Nixon phone call with Haldeman on White House administration

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yeah hello hi bob yes sir i just learned i i didn't i'm not sure because pat hadn't told me and uh but that uh i think that abc documentary on her is tonight isn't it right seven o'clock tonight yeah i just called uh julie and found that she's on board a ship till 8 30 so i told him to try to get a message to her to watch it but uh because apparently we can have it uh you know have a tape for her to see when she gets up here if she misses it good good good we'll do that

By the way, did you happen to have a chance to talk to Don about coffee?

No, I haven't.

I'm extremely intrigued.

I'll tell you one thing that does intrigue me about it.

It's just the idea of having somebody around in this next year that I'm totally comfortable with.

Right.

Now, frankly, it could be coffee or Brennan for that matter.

What I meant is it can't be Brennan because of his rank.

But the reason is that it takes me a hell of a long time to get acquainted with anybody, to get used to them, see?

Like it'll take time for Camel to fit in.

He's doing fine, and he's just fine, but I couldn't put him in it now.

Now, it just occurred to me that if I put a totally new man in at this time, gee, I just don't want to go through it.

I think that's right.

Now, that was the major reason, frankly, for my...

If I had my brothers, as I told you, not to shift Don, recognizing that in a campaign that he isn't perhaps the most, shall we say, unflappable fella, nevertheless, at least I know him.

Now, Coffey, if Coffey apparently has organizational building and command and the rest.

He does, more than Brennan.

Oh, I'm sure he has.

Much better manager than Brennan.

But the point about Coffey is that Coffey, when he is around,

is he's somewhat like Steve Bull.

He's extremely easy on me, you know what I mean?

He raises things, and he's quiet, and he smiles, and he doesn't smile, he doesn't talk, you know what I mean?

He just knows how to sort of melt into the woodwork.

And I think you, of course, could, in order to make it a little more, Don, of course, is sort of with his loyalty to the Air Force, that Air Force man and so forth, but that's

That's all right.

But you could sort of say, look, the real need here is for the president to have a man that he's used to and so forth.

And then you can also say, and Don, let's not overlook the fact that it could be very, very effective from a political standpoint.

Don't you think both arguments will appeal to him?

Yeah.

I think that's right.

Maybe the other thing, if you would feel better the other way, is to

consider the point of Don staying through the thing.

Well, I could, except, Bob, I don't really feel he's the best man.

Okay.

Well, for the reason you mentioned, that Don, if he does stay, he's going to have to be, I mean, we're going to have to have a hell of a lot of travel and contact and that sort of thing.

And Don is simply a little too uptight

for this sort of thing.

Would you agree or not?

Yeah, I think he is.

I think it's been tough for him because he...

He just so desperately wants to do the best, and he's so concerned about being where things are.

And also, I just think it isn't best.

I think the best thing, if we can, is to sell the coffee idea.

Of course, the argument for coffee would be taking a step up by staying, where Don is just staying in place by staying.

That's right.

And so you're not hurting coffee in the way that you would be hurting Don.

That's correct.

By keeping him on.

That's right.

And... Well, it's something to have a little talk about.

Yeah.

Now, incidentally, Nell Yates was just fine on doing this one.

She isn't as fast as Rose, naturally, because she's not used to my, she doesn't know my handwriting, she doesn't know the, all that sort of thing.

But she did a hell of a good job.

Did she?

Yeah.

She's a capable girl.

She is very capable.

Very capable and quiet and all that sort of thing.

And I really was, I really appreciated it.

She did a damn good job.

But I know, too, that without Rose, Marge can do it.

That's right.

Marge is just, she can do it without any, she knows, she knows all, she can do it, I think,

Probably almost as well as Rose.

Yeah.

And even on the speeches.

But, hell, I'm not going to have many speeches.

Do you realize that?

That's right.

I'm not going to have many.

But Rose really ought to just sit there in that office and get on the telephone, call people, be a lady, you know, and that sort of thing.

That's a terrible thing.

Be basically an executive secretary rather than, you know, mulling around about...

all of these intricate, you know, details and so forth.

The other thing that piles up on her is that damn signing business.

This is another excuse to get her to broaden that a little bit, too.

What does Marge sign?

I don't know whether she loves her or not.

She won't talk much about that, but we've just got to get someone else signing.

Well, certainly others have done it for other presidents.

They've had more than one signer.

I do not want that to go beyond somebody like...

It's got to be right in the office where it's controlled.

The problem is you can't let it happen with people that...

I think Marge could be... That signing is a hell of a burden, I must say.

She signs pictures, she signs autographs, she signs letters, and it is a hell of a burden.

And it's dull and boring and all that.

And she'll see that maybe we throw a margin to that.

I think you're right.

Of course we can, particularly on the damn picture thing, maybe we just cut that down.

Certainly I think on the pictures I'm going to get away from these written inscriptions.

I'm just going to use those

Some of the congressmen bitch about them, but don't you think just that script with the signatures is perfectly adequate?

Sure, for any but the really personal ones it is.

Well, if you start saying any personal and you have every finance chairman as a person, you know what I mean?

You start, well...

I don't know.

I guess for some, though, you've got to do cabinet people.

You've got to do... Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But Rose does those for me now, you know.

Well, she should.

Yeah.

She does them all and does them...

But she can still do that.

She can... We'll just keep a lot of the...

I think...

Connolly, no, Connolly and Graham both put in a word on a subject which we discussed that I hope may come, and I don't know whether you can pat around, but Billy Graham, you know, he was marveling.

I said the receiving line took an awful lot of time today.

They had all the ethnics came in.

God, they had about 50 ethnics, you know, from the ethnic community.

Of that heritage group, yeah.

Yeah.

So they all came through.

In addition, they got old Graham, half of Chattanooga, and all the rest.

And so it was about 380.

And so we did the point that you shouldn't do it.

And Graham said he just, and then people wanted pictures and autographs.

And I, you know, was patient and signed everything.

He says,

As we went upstairs, he says, I just don't see how you do this.

He says, I don't.

He says, I get out afterwards.

He says, I just don't take it.

You know, he does.

He doesn't believe in it.

He's very smart.

He has a very good recognition of playing for the big things.

And when he got upstairs, he says, I just feel that it's enough to invite these people to church, to the White House.

And he said, you invite them, and he said, you don't.

And Connolly says, he says, I agree completely, Connolly said.

He said, of course everybody likes it.

But Pat says, well, the little children like it so much.

Of course they like it.

But my God, there are how many?

15 million little children in the country.

Yeah.

And even the little children in the administration, they don't really have to come through, do they?

No.

And I just feel it.

So it's not quite as good.

But I think we just go in there.

You know, I always make a few little remarks at the beginning, and they see the president come in, and then they can go out afterwards and mingle around with,

cabinet people and the rest if they want and have a cookie.

Well, that's pretty damn good, isn't it?

And the other thing we did today, which I think we opened the second floor for them because there were so many.

Good Lord, for everybody?

Yep, for the Graham.

So the whole bunch trooped upstairs, so it worked out fine.

But everybody loved that.

They always loved that.

But that might be a nice sort of way to transition, just sort of say, well, we're

open second floor and then we but we both Pat and I really well particularly I I really should not go through a long hand-shaking thing with uh with people now now there's one problem here you know we invite people from all over here good god they had this you know these ethnics they had Dr. Bell who'd come in they had Graham's

All of the top people in the Graham Crusade were there.

That, of course, we did on purpose.

I know we did.

Oh, I know, I know.

But the point is, what do you think of not shaking their hands?

But Graham himself said no, he wouldn't do it.

I think he's right.

They wouldn't feel that it means a lot to do it, but it wouldn't mean a great loss if they didn't do it, would it?

I think that's it.

It's a...

It's another layer of frosting when you do it, but it's not in any way essential.

Mm-hmm.

It's really a balancing of priorities.

How much do you give away?

Right.

Well, we don't have to face that until next time around, but we might just try it.

Well, another possibility on it that I'm sure she wouldn't like the idea is that she wants to do it is let Pat receive them afterwards and you go back to work.

Well, she's willing, I know.

Well, she feels so strongly about doing it.

Yeah.

Well, it's not that great a chore for me.

I don't mind once a month, but I...

church thing can be.

It occurred to me one other thing.

In order that I could have, say, the Sunday off, what would you say to trying on the church thing of having the Vesper hour?

Think we could do that?

Yeah.

Five o'clock, say.

And it might

See my point?

You don't interfere with the morning church.

Yeah, that's it.

You don't interfere with other people.

People don't have to come spend the night.

They can come in and leave and just say, you're invited to a worship service at 5 o'clock.

And then they come in and they... White House Vespers, really.

Yeah.

A Vesper service.

Well, basically it's a worship service and at either time it doesn't have to be church.

It occurred to me that that

That way, you see, we would not be thinking that in terms of a Camp David deal.

It means you could go to Camp David and sit around for the day.

You don't come down around 3 or 4 o'clock and people come in.

I think that's a good idea.

What do you think?

I don't see why that's a problem at all.

And people could get out and play their golf or look at their football game or whatever the hell they wanted and come to church service at 5 o'clock?

Well,

Anyway, these are things worth thinking about.

Darn right.

Okay.

Colson, incidentally, was just reporting that they're having a hell of a flap about bussing in Boston.

In Boston?

Yeah.

Only 2% of the people are Negroes there, but they're bussing them.

And the Negroes are picketing, and the whites are picketing, and all hell is burning.

That's why they start doing this in the North.

They aren't going to get very far.

And I...

reminded him, I said, now look, you know, that as far as busing in the North is concerned, that is not because of the Supreme, well, it is a little because the way some people interpret it, but it isn't because of what the administration, this is not HEW, you know.

We don't put up these busing plans.

We only work on de facto's, I mean, de jure's in the South.

And I think it's a

think that the whole busing thing is uh that's the thing where people are just not pushing this

Well, I'm convinced that we were correct in taking our initiative on Thursday and then having Connolly hit it again Saturday.

Connolly got a good ride.

He did, didn't he?

He did, yeah.

And don't you feel that way?

Your point is it just frustrates the hell out of these people to put the monkey on their back.

Yeah.

Yep.

Okay, we'll take the rest of the day off.

Thanks, Mike.

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on White House administration

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on September 12, 1971

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