Nixon phone call with Ziegler on Watergate and Media relations

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i have mr ziggler sir on the line he worked a little late tonight yes sir everything all right i think so how did stans do stans did a good job today but i thought he would and he's such an honest man he's telling the truth you know and he came across yeah i looked at some of the tv tonight and uh and uh

He came across very well as a good, solid guy, and that's what he is.

Well, the TV, we know what they'll do.

You know, one thing that, as I said, you're going to have to take over, even though you don't sort of like it, the sort of Colson-type operations, but there are two things that I feel very strongly about from a personal standpoint that I do want you to follow up on.

Apparently the Richardson thing didn't get any play, did it yet?

Oh, it will tomorrow.

Oh, that's for tomorrow.

And it has gotten play in the Star today.

It did?

Yes, sir.

The UPI story?

Not the UPI story.

That'll be tomorrow.

Yeah.

But the... Al Higgs.

Right.

That's getting play today.

Yes, sir.

But I want it to play now.

No, I understand that.

The other thing is that on Julie, I really feel so strongly, Ron, that you just can't let these people at the radio correspondence to...

get away with what they did to that poor child that night, you know.

And Sevilla Sacasa sent me a message, and, you know, he's an emotional guy, but he said that in his 20 years in the Capitol, he had never seen such an outrageous, vicious thing done, you know, with her present, and that she cried afterwards and all that.

Now, I want something done with the head of the outfit.

I want something.

I don't know who's going to do it, but who's going to do it?

No, I did.

I talked about Clark today.

Was he the chairman?

He's the president, right.

He was very remorseful about it.

Remorseful?

All right.

That's nice.

No, the point I made is...

I want him to know that we have been swamped with calls, letters, and everything, thinking it was an outrageous performance, and they have broken their pick.

I want them to know that.

I told them that today, Mr. President.

Did you?

And not... What did he say?

He was very embarrassed.

And he felt it was overdone.

And on matters like this, as I said to you yesterday, the many members of the press corps who attended it, who attended the dinner, made the point that it was exaggerated and it was an excess.

But it wasn't just that.

It was in bad taste and vicious assault.

Good God, if they'd done this to Jackie Kennedy, you'd have had a front page all over the paper and you'd know it raw.

Now, let's not kid ourselves about this sort of thing.

You know that.

Well, there were some stories written about it, but I do know that.

Right.

But I want it to go not just to Clark, but some of the other people that are in that organization.

I want them to know, not that I was distressed, but that we are swamped with letters and wires and so forth.

Absolutely.

No, you do that.

Yes, sir.

If you have Clawson, do it.

Let him do it.

If you don't want me to do it.

Well, I... Mr. President, I...

I have done this, and I will do it.

All right, you do it.

And...

and uh the other thing is that uh apparently uh there's some show the donahue show in ohio and uh we've already gotten about it's come mainly to mrs nixon here there's been about

85 letters, just shocked at his unbelievably gross performance when he questioned Julie out there.

Understand, I don't mean tough questions, but it was vicious, personal, and the rest.

Now, you're going to get it to him, or all hell's going to break loose.

Understand, I don't care what they do to me, or you, or Hague.

Right.

But, God, they're not going to do it to members of the family, or I will start taking them on.

You understand?

Yes, sir.

Do you know Donahue?

No, I know Donahue's, and I'm not familiar with this, but I'll sure find out about it.

Well, you don't need to find out about it.

It was a vicious performance, and you are to find some way to have somebody who is him to call him and tell him they thought it was a vicious, terrible performance.

Absolutely.

I'll do that.

All right.

Follow up and see where it's being played.

It's going to be replayed in Florida, I think.

I don't know whether it's replayed here.

You see, this is the kind of thing, Ron, that I...

I don't want anything done that looks like we're doing it.

But on the other hand, we cannot let them get away with it and think that this sort of thing is accepted.

I mean, otherwise they're going to do more of it, Ron.

You understand that?

You've got to keep them a little loose.

Yes, sir.

You don't agree?

I do agree, particularly on things like the Donahue thing.

Anything that has to do with the family.

I understand.

With me, never complained.

Never, never, never.

But when they do it to members of the family, like Julie, when she was there, that's a shocking thing.

Yes, sir.

I won't allow that.

Shocking thing.

All right.

You work on the Donahue thing.

Give me a report on that.

Give me a report on how you follow up on the radio correspondence thing.

Clark is a nice person.

Not very bright fella.

No, he's dumb, yeah.

He's a little bit dumb, but a nice, decent guy.

But I'm not going to allow them, and I want the radio correspondents to know, those who participated, that they went across the line.

And that we are, that not the White House is disturbed, but that we have heard from all of those that were there that they were disturbed.

Get a column written about Iran.

That should be rather easy.

Maybe it isn't easy.

No, it is.

And Helen Thomas, quite frankly, wrote a column on it.

What'd she say?

Well, it wasn't very good.

I saw hers.

You know, she just said Julie cried and all that crap.

Well, she said more than that.

And there were others.

It was bad taste, let's face it.

Bad form.

Dammit, there is a matter like the British press has pointed out of form and taste in this thing.

They want to kick the president, that's one thing, but God darn it, they aren't going to kick his family when they come to their miserable things.

Let me tell you, though, thank God don't ever submit an invitation from them to me again, or the gridiron, or the White House correspondents.

I'm not going anymore.

Do you understand?

Well, never, never, never.

It's not going to do any good.

I'll see them at press conferences in a formal way, but I'm not going to their parties and be exposed to their insults.

That's wrong.

I agree with you.

It's wrong for us to do that.

It really is.

But we'll have more press conferences than the rest.

That I understand.

Let's keep him at arm's length a little while.

Well, I'm incensed by this Donahue thing, and I'm going to find out about it.

It was unbelievably bad.

Everybody here, the East Wing saw it today, you know, and they were just shocked and cried.

I've seen that, and I know how to handle that.

Did you see it?

No, but I'm going to.

You'll look at it, and you'll see what I mean.

I intend to.

Okay.

Well, it's not the major thing, but I just, you know, I feel rather strongly about the family.

I just don't want them kicked around.

You understand?

And Julie handled herself beautifully, everybody said.

But, you know, there's only so much strength, and one day they're going to break down, and I don't want that.

No, Julie won't.

But we still can't let this happen.

Not to Julie, and not really to...

We have to constantly fight against this.

Sure.

Well, I'm just waiting for the time after Brezhnev that I can go out in a press conference and I'll cut those bastards to pieces in a way that they'll never know.

Right.

You know, their heads will be rolling on the ground laughing and they won't know what happened.

It has to be a sharp scaffold.

That's right.

But all in all, it's rather interesting.

Dean pled self-incrimination today, huh?

Mm-hmm.

going to help him, is it?

No, I don't think so.

Good God, I would think it would raise some questions of credibility with any honest person.

If he pleads self-incrimination and then goes before the Senate, what in the name of heaven are they going to say, huh?

Well, I think the key thing is Dean's building himself up to such a high crescendo, and what he can say under oath is not much.

I know that.

And by God, if the guy...

And I mean this directly.

There's only so far he can go, and he can't go into the Oval Office in any legitimate way.

And the guy, you know, if he attempts to do it, he's going to end up, you know, with 20 years instead of... You know, as I know, as you know, as you know, the...

Where it's in the Oval Office, only I can answer, and that's why there's actual bizarrities to prepare and check with you.

A sharp, brief crack in the event, as they probably will, leaked what he said to the prosecutors on Friday.

See?

He's going to meet with the Urban Committee Friday under oath.

And they'll leak that out.

Now we just knock it out of the park in just three or four sentences.

Here's a man that had an incentive to lie.

Here's a man that has given a story.

He's given five different stories on this.

And here's a man who is lying about the president.

Here's a man who had the responsibility and never told the president for 10 months.

Mm-hmm.

But I think that's all.

And let it lie there until he gets under oath in public.

Right.

And I can associate with that in such a very emotional way because I know what he did with us.

Yeah, but Czar told me about the fact that we, apparently Warren did the most of the talking to him.

And Warren's got notes.

And he, good heavens, the fellow said,

conducted an investigation and that there was nobody in the White House involved.

We went over that.

We've got it right there.

He said the same thing to Pat Gray.

He said the same thing to Henry Peterson.

And so he comes in when?

In March 21st and starts to speak about it.

And didn't tell us the details?

No, no, no, not about his own involvement.

And he'll say, well, I said go over and pay immunity and so forth or

All right, pay for it.

Pay for silence.

That doesn't make any difference.

Deny it.

Do you understand?

Yes, sir.

Deny everything because he's lying.

Well, the truth is the key here, and that's what we have going for us.

Would you follow up on Donahue and the press conference?

I want Donahue to find out who his owners are.

I think it's probably our friend from Cincinnati who's the head of it.

Taft.

Or Taft, or the other one.

Is he Taft Broadcasting?

Or he might be the other guy who was the head of our campaign.

Whatever it is.

Well, they don't own TV, but... All right, then it's Shaft.

He has a call, and it's a shocking thing, and he's got to know.

Shake him up.

Yes, sir.

Shake him up.

We'll do that.

All right.

Yes, sir.

Nixon phone call with Ziegler on Watergate and Media relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on June 13, 1973

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