Nixon phone call with Connally on AFL-CIO and George Meany

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Hello?

Secretary Conway, Mr. President.

Hello, John?

Yes, sir, Mr. President.

Getting all ready for your press conference?

Yes, sir.

Right, right.

Studying my lesson.

Ha, well, I think you'll go fine.

Go fine.

We, uh... Are you watching this show?

Oh, is there a show on?

No.

Well, there is on.

It's just winding up.

I guess if you're Camp David, I guess you can't get it.

Oh, no.

On Channel 7 here, I've been interviewed by Peter Lissagor and Rogan Evans.

Oh, I missed it.

Oh, did you go ahead and look and call me back?

No, no, no.

It's over.

Oh, I see.

I see.

No, no.

I didn't get to see it.

Oh.

I'm studying.

I've got the briefing book, Chuck Colton.

Right.

I've got the briefing book of my own.

Right.

I've been at it most of the day.

Thank you.

I think this is a good time, John, for the conference.

I think it's going to be just as timely.

I think of the whole meaning thing.

If I were a Democratic candidate, I wouldn't want to be going down there next week myself.

No, much more than that.

I went out last night to a party.

There were all kinds of people there.

There were a lot of Democrats, a lot of Republicans.

A lot of, I don't even know what they were, but they were 100, 150 people, all 80.

And I did not hear one single person that didn't believe that you were helped by your parents down there.

And you were helped by me and your dad as well.

Not a single one.

Now this comes from people like Bob Strauss, who is a

I think the problem, I suppose that we have one problem to know how far we go without modernizing.

What do we do, for example, about his pay raise?

My inclination is probably not to do anything about that, but yet to be very, very tough with regard to the pay board.

But I don't know.

What's your feeling about that?

I think that's right.

As far as I know, I'm the first one to mention doing something about his pay, but I don't think we ought to under the rules of the pay board because up to now they've talked about Cratchit in terms of employment units.

Right.

And he's not an employment unit.

I think some of us ought to castigate him for taking the favor.

It's an obvious violation of the spirit of the...

Isn't a good example.

That's right.

He's setting a terrible example of being plagiarized about it.

In fact, some of these...

In fact, his attitude of, I think, is a general feeling that I get, and as you know, hundreds of others, a great number of wires, and just unanimous.

The feeling that he has really put himself above the country, above the president.

Nobody can just say, ah, you know, the president can know what he can do.

Now, people resented that very deeply.

And I think we have got to, from that, we can say we want their cooperation and all the rest, but

On the other hand, let's have one thing understood very clearly, that nobody is going to be able to put himself above the interests of the country.

And the president speaks for all the people, and he speaks for just one segment of people, and only 18 million out of 80 million American wage earners.

So I think that's, and maybe not all of them.

A hell of a lot of union members don't agree with him.

I thought I'd take him home pretty good tomorrow.

without making a martyr out of anybody.

That's right.

Not just the idea that here we've got to think of the interest of the country and we just cannot have this, have one man, any one man, cannot put himself above the interest of the country.

This battle involves the good of all of us.

We've all got to join in.

Everybody's got to make a sacrifice.

He's a

He's overplayed it, John.

Oh, no question.

And we just can't let him get it.

As a matter of fact, I think we ought to keep the issue alive.

Because I think, naturally, they know they've overplayed it.

I think some of those candidates wish we'd just quit talking about it.

I think we ought to keep reminding them of the truth.

As you were saying, he's obviously going to be against it.

He's a part of it.

And,

My point is that you've got to have an enemy.

Maybe he's the one.

That's right.

Huh?

Well, he's obviously trying to make an enemy out of you.

Absolutely.

And I don't know if he's a good one as far as I'm concerned.

Because I think we've caught him and I think he'll make some other mistakes.

I'm going to...

I think tomorrow, remind everybody what he said about people.

I want to say, he said, Dr. Webber, very interesting.

I was about to say, the person in Chicago called him a hatchet.

Right.

Give it a little time.

You know, try to help make the system work.

He called the secretary of labor a little e-gun fire and a janitor.

Yeah.

He called, uh,

I'm a distinguished federal judge being an agent, and growing in Memphis.

Frankly, I'm reminded of a poet active, very wise, who stated that power tends to corrupt, an absolute power corrupts an absolute.

And I think that's pretty well described.

It's kind of underplayed, but you really try to cut it.

I'm sure I'll get a lot more questions.

And he just go on the line that you just took.

I thought I'd get better when we go strong.

We want their cooperation.

And also you could point out that we have really been over backward to get it.

The pay board was set up on the kind of a basis that he asked for.

And we set it up now.

And he just can't go in there and dictate.

He's got to work within the system, not outside of it.

and a lot of honorable people working for them.

Well, as far as I know, I'm going to be on NBC and CBS live television.

But, and also that's an English movie.

I've got a good chunk of it on the news.

So I like how you're doing.

This clip is pretty good.

Which I can do with great credit.

Well, I'll be watching it.

Okay, John.

All right, so anything else?

No, no, no.

You'll just...

I think it's... Oh, the only other thing I would...

international, then I would simply say, no, we're working on that.

We're having discussions that are going on, and we think it's going to be settled at the Minnesota Railway.

And also, I think you've got to be fairly...

I suppose the one question that you're going to have to really face is what you say about the tax bill.

Well, I'm going to set the sale on the tax bill that I think they've, that on this campaign thing, that I think they've made a serious mistake.

That if they adopt this provision, Article 10, which provides that everybody can check off and have one dollar of their taxes,

go into a coup to be divided up on the basis of individual candidates between parties.

It's a very serious mistake.

This is going to reform and transform American politics, American political life.

It's unbelievable that Congress would undertake such a major, far-reaching step without very intense

Right.

That's the great danger.

We're going to... Easy.

A communist can almost get 5% of the vote.

Sure.

And if they get 5% of the vote, get under that formula, George Waters is going to get $6 million.

Why wouldn't he run?

I guess, Ben, look what he's doing.

Of course he'll run.

And so will all the rest of them.

So I thought I'd hit that hard, and most of these other things they've put on the tax bill, I don't think there's any great interest for people to turn out.

You know, I don't know what we can do about it.

We're going to have to take a good, hard look at it.

We'll talk about it.

If we really come down to a tough one, I mean, I'm, well, I know, my general view of it is that we're going to have to take a good, hard look at it.

We just might not.

Who knows?

It may be that if it's so loaded down in such a Christmas tree and so irresponsible and so forth, that you can better off just to say, no, sir.

Start over in January.

That would be out of the thing.

That's really not a good idea.

Yes, sir.

It may be necessary, sir.

I would say right now.

That's what we're going to wait and see.

Absolutely.

It still has a legislative process to approve.

This is a miserable tradition.

Oh, it really is.

The rest of the stuff, I don't know.

The rest of the stuff, it's more than it ought to be, but we could take it.

But my point is that this thing, though, is a profound change in the American political system.

And I just don't think we are...

It's just like writing the Constitution.

And I just don't think we ought to do that so lightly.

If you have a thing like that, maybe you have to put the whole damn thing down, as you did.

Well, I don't have a particular opinion about it at the moment.

You can take a line that you've discussed with me.

Take a very hard look at the line.

Hang out with the possibilities.

Well, I'll be delighted to.

All right, sure.

About its irresponsibility and

It isn't a question of which party benefits, and it isn't a question of the effect on the 72 elections.

But the point is that it's a deliberation party, and I don't know that that's wrong.

And also, I just don't think that political campaigns ought to be...

It will lead to a far less responsible situation.

And, of course, everything will ride in the, I suppose, nominating process.

Right.

What a mess it will be.

Oh, it really will be.

What a mess.

Well, anyway, it's not a dull time to live, is it?

No.

I'll say one thing.

We do have enough problems to concern ourselves with.

Oh, hell of a lot is happening.

I can't stand another one.

It's gone fast, hasn't it?

Yeah.

Well, anyway, I'm glad you got to the football game.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, you're welcome.

Nixon phone call with Connally on AFL-CIO and George Meany

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 21, 1971

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