

Well, that's what I meant.

I don't mind it, except you can't see him yet.

Well, there's no attempt to see him yet.

I think the only thing we should do is not sit at end of time.

Not at all.

Not sit at end of time.

Just get the press in.

Peterson is such a yammer, I can see.

No, I don't see Peterson under control.

He's such a dumb, stupid, if I tell him, he will blow everything he can.

Let me ask you a question.

Our parks and centers have asked that you greet the Liberal Republican senators on Vietnam.

The Liberal Republican senators have asked for a greeting.

That can be made of tomorrow night.

On Vietnam?

Correct.

to hold them on the front car over the draw line.

And they're arguing that they .

But our guys, the supporters, are .

The difficulty with me is this, now I did it before and I don't think it was a good idea.

You know, they had me walk in there before and then Roger and the players just screwed it up.

Not Roger, not Lex, but Roger.

That being the leaders.

Now, this isn't right for me at this time, after making this decision, to go and suck around these sons of bitches and then have half of them go out and say, we're not going to do what the president did.

That's going to ask me questions.

They're going to ask me questions.

I can't do it without doing it.

And I just frankly am not going to put myself in that position.

If they want to go out and kick me in the ass, they can do it.

But I'm not going to do it.

Now, you tell McGregor that you can go straight to hell on this one.

I'm not going to do it.

I don't care who it is.

No, no, now look, Henry, as you know, this gets back to the O'Harlo syndrome.

When I have been asked time and time, will I talk to Margaret Smith, will I talk to this?

The answer is no, I'm not going to do it.

Okay, now do you want Henry to do it or not?

Yes, I shall do it.

Yes.

Henry will do it.

I think I will do good in Friday morning or late tomorrow.

You see what answer we got from there?

Friday morning.

Even if our answer is... Yeah, it's... Let's do it.

Let's just say Friday morning.

Friday morning.

Help me to put this to the door, Henry.

What do you mean?

Help me to sum it to a score with him.

You have the 7 o'clock thing.

You call these guys in and you say, look, shape up, boys.

We know what we're doing.

This is put together.

You'll know tomorrow.

Mr. President, any day, any day away, makes a good week.

It has to be the best that he's allowed to be.

He's related like a man.

I'm proud of that.

Because...

Okay, Henry.

Thank you.

And as Henry said, the main thing to remember is to let them if they cancel.

Just don't worry about it.

Oh, we're ready.

I'm expecting them to cancel because I frankly, I think they could no more let you go to Moscow now than you could go without a thank you to anybody.

But if they do, we have one around in the law first of all.

You will completely have to salvage yourselves.

But if even if they don't cancel this office,

Maintain the decision, or keep it, to negotiate.

which might be the best for you that's happened to some of you in your life when you've been in this situation.

We have a close moment to date, sir.

I think that'd be better than going now.

That'd be better than going now.

They were going to just cancel this thing because they were on a tentative, preemptible basis.

Haig is arguing that we should not cancel it because they wouldn't be canceling it.

Let them have the vote.

He's got a smaller boat.

One that he can have a dinner on or something where we can go out and I'll just take it with him.

Go ahead with the Sequoia with the Peterson crew.

Tell the Navy to get the other chief naval operations or something like that.

And I would set that up for the president's department here in San Francisco.

Right.

And leave the beers and dinner on.

I have become, I have become, this is a, we've got a solid rule this year on this thing in Manhattan.

We told them they could have it last night.

You had a dinner scheduled in the White House last night, so we knew you were safe.

So we let them use the boat, and we know you're out of town.

We know that you're scared.

Then, for some reason, their schedule got screwed up, and they shifted it to tonight.

They shifted their dinner to tonight.

I never told them that was true.

I guess from now on we'll let him use his period.

I just think we'll just stop the cannon and spark it around and have enough of this stuff and just always say the boat's not available.

Don't you think so?

Yes, sir.

I do, because it's the whole value of the boat is for exactly like this.

I can't go to Captain.

You can't get out.

You can't go outside.

There's no place to go.

You've got BP coming up so that you can at least get away from everybody else and get out on the water and back.

So I just tell Alex to knock it off, and also knock off Camp David for any money.

I don't want Camp David to do any money more than me.

Fair enough.

I think that's a good idea, too.

I really think so, because I don't know when the hell I will.

I thought every time I go to Florida, maybe I can, and I might have some jackass cabin officer up there.

We've done enough for the cabin.

And for the rest of this year, let's keep it for you, and for some people who you can see who are going to want to from time to time.

And tell Mitchell, for instance, to take half of those people up there and get some worked out and that kind of thing.

All right.

And we, and also it's the place you can go and you work out these secret things.

Now we had, we got in, we never knew about it, but the time he went up there on the history of COVID trip, we had a problem because L.A. Richardson had to move up there for a seminar.

They left, as it turned out, just in time.

But it was, was just in time.

And that's, that's a tough thing.

And I think, I think for the rest of this year, there's just no goddamn reason for it.

Right.

The only thing that I think we could find, I don't know what I was going to say, was the new ant, the new laurel that I told you we could find.

I don't know if I can find it.

Why the hell should I?

If I go to California, then I open it up for those two weeks.

If I go.

But wait till I'm on the way.

And if I come back early, they cancel it.

I guess we should.

I feel it's part of the use of the president.

I've got these problems, and they have them.

Do you get this feeling that, you know, you should let everybody use it?

That's ridiculous.

That's not what the vote is for.

What are the situations like now?

Let me try to get a situation in the Senate.

I know that they'll all squeal about it.

I mean, it's like, it wasn't right for Clark.

He would have taken me down to his office.

I don't want to meet them otherwise.

I don't want to buddy-buddy with these guys.

I really don't.

And there's another one.

Don't you think the danger of a Friday meeting is that someone will come up and say, the president begged us, and we told him we're going to hell?

Yeah.

And is there a good thing?

Now, with that couple of them, with most of them, I think there are a whole team of others that are close, but some I think, I think some of them we didn't do, just the chance, jumping the chance to walk out after a meeting with the president, I decided not to.

I don't say after a meeting, I'm technically deciding not to, that's my problem.

I'm technically doing it.

Well, I had to do it, Bob, you know, if I thought it meant a difference in the vote and all that.

But I'm not going to call people on the phone.

I mean, goddamn it.

When are our guys ever going to realize that this is an election year?

And what are they ever going to realize?

That we have some strength.

That's the point.

And we may not, it may not splash, but it's all interroged over periods of time.

God damn it, right in the day.

And I repeat, that's why I want Colson to get that goddamn poll.

I was just going to say, this poll is a case in front.

They have, man to man, delivered this to all of the people on the Hill.

I told them about it.

I handed it to them.

Our guy has handed it to that guy.

They were working it on a man.

At the Scott Press time, they gave it out.

They copied some of it out and they ran out of copies and had to zero out some more.

They've tried to question it.

They can't question the ORG.

They don't know.

They will.

They ought to get Senator out.

See, they questioned some of those, right into some of those boards and other things.

Senator?

not questionable in that sense.

The one that is, is the, those, uh, are she coiled?

Oh, the way it was termed, and the trust knows it, those are, those are, they know O-R-C all the time.

O-R-C is never fixed as coiled.

That's right, because these are all clearly, uh, set as, as, uh, uh, the Russians can't put them in there anymore.

When did we get this report?

What do you mean without?

They didn't call because the minister wasn't well or something.

And we just got a note that the

He wanted to eat one at the dinner because he was tired.

He wanted it canceled.

Okay.

You don't think he's going to be gone until tomorrow or not?

It was sort of a mutual agreement that everybody was tired.

They've been going to a lot of dinners.

Our guy said, if you don't want to come tonight, that's fine.

He said, I would appreciate it.

Okay.

So this is sort of an informal thing.

Okay, now does he know the thing about tomorrow?

Sinister dog.

Okay, so there's no shakiness there.

You're not concerned about this?

You don't see any implications of it?

And he said, this was an informal dinner, and they were talking about setting a time for it.

And the guy was saying, kind of sighing or something, and Peterson said, or one of our guys said, you need to retire, and he preferred, we'd like to have a dinner with one of you good others, and he preferred just to take it easy this evening.

And the minister said, if I could, I'd appreciate it.

So that's how it went.

When did you have your talk with Conley?

No, because Henry was coming over and I thought he was going to get the Russian reply, and I just figured that if he hadn't, Henry thought he was going to get the Russian reply.

Did he agree?

Yeah.

Mr. O'Brien had said he had a message for him at 315.

Then all he got was a protest on the ship.

So I had held off.

If he was going to get that, I was going to wait.

I don't think I think I'm going to make that much difference.

I agree.

I think that's right.

I think that's the right position to be in.

I do think Henry's going to do some of this, which is in a way more important.

We should try these.

Oh, but we're gonna, we're gonna get it off the side.

They've done nothing.

If our guys were getting colorful, when our guys start fighting, they get intrigued with fighting, you know?

Goddamn it.

It just, it takes so long to get them up.

They think that they would, we'd have somebody around that would just do it without having to be goaded from here.

That's what I don't understand is wrong.

That's what's wrong that I don't understand.

I don't understand why, why would the White House quite believe in our thinking about this stuff?

We're not done there.

It's sort of like we, you know what, too much harm all over again.

Yeah.

We've fed them, we've bred them, we've drunk them, we've done everything we can in Nevada to be a well under the wild.

And it's crap that every time they do something like this, we'll just call, thank them, riot, thank them.

We just go too far with this sort of stuff.

Yeah.

So we've got it.

We've got it.

Well, this shows the difference with these guys.

The important thing for you, and for them, is that 75% of the people think you're doing the right thing.

Why do they think so?

Because you went on television and told them so.

First of all, you did your art.

You let that working ass talk to you.

First of all, you did your art.

You worked your ass off to decide what to do.

And the people know you did.

They decided it.

And they went out and told the people what you decided and why you decided it.

Then people say, good.

Why do you have to suck around Percy and Dwight here?

I won't go with Percy.

What they ought to do is look at their constituents.

Yep.

So I'm going to change the rules.

Just let me go through this.

We just got a shirt on the bottom.

We never know if we're going to have another crisis or not.

I have to get my ass up there.

Right?

So we have to use it.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

That's what that's there for.

That's a family retreat.

It's not a government conference center.

If you could use it for that one month, you'd have the facility over there to do that now.

It should be when you want to do it.

There's plenty of other places, too.

If they put an early house, they could.

All these other facilities they've got, they've all got them.

They do.

Greenberg?

They do.

Well, they got the hotels open up for them.

They can set them up in a conference.

They've got a recession.

I think that is outside the people.

But Aerial House, they used to be better.

Also, Camp David's value is a one-time value to Southern people.

Once you're able to say, I've been to Camp David, after that, it isn't all that good an honor as a facility anyway.

It will be with a new leader.

Yeah, it will.

It's too good a place for you.

And there isn't any place else.

There is.

Every one of those people can go.

If he wants to get away, get out of Williamsburg.

Because out of Williamsburg, they do some other things.

They can go out, for example, to another center.

They can go out.

out of the Sans Souci.

They can go to a country club, every one of them.

Or the Kennedy Center, the theater.

Correct.

They can go out.

I can't do those things all the time.

They get invited all the time to the movie association at the street.

You know, they have a very nice evening, so they have dinner and a good movie.

They go to that.

They're all there.

I have never been to a free event in this town, and I don't go to very many.

But everyone I have ever been to, Arthur Burns is there.

He never misses a goddamn time.

He goes to every NBC party, every, you know, every free shop there is.

He probably never buys a dinner.

And he loves work.

Get up to the counter.

The advisor wants you to apply for free for the last three weeks.

If it doesn't come through...

— 1 min 3 s with no transcribed speech —

See, that's the, that's the, that's the, Henry does like it.

And it's, that's what, it's, your content is what enables you to keep going.

It's exhilarating for him.

It's stimulating for him.

It revives and renews him.

It's more than sweet.

He likes it on me.

He likes people who, uh, you know, want to be a mentor and this and that.

You see, I have a lot.

Well, he works so intensely.

All his work is, the only way he can bring is that way.

work hard.

The only thing wrong with that process is we won't get to read the New York Times.

Thank you.

No, no, no.

I don't get it.

I didn't read the front page of the Times.

That was discouraging.

But I think I've got to see that one.

You've got to see something.

No, I've just got to get the feeling about how discouraged people are.

Well, when you do that, you're getting the most discouraged feeling you can get.

Really?

You really are.

Yes.

It is.

It really is.

Well, anyway, I do it quickly.

I do it by hand.

That's my lesson.

I put my shirt on.

We're pushing our pull out of New York.

$700 is as good as a dollar.

They do good to these people.

We better do something nicer than give taxes to them.

Write it in.

We're saving them financially.

They need the money.

Are there some other, some of our new friends in the volume who are giving us a certain amount that our friends are doing and the notoriety they're getting out of us?

Can you fill them up?

And that's good.

You know what?

The beauty of ORC is that it is an honest, holding organization.

That's why Gallup does his public phones.

He doesn't lose his money on those public phones.

But it builds him up so that he can sell his services to these commercial services.

And that's ORC.

Paris, too.

You're damn right.

They syndicate him.

They don't get enough out of that.

He can pay the cost of running the phone.

We're doing money for them.

They're doing money for us in the process.

It's a good mutual relationship.

They busted their asses with these last night.

They busted through them early.

We got a hand tap on it so we could put them out today.

Caught them just in 10 minutes.

If it had been noon, we would have probably not got them out.

That's what I'm talking about.

I really meant it with what Chuck's been able to do there.

heard what little credit I will take for it that I put on that thing sometimes again.

Somebody's got to get on with it.

And I know a senator, and I met you, and I saw that somebody got to talk to this guy since he's holding him up.

And I said, no, because he isn't about that.

He's a businessman.

He's not considered relevant, which is true.

He's not.

He is by the press.

He's not by the...

So what?

They're what get read and gotten.

We used to be the victims of the Harris Poll every month.

We'd sit here shaking, waiting to see how Harris was going to screw us.

Now we're just the other way.

And that's a whole other spot to be in.

Well, that's the little things that he's doing.

The timing of what he puts out, or what he decides to release and not release, or when and what week he decides to poll.

How we word your question.

We've been galloping around on that.

As a result of scourging.

I've got to show you, though, how much you can roll down.

You can roll this way.

I don't know.

Yeah.

We know that.

We know there's been fishy stuff on the other side.

Now there's more fishy stuff on that side.

It's not a scout yet.

It isn't in terms of just saying black and white.

It's only in heaven.

I mean, because by God, we don't put our names in false.

Never.

We've never done that.

We haven't.

We have never put those in question sometimes.

But like in this hotel, the question with running as the lead is, is the lead just unloaded and so on?

Really never.

What we put in the headline is 74% back mining in Haiphong, Harvard, U.S. back President's strong stand.

This is three out of every four Americans who support President Nixon's decision to mine in Harvard, Haiphong, and every other port on the coast of Vietnam.

Only 21% are opposed to the President's dramatic decision to mine there.

Almost an identical number, 75% of the American people support the president's proposal to withdraw our report.

These are the results of an action being surveyed.

Results are based on 700 feet cut line, at least 70 nationwide.

Representing San Francisco State, New Jersey.

Are there questions?

As asked, the results.

Make sure the supplies do not reach North Korea.

The President states the following actions.

Mind all notifications.

Harvest.

That's important.

If there are any supplies reaching North Korea, not O.C.

Cut out all rail and other communications.

That would be not as spent possible.

If there are charges against military cars, that would be not to be.

Support the President's actions.

Yes.

Support the President's actions.

Support.

No.

Support.

1-1-0-5-5.

See you later.

For all time, Scotty Russell's always been excited about the peace offer.

Discovered it today.

Discovered it?

Yeah.

Like it was a good one?

Yeah.

I told him, that gets him happy.

See, I put that in.

What, Scotty Russell spoke?

I brought, I brought a couple goddamn things.

Barry, in the president's speech, was a very appealing peace offer.

Barry was very important.

I wrote the goddamn thing.

And I got Henry, and I said, Henry, we've got to put in the peace offer.

And I said, you know, I was going to make it three months.

It's the only shit difference.

He said, all right, four months.

We wrote it in.

We decided to write in his room, Bob.

The overriding tunes, of course, was the mic.

It's the military action.

But now, on the second pass, they're all discovering this huge object.

And it goes all the way back.

We made it a mandatory person last year.

But nobody realizes that.

It's just astonishing.

Well, the thing, we've got a, we've got a strategy decision to make, as to, within the Congress, if we want to, and if we want to back it, back your peace offer, we can get it passed, I think, and approved by both houses.

The problem will be to knock out a bunch of federal officers.

They're just dying to pass a resolution.

And they will go, well, it'd be better to do that than to have

Does it have something else on it?

Yes, I do.

Henry doesn't think we should.

Well, what's the way to do it?

It's worse.

It's worse to do other things.

It's worse to get the passenger ready.

I think we ought to pass a subject on that far.

And then play it.

Does the House and Senate support the President's peace offer?

Which is what it would be.

See if it's an elected offer.

All of you above this.

And an immediate ceasefire throughout another channel.

And withdrawal of four months.

You've got to put the hell more than you do.

Well, you can't do that.

That's why they'll pass it because they're just going, well, you can do it without the ceasefire.

Well, that's what that's allowed for.

No one needs to go on that.

That's right.

Suppose you don't have an immediate ceasefire.

That's inhumane.

That's a lack of legislation.

Inhumane response.

with the word triad.

But for him to say that we buried the speech, he didn't say he buried it.

He started, he was trying to show how smart he was that he had found the speech and brought it out on the press.

Let it out.

What they'll want to do then is try to fund cut-off buildings.

All funds for U.S. military operations in China will be cut-off, affected, four months from now.

It's not the end of the tunnel.

Well, it's not yet, but it does.

That could get to cutting off, screwing you up on the front, pretty soon anyway, even though it's for maintaining air and naval forces.

Although we're having to cease fire.

You need the funds to maintain the horses there to use if you need them.

Where you would say...

I assume you don't intend to pull all your horses out of Indochina?

Well, not of Indochina.

Thailand's not in Indochina.

Cambodia is in China.

Cambodia allows Vietnam into China.

We ought to look at that because that's a strategic question, what we want to do.

Well, if we went now, their orders now are not to buy them because of the money cut off from them.

And because Henry's antsy about the thing.

See, they may want to also then start, and if we buy it too soon, we're right to dare to be open.

If we buy it too soon, then they're going to start putting in.

conditions about political settlement to step me down and all that kind of stuff.

See, if your offer doesn't cover that, you specifically said that we leave the settlement in Vietnam.

That's right.

We don't try to impose it.

We will not impose a settlement.

We're down that route to the United States.

We will not impose a settlement in Vietnam.

We will impose a peace, but not a settlement, a political settlement.

See?

People in the United States will impose a peace.

We, however, will not impose a political

What's the deal with that?

We can... that'll swing.

There's a bunch of... if we're ready for that, then we can work that with them.

Just wait, don't bother Henry with it.

I know, but I mean, we can work these left wings and see what the damn Russians do.

You didn't think that the cancellation of the Declaration of Independence might be something to do with our actions?

And they know the other team, they have been running these poor bastards for a long time.

And this was, see, Peterson's already given one day.

He gave an intercom Monday night.

Sam's given an intercom last night.

That's what he's doing.

They're going to the boat last night.

Now, Peterson wasn't going to have this informal set on the boat tonight.

And did he?

You know, I don't even feel it.

Also, the guy in the auto park was a random person.

But you see the same damn people over and over.

Nixon, Colson & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Public Opinion Polling

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Also recorded on May 10, 1972

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Nixon, Colson & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Public Opinion Polling

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on May 10, 1972

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