Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Second term reorganization

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Hello.

Yes, sir.

Bob, as I understand, you're not going to Camp David until late tonight.

That's my plan, yeah.

Fine.

All right.

I just want to know.

I'm going up with Trish and Julie today.

Oh, good.

At noon.

But I'll do some work up there.

And get ready for tomorrow.

Now, the other thing is that I just wanted to be sure that we have the schedule.

And I've been inclined to think I will not go to Florida on this weekend and try to wrap this thing up Friday.

I think we've just got to get it done.

Well, if you can't, there won't be anything you can do.

Well, find out who can be here Friday and Saturday.

Would you do that?

Yeah.

I mean, because some of the minotaurs are coming back around that period of time.

And then that way I can get a chance to just finish it all up.

The ones that are coming back we've got in now, I think, all on Wednesday.

And it'll leave only— Let me see here.

We've got Kennedy, Hodgson, and Romney on Wednesday.

Hodgson, Romney, fine.

And it'll leave Volpe, who won't—

be back until Monday, I think it is.

Well, the way we do it, we—there's no way we can get that Ambassador thing worked out, so we could do it.

I mean, just— No, Volpe, you could do— Wednesday or Friday?

You could probably do Friday.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I've got to confirm he would be the only one you'll have.

You'd then have, uh, findings that you can't do until Monday.

Right.

And that doesn't matter too much anyway.

Well, we know what we're going to do there except that I want to— Get the FBI into motion.

Well, I want to get the FBI and I want to get Wright, who I'm going to put in as the man to succeed, I want to get that done, you see.

I've been trying to explain to Ehrlichman and others that

what I want to do on these when I make the announcement, rather than just like on Rogers, which I've already told you about.

When I announce his retention, I'm going to announce a hell of a lot of changes at the same time.

Yeah.

Let me explain why that's necessary in Rogers' case.

We have a hell of a lot of people that think we just—are we just going to reorganize the State Department.

Now, Rogers be damned on this.

I'm going to announce Rush and, you know, as many changes as I possibly can at the same time.

Right.

That'll give the feeling that, well, we're changing something.

Don't you agree?

Yep.

And you see, I can do the same with Kleindienst.

I can announce changes down below at the same time for those that are retained.

Those that we're taking, except for like at Richardson, we have to announce Clements at the same time because our hawks will be scared to death if we just announce Richardson for defense.

So that's what I'm thinking.

I've got to get all those people in.

I've got to see these individuals myself, those undersecretary types, and get them nailed down.

Well, I'll plan to stay there then.

I'll be available on Friday just to take care of—we'll start to do the undersecretary types if necessary.

Okay.

And get them done.

Find out what you can—I mean, just sort

up a schedule for me so we can find out what we can do.

If we can't do enough to make it worthwhile, then I won't do it.

I think maybe we can.

To move on them on Friday.

Yeah.

Then you see I'll put off whatever travel I'm going to do until the following week.

You know, go over—rather than going Thanksgiving weekend and everybody else goes, I could go

I just don't know what I'm going to do because I've really got to get this work done so that we get—that what I'm a little concerned about is that I—I'm just asking Ziegler about it and he says it did not come from Camp David or from him.

But I see a big story on the Star, their lead story is that how the reorganization is going to be accomplished and that we're going to go to the limits of the law and so forth and so on and so on.

And I'm really shocked at such a thing because

This has got to be done with a very carefully controlled PR program, or otherwise you stir up the animals in a way that they'll all write editorials about things that we're not going to do or are going to do.

You understand what I mean?

Yep.

I don't know where that came from.

Do you have any idea?

No.

It was in the Star.

I don't know.

I haven't seen the Star stories.

Big story.

And it's about—there's an administration aide said that.

But we haven't told—I remember you said you and John and so forth were talking about the PR, but you haven't told them to put out any story like that.

No, sir.

That's what we're thinking of.

Nope.

Couldn't have been Ash, could it?

I'd like to find out then if it wasn't one of the people that we really depend upon.

We've got to be pretty rough, Bob, right now.

Or don't you agree?

I sure do.

We've been going along for so long this way with these leaks.

This time we just can't play this sort of game.

Well you read the story and you'll see why I'm a bit concerned about it.

And it isn't—there's no excuse for the fact that this is exactly what we're going to do, you see.

It's a question of when we say it in the right context, you know, so that they—everybody gets it and it isn't, you know, leaked out by some jackass that doesn't know.

Yep.

That's right, because that word— Well, it's a very—there are some—I had assumed we were doing a lot of thinking about it.

That's how we put it out.

That's right.

It's like the same thing that I've got to get control of and I'm going to try to get Colson to date and get to work on it.

I had thought that we had a plan on this situation with regard to—I talked to Buchanan and he thought it was work on two with regard to this thing that Conley was concerned about, about

whether or not we had campaigned for people—well, whether or not we had supported the ticket and so forth.

And something apparently is falling between the stools there.

It may not have fallen between the stools.

It may be that we tried, but not at a high enough level.

Have you had a chance to talk to Colson yet about what the plans are?

Nope.

I was going to call him today.

He, as I said yesterday, was out somewhere in Virginia and had left where he didn't want to be called.

I don't know whether he is today or whether he's— Yeah, well, I'll handle it.

I'll handle it.

You know, I was thinking that from the standpoint of the handling of our PR thing and so forth here, that I think that one thing that the Rogers thing really helped on, it does show

We'd really have a very, very thin operation if we just had Ziegler and Jerry Warren and so forth there and then left the PR.

Ehrlichman never takes any responsibility for it, not in real— Completely.

He did completely.

Everything that was said out of Florida was said— I'm not speaking of Florida.

I'm speaking of from now on.

What was out of Florida?

But an attack and counterattack.

But an attack and a counterattack.

No, I meant what Roger said about the—what Roger said as related to what Colson said, where Colson said we really needed a capability.

I do think we do need a capability, Bob, because we can't

have a situation, you see, the way I figure, that if we just flush the whole Colson-Klein operation, or particularly the Colson operation, and leave it to the National Committee and so forth, we'll go right back to the situation that we were in, where we get into battle after battle, and then everybody looks around the table and says, Who me?

Isn't that true?

I just don't see any capability there.

We've just got to have some capability for the counterattack and for

and for somebody who's thinking about the public relations on these various things.

And that's—I mean, even though it has had its faults, the Colson and, to a certain extent, Klein operation, I think has had some effect that way.

So I think that we—when we talk to Chuck, we ought to—that is the necessity of setting that up.

Or do you see it that way?

Absolutely.

As you know, Buck, we've had one hell of a time with two people.

with Kissinger, as we would expect, but with Ehrlichman also.

They say, well, that's the job of the price officer, you know what I mean?

We've got this beautiful program and that's the job of the writers or that's the job of the PR people.

Ehrlichman's changed that now, though.

In the last few months when we—or really the last four or five months— He's done a lot better.

But he shifted from, you know, tossing it to other people to taking it on.

That's good.

On the other hand, we don't have it in the more important area of the Kissinger office.

We have nothing there except just floating them out.

But I think I agree with you, your talk with Colson, that we have to maintain the capability.

Yeah.

And we ought to get a good, young, vigorous group in there.

I don't think we can.

Huh?

I think we can't.

I agree.

I don't think that he's the indispensable man at all.

That's the point Connolly made to me.

He said, Colson, he said he's been capable.

But Connolly agreed with the point that I made.

And it's like Henry, after Vietnam is settled, Colson, in a sense, after the election is over, he isn't going to have nearly the—he can't have, you know, the driving force, the interest and so forth.

It's going to be—there's nothing like going for the big prize.

And just, you know, say, well, now our project this week is to do what we can to see that our

program on cutting model cities is properly presented.

See, it's not the same, is it?

No, not at all.

But I think with a new group of people and a good crew, you can get the same level of interest in it.

I was talking to Ron.

That Italian story on Henry is the most

Did you see it?

I haven't seen it.

Henry called me last night about it.

Oh, it's unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

It's unbelievable from some things he said.

But another thing, too, is that it does—it's going to put water on a Roger's wheel to a great extent.

Because Henry talks about the China trip, and he said, well, the thing about it that was really appealing to the public is that he said, I did it—he, Henry, did it alone.

He said, people like to see somebody do something alone, and I conceived it all and did it all by myself.

whole china initiative you know it's uh you know it's so soap without any uh he just doesn't doesn't go at all under the you know when he's when he thinks he's going to be quoted and so forth he does and you know pass the credit around a bit but uh this is a point rogers made to me yesterday that he said henry is always very careful in what he says publicly to build up the president but never privately well i think he's got a point and i think this is the

I think he's—Rogers made this point?

Yep.

Uh-huh.

That was before this article.

He was just saying in terms—he said that's one—you know, he was cutting Henry as he did.

Never private.

One problem you have with Henry is that he—whenever he knows he's going to be quoted, he makes a big point of how great a job the president's doing, but where it really counts in the private conversations, he builds himself.

Uh-huh.

Well, the whole thing—did you read—you haven't read the interview?

Do you have the post there?

Yeah, I do.

Isn't that where it is?

Take a look at it.

It's supposed to be in the Star, I think.

At least Henry thought it was in the Star.

It's the Lissigar Star, yeah.

Lissigar Star.

Yeah.

You don't have the Star.

Yeah, I have it.

Why don't you take a reading out of it?

I will.

Give me a call back, will you?

Yeah.

Bye.

Okay.

Don't bother today, though.

Have a good time.

Okay.

But call me back today.

I'm not going to leave until 1130.

Bye.

Right.

Bye.

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Second term reorganization

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 19, 1972

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