Nixon, Ziegler & Camp David Operator on George McGovern and Vietnam War

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Mr. President, have Mr. Ziegler calling for you.

Okay.

Go ahead, please.

Hello.

Hi, Ron.

Hi, Mr. President.

Hi.

I talked to Bob and reviewed the CBS Morning News interview between Myra McLaughlin and Mrs. Nixon.

What they did was they taped about 45 minutes, and they used an intro segment yesterday as a promo for the piece, and they used 10 minutes this morning.

and they're going to use 10 minutes tomorrow morning.

We're in the process now of getting the transcript of tomorrow's morning section because they were still in the editing process, but I did see this morning an interview and reviewed the transcript.

Quite frankly, I don't blame Mrs. Nixon for being a little bit disturbed by it because it was the typical type of interview where the questions are addressed with a little twist in them.

But in terms of Mrs. Nixon, I think she handled it, and I'm being quite objective about this, in a very superb way.

She was animated, and she did not at any time allow Mara to get to her.

And I think that came through.

I think what Mara was probably trying to do was, in a very subtle way, trying to get her to react to her.

Do you see what I mean?

Trying to get her to be...

to respond in a negative way, and then they would have built the interview around that.

But looking at the plus side of it, the intro was based on a question by Mara, which said that there was a lot of people, recently well-known people, who have gone to Hanoi from movie actresses to former attorney generals.

And she asked Mrs. Nixon if she thought that kind of a trip by those particular people would hurt attempts to get peace in Vietnam.

And Mrs. Nixon said, I truly do, just speaking for myself.

She said, I've been to Vietnam three times, to South Vietnam, she said, and I've seen the destruction that was caused there by the aggressors from the North who started the conflict in the first place.

She said, trying to deny freedom to a freedom-loving people.

She said, I think the concentration should be on the destruction and the killing in the South rather than anywhere else.

But that was a very good and heavily played response.

And she did it in a very natural way.

They showed then in this morning segment a photo.

film and a question uh regarding i don't yeah i won't go through all you don't need to right the main thing is though that she was trying to do her in ron without any questions there's no questions about that that's right and so i just want you to follow my orders that you're to put put a tail on her right she's not to get at anybody she used to be denied and then play up

Barbara Wallers, and if Virginia Sherwood, is she still with ABC?

Yes, sir.

Play her up.

Right.

Just cut out Myra McLeod.

She's not to have any contact, whatever, with anybody at the family at that convention.

I agree.

I've already, Elborn on my staff is down there and is working with the arrangements for Mrs. Nixon.

He will be assigned to Mrs. Nixon and the gals down there.

Good.

And also at the convention.

He knows how to handle that very well.

Sure, sure.

But the point I want to make, and I think I can understand where Mrs. Nixon would feel uncomfortable about this interview.

She shouldn't have done it in the White House.

But the overall impact of it is a plus in the way Mrs. Nixon responded to it.

Right, right, right.

The McGovern thing played all right this morning.

Oh, yes, you handled it.

I thought that was just the right thing to say.

Right.

And Jesus Christ, I mean, the way these idiots are doing this, I mean, they are screwing things up.

I mean, they could.

They could.

I don't know.

They aren't brief.

They go rushing around over there, interfering in the negotiations.

Could Christ, what if I'd have done that when I was... Well, that's... What if I'd have, you know, sent, you know, say, some jackass out there on the staff?

Well...

Alan, he was my foreign man, sent him rushing over to Paris while Harriman was there.

Good God, they'd have crashed down on my head like a ton of bricks.

That's right.

You know, this is interfering.

I mean, really, it's a violation of the Logan Act.

Everything, you know, it's a terrible damn thing.

I would think the press guys would, I don't know if there's any fairness in them at all, they would see that this is a bad thing for the country.

Maybe we're not offering enough, but Jesus Christ, you've got to have two negotiators.

They, as a matter of fact, did not press me hard this morning when I made the point.

I did not want to get into the Logan Act.

I was very low-key.

I agree.

We don't want to say that we're going to punish them or anything.

Right.

But at least the war is out there that the White House feels could jeopardize.

Right.

And that sets it up, Ron, so that we can later, you know, kick him in the ass.

And I subtly made the point that he had turned down the briefings and that his representative, you know, did not know that he could have said something that could jeopardize the negotiations.

Right.

Which was a point to make and put to play.

Well, actually, I don't know.

I...

Up to this point.

These guys aren't making that many points, I don't think.

Not at all.

I'll tell you, yesterday was one of the most incredible performances I've ever seen.

And the press guys I've talked to about it agree.

And it was exactly devastating on television last night where he came out in Youngstown, Ohio.

Jack said that he had nothing to do with it.

They had not instructed.

The report wasn't true.

And then two hours later issued a statement saying he had asked Salinger to go.

He issued a statement, huh?

Right, he issued a written statement, which was totally contradictory to what he had said earlier.

Huh.

Incidentally, I made the point subtly, well, not subtly, quite directly to CBS that they could forget DeKalb.

That's right, that's right.

Because let's just, I mean, we just know using the...

I mean, let them kick ground on one, and we can always change our mind later, but I'm just going to, we're just not going to, I just don't believe in walking into one.

We may find somebody better.

We may get a better offer.

Who knows?

We'll have an offer for Henry.

Don't worry, particularly after he makes another trip.

Sure, that's right.

Is he, right?

Yes, sir.

And all of his trips, of course.

I don't know what the hell.

One thing about this, though, was Salinger pissing around, and Clark,

We're setting them up to blame them when things don't come off.

Sure.

Now, we've consumed in McGovern's day.

A wire was just put in front of me here where now McGovern has to spend the rest of the day and so forth.

And I'll tell you, the press are really pressing him out on the road.

I can tell it in the wires.

But he's now saying that, well, Pierre Salinger going there, of course, won't have an effect.

And he went only for a general inquiry.

And

And we weren't attempting to inject ourselves into negotiations and so forth.

Boy, that's defensive as hell.

So he's back on, he's on the defensive.

You think so?

Oh, yeah.

In other words, now he's trying to say, I see the wire here, say he says that Henry Kissinger's global junket, as he said, would do more to plunge the war than shorten it.

Well, people don't believe that.

They don't accept that, you see.

But I was asked a question today, well, Senator McGovern said that Salinger had said to the North Vietnamese that he wants the war-ended or negotiated settlement to be reached before the election.

What do you think of that?

I said, well, I assume that he would.

I don't think anyone would want the negotiations to be nonproductive just because it's election year, which locks him into that position.

Yeah.

That's where they do it.

I don't know.

Of course, the negative side is that people, some say, well, we shouldn't have the war talked about and so forth.

But I suppose that the other side of that, though, is that if they weren't talking about it in a confused way, they would be attacking us in other ways.

That's right.

I mean, the issue is there, and they're going to make it an issue.

Well, I think we had a point to make from here today, but I don't think that we should, particularly here in the White House, and I think generally, I don't think we should feel compelled to be responsive to these attacks every day.

No, sir.

Because we're doing it in such a way that we don't have to.

That's one of the reasons that my first reaction when Bob raised the point as to whether you should go on, I was negative because I said, God, I don't want the White House taking McGovern on.

And, well, but then on the other hand, I could see that the record has to be cut straight.

But generally speaking...

When they ask you about these things, I just sort of say, well, that's political.

Right, that's what I've been doing.

If that's political, I'm not going to comment on that.

Like, he's out in the farm belt, and that's a political thing.

I'm not going to comment on that.

Today was a close call, but I think we had it.

Well, you did the right thing, and I think you did the right thing because foreign policy required it.

Right.

Okay, I won't bother you again then on this.

No, that's fine.

You've done exactly what you should.

Okay, sir.

Okay.

Thanks.

Nixon, Ziegler & Camp David Operator on George McGovern and Vietnam War

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on August 17, 1972

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