Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Dan Rather and Media relations

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Hello.

What are your messages?

Well, we've got a pretty good range of some of our regulars, you know, that we get a reading on.

It's interesting, Knopfiger was very pleased on the basis of the... Well, no, we thought too, but that you'd gotten a dig in in such a good way that it wasn't malicious at all, but you made your point.

And then he said, you made some excellent conservative points, especially the Aggie thing.

Brady Black made the point that the answers, that the whole thing required a lot of confidence.

And Oettinger made the confidence point, too.

And that's the one that needs to come up in this one.

Black said that it was a very good thing on the POWs and especially good on China, the Chinese-China thing.

Keith Wilson at the Omaha World Herald said it was very wise to clear up the Agnew's questions and the explanation of the bombing thing was very clear and satisfactory.

And that you were very good on the question of charisma and performance.

And... Did any of them get across the point that Rather was very antagonistic?

Yeah, that's what I was just getting to.

That really came true with the...

I mean, I've talked about half of this already.

I don't appreciate it too much.

They thought it was horrible.

Now we've got a couple of these others.

Les Aaron said it was a great show.

The president was totally frank and told everything he could tell.

Shows clearly that he's president first, party leader second.

Gordon Allen said it was exceedingly well done, especially in the face of the competition from Rather and his attempt to play down every positive aspect.

He said it was great on everything except the farm issue.

And he said the political reaction is going to be that you said Agnew will be on the ticket.

Oh, sure.

Sure.

Griffin, Bobby Griffin, said overall it was outstanding.

He said it's one of the toughest ordeals the president's ever had with a newsman.

He said Rather was obviously well-prepared, but very nasty.

Martin Hayden said the president did very well, but Rather got awfully mean at times.

And he was very pleased with the statement on amnesty and POWs.

And Reg Murphy said that was the most offhand announcement of the selection of a vice president I've ever heard.

So it was a very good presentation that you should do more of it.

And from several of the business people...

One of them should have done more on the economy.

There was too much on Vietnam.

Well, I wasn't sure.

Well, what the hell is my fault?

He's got that business.

I don't know.

Oh, they know.

But, you know, they're just analyzing what was on the shelf.

Surprisingly, Frank, on the vice president, on the POWs, on Taiwan, and on the summit, you weren't political at all, which was good, and didn't even mention the fact that you don't have a majority in Congress.

Another one says it was highly informative.

You should do more of them.

Most relaxed he's ever seen you.

The best ever on television.

Excellent on the summit timing.

Excellent explanation on the summit timing.

Uh... That's a favorite.

Then, uh... One of them said, I was very impressed with the president and my view of Dan Rather was confirmed.

Ha ha ha!

Then a very interesting one is Lou Harris, who says the president was superb.

He personally sensed that Rather took two poll questions out of context, and they were old poll results.

And he said he thought the president was treated in very bad taste.

He was shocked that there were no ground rules, and thought it was the most hostile that he had ever seen a president go through.

I hope he says that.

Get that out.

Yeah, well, I'm going to get him to get it out.

Good.

But the President seems to do his best when he's challenged.

He does very well.

But, uh, yeah, George Tyson.

Now put that as a... Move back on the Harris one.

And we'll get some more... Top priority.

But don't let, don't leave it to Harris, Bob.

Got a few of our people to say that Harris said that.

Right.

But that's, uh... You think it's worth doing?

Sure.

I absolutely do.

All the work we do.

Yep.

Well, it is.

I think it is.

It certainly doesn't hurt us.

We've answered 31 questions, which is not really too many.

31 in an hour is not as many as we should have had, but we asked such questions that required long answers.

Well, some of them you had to, and some of them had to.

And also, I wanted to make my points, and I kept getting in about our economy, and everything was moving pretty well.

Yeah, and saying, in effect, oh, I probably will be a candidate, but hold it until I look at the situation then.

Yeah.

on the political motivation and things.

That's the thing that they try to get into.

I think, in a way, it was good for you to have the chance to hit it there.

We hit it with a guy who was really hitting it all the time.

Yeah.

Everything was political.

But I got up, finding out what the hell probably what the Chinese and the Russians would be interested in meeting.

Them saying it was not an amendment that, uh,

Well, even if they were, that I would make no decision that would be, you know, in the bad interest of the country for the purpose of the election.

Yeah.

That come true?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, he made it, you know, he made the point that no president would, you know, he would never, but, I don't know, he's a...

But we ought to really do a job on raster on this.

I really think that you can get ahold of Colson and tell him to really get a raft of, uh, letters, well, wires, and other really racing hell about it.

So he comes tagging us each other.

This is a good idea.

He already, I've talked to Jay Howard in his office a few times about it.

I've already told him to get started on it.

Good.

We're going to get started on that.

The real question we have to ask, you know, consider is whether we ought to do more of this sort of thing, you know.

It's probably a good idea.

Yep.

Uh, uh, ladies, give Bill Rogers a call and ask him what he thought.

Call me back, will ya?

Sure.

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Dan Rather and Media relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 3, 1972

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