Conversation 205-002

Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

I was going to ask that, uh, that, uh, unless he feels he has to go there right away, that, uh, you know, Ron's failed here.

And, uh, I think he'll be useful to, uh, to, uh, work on it before.

You mean Sam and Camp David?

Yeah.

Okay.

He's, he's already, he went down last night, but I need him to come back up.

Yeah.

continue writing, you know, modifying and so forth and so on.

And, uh, to, uh, over Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, in other words, and Monday night to wrap it up finally.

And now here's Tuesday.

And Wednesday, of course, is all I have to use for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the,

But I have a feeling after our talk last night that this judgment is, I think at least sometimes as I say, we have under our noses people who are better than others that we talk to when we gather around.

I think he'll be helpful.

No, I think he will.

So you don't have a problem with that.

I don't know whether I'm trying to use it that way.

So that's fine.

It's a nice way for me to get up here.

We have places for all these people to stay.

I'm concerned about that.

We're crowded Saturday night with Henry here.

Because the eggs are coming up, I guess.

Well, let him stay and purge.

Yeah.

We'll have to have him apologize.

I'll just repeat this.

When he leaves this night, it's good for me from time to time to get out of here.

Yeah.

When we keep Birch open, walk over to Birch's.

Just for that one night, I figured it wouldn't make much difference.

He'll stay and purge.

There's no problem.

Granted, we're going to leave through these roads.

Mark and I will be staying in that one.

And talk to him.

Unless you can't move.

Oh, we can move.

But it's...

I want to give the speechwriters separate places so they aren't doubled up.

Don't worry about the rooms.

I'll tell you what, there's plenty of room.

Take that recreation room home, speechwriters and so forth.

Just cut off of them the

The only time we need it is Saturday night when Henry's here.

The rest of the time we have no problem in the space.

For the next three days, I've really got to exaggerate myself.

I've made my sort of basic decision.

Okay.

Which I think, of course, it's not the hardest thing to do.

It's not the hardest thing to do.

It's not the greatest creation, which I've done a lot of already.

We have to go to the light and the peace.

We just can't.

We can't.

I think I'm going to tell you the selected lines when you have speeches.

Very, very useful.

Not for this speech, but I was going to say, could you, and don't tell Price to do it, because he will never do it.

Could you tell whoever does speeches in the future not only to wait and take those lines from Price,

That you can't go through and get his selected lives.

See what I mean?

Christ, Sapphire did it once, and most, and about three-fourths of half of them were his.

And Christ tends to pick his.

You know what I mean?

But somebody should go through the speeches and pick things out.

Because...

I was going to say...

I want to ask somebody who has no interest in any of them to go through.

All right.

Just go through over and over and say, what are the best lines?

In other words, pick up.

And take a reason.

They can be repeated.

Some of them pick up.

I bet you.

The Chinese speech, the Russian speech.

The speech of the Russian people has been magnificent.

Who the hell worked on that?

Wasn't that Sapphire?

No.

Rose said it priced it.

I think it priced it.

It priced it some, but I think it was the last one working on it.

Didn't it do that to begin with?

I like things we find out.

I can't remember.

Well, anyway.

So I had the feeling Andrews did the original draft and that Price worked on it.

Yeah.

He's been getting the phrasing and that kind of stuff.

The polishing is very good, but he's so damn slow.

I've just started reading over again just to see if last time we don't have to reverse.

I've already read the crisis.

Thank you.

Well, there's that.

Thank you.

This is not said to be great.

These are my grandparents.

They're very good, and that's awfully good stuff for, you know, for that, if you want to make that kind of speech.

And it was a kind of speech actually that impressed me a lot.

Yeah, it's all cold philosophy.

It's absolutely cold intellectualism.

And, well, my business partner, Chris, he said he saved me.

I just have to deal with it.

It's so out of character for me to be in there.

That's important.

Even though the governor's down, you get up there and say, what the hell, this is an election, this is a convention.

And you say, what the hell, it's all about what we believe in.

And not just that of their bar, but

Now this kind of study would really strike, it would really to the average guy as saying, this is a complacent arrest.

And say, oh shit, here we go again.

It's Dewey all over again.

Am I wrong or right?

I think you're right.

He'd be wrong because it is, Dewey didn't go that way.

But it would still be, that's the feeling people would have.

And that's the way they write it.

You say the press would like it.

A lot of our people will think you should do it because they'll say, don't rock the boat.

Well, someone wrote a column.

It's a pretty good one, actually, but it was making the point that what the Democrats' objective is, they were playing off the re-elect the president thing and making the point that that was very clever of the semantics of that.

Because it was saying president instead of saying Nixon.

Well, that's fine.

President or Nixon.

The Democrats' whole objective is to get the president out of the campaign and Nixon into the campaign.

And, you know, that's a cute way of putting it, in a sense.

But they'll make the case, when you make this speech, that Sullivan will.

They'll say, well, ah, they've succeeded now.

They've got the president out and Nixon in.

And I don't know.

But I think if you go the other way, you go too, there's too much to the other side of it.

There's nothing in it then.

Mike, you've got to make your points.

Well, I think a lot of that was because of the college.

Well, sure.

It's

And they can go back, they want to go back and re-put it there.

And there's no question how the government's objective is to try and draw us down to a level.

Like he hit today.

He's going to try and put the underdog thing to it.

I mean, yesterday he hit the thing of Nixon's got 15 people attacking me all the time and not staying.

He won't come out himself.

Now, I think he can settle all of that to rest by, in a sense, coming out yourself.

Not in attacking him, but in...

making a speech defining what the thing's about, what the choice is.

That speech, now it's hard for him to run around saying, you haven't come up.

Not at all.

That's what we've got the people for.

Thank you.

Okay.

the best quotable quotes go back through the

well they are good coming back proposition

It seemed to me that Ziegler had made a very profound observation when he said that we, having done this, that I could just float above it for a while.

That's the thing I hadn't thought of.

It's what I've been trying to say, but I never really in my own mind focused it on that point.

I think he's exactly right.

When you get out there and also reassure your hawks here,

then you don't have to fight anymore you have to keep touching it up but you don't have to if you don't do that then you're going to have to do a lot of fighting at a lower level in order to look like you're fighting where this by doing a little at the high level covers much more ground

and then when you come down to it and I mean I have to I read this over because that's the best prices to enter and there are examples too so is it right what you're no I mean I hear your own reassurance why you don't think it's right because in a beautiful language they work their ass off you know they believe that's the way it should be you know like God divine

I agree.

I'm not so sure when you come back from China and things like that whether you should, but I think in an inaugural or an acceptance, there does have to be.

Oh, sure.

Well, I always, but not a hell of a lot.

You know, vote the Bible.

I mean, that's Johnson.

All you have to do is indicate an awareness, you know, that...

to what you've got to accomplish here.

Go back to the objective instead of just looking at the speech and the abstract of the speech.

You have two things, and they're equally important.

And we tend to downgrade the first too much.

You've got to get your own people fired up.

You're issuing sort of the rallying cry to the troops.

And it's going to come after what will be

oh yeah but she didn't she didn't feel that it'll be a call to mary mcgurk and just to mention that the others he mentioned that yeah he told the story at the time but what the hell was it and also as far as the television audience maybe 10 million will have seen this film and 30 million will see this in 40 maybe and only less than 10 million are only about

They haven't seen the whole Tanya thing.

They're seeing it in different contexts.

You're going to tell the Tanya story a little bit differently here than you did on Russian television.

And you're going to look different.

You're on a podium instead of in a room.

And when they see it on the film, and that's why I think it sets it up for you to repeat it in your speech.

But it's just a little bit of that.

Then it's your voice telling the Tanya story, but what they see.

What they see is all the ceremony, the graves, the picture of Tanya, and the torch, and the Mother Russia, or whatever that was, that big statue up there.

It's dramatic as hell.

It's beautifully done.

She said it was really a Jewish ceremony.

She says a lot of emotional things.

But she said it was...

that they were all just terribly moved by it.

It is.

And Ehrlichman said, take it out.

Ehrlichman looked at it and he said, it's a superb film, beautifully done.

It's got all the stuff in it.

It makes the points beautifully.

It scores one after another, the accomplishments and the goals.

But he said, then you ruin it by ending it with the Tanya thing, which doesn't relate to anything.

and all that, and he's just 100%.

I was, well, John just has a different, it's good to get it, because it questions your judgment on it.

John, he's a cool lawyer, basically.

That's why his domestic counsel stuff is really so bad.

I mean, it really is.

Really, the stuff, as I told you, we've really got to shape that up, because it's just too goddamn bad for purposes of grabbing people.

John didn't see the importance, for example, of the Jets story.

Yeah.

He didn't see it.

Oh, no, I'm not so sure.

Oh, when he came back, he was really cramped down.

I told him about it.

Okay.

I told him about it.

The point that I make is that I said we should have had somebody along.

I said, where the hell was the press?

I mean, where was my man?

I mean, we had the most commander.

I mean, just the close guard guy held him.

I don't know what he was doing.

What I meant is that if he wouldn't do this, John wouldn't do this.

A little salute, you know, from the brain.

I'll show you.

What made you, what the hell made that speech with that?

What brought it home better?

What's that?

And Tanya does, Tanya wraps up, you know, I just think in a marvelous way, what your whole, first show is basically the main thing, the main thing, the main weakness,

This runs, this runs through, people say this runs through a lot of this, like Price and Garment particularly, and others, you know, all the basically softer types of people, kind people say, show this president cares and he's not a cold professional.

How the hell do we show you care without telling some kind of a goddamn story?

See, what John would like you to do to show you care is go out to somebody's cabin and

sit around with some sick lady and say, I'm worried about you being sick.

Or ride down the Colorado River in a rowboat and look at the environment.

But that just isn't real.

Or go out to the park.

Or go out to the, you know what I mean?

Or the other way around, too.

Or to show you care, you remember, by sitting in a row and having an ABC television crew come in and take pictures of me meeting with people in narcotics.

That shows I'm cleaner.

That's all... Let me tell you, the thing that's going on here, and it's not secretive, because we don't probably use it, not gimmicks, but his stuff is gimmicky.

And it's all separate.

It's gimmicky.

I mean, the point is, well, in other words, it's using John's term.

Let's have a dog in the home.

We've been in the Congress, and we have a presentation.

We have the press sitting in in order to prove that we're going after Susan Mann and the other thing.

But it is patent.

It is...

It's a straight cell.

You see, Eastwood is back this, I don't know, we beat it three or four times, but the Russians, this was the most fight we ever heard.

And he says it cut right through to the bone, to the marrow of the bone, without your knowing it.

And what he's referring to is not the tongue, but the collection.

But tongue is a key to it.

Tongue did it.

What's he mean by that?

Eastwood is a tough, strong arm.

our or or or all

They have a motion, but they will not express it.

And therefore, it will not help them in that scope.

And the other thing is, looking at the domestic counsel, it is professional and so on.

And totally, almost totally, without ability to sell, because they are so bad, I may say the national security most of the time, is perhaps worse, worse than anything.

Because there, you have an arrogance.

There'll be a lot of people that agree with John on Tanya.

There'll be a lot of people that think it isn't the same.

It's kind of a sickeningly sentimental thing.

Why did he have to do that?

That was a real thing.

That was a character.

That's like checkers.

All that bullshit.

I think Ron would say that.

See, that would be true if you didn't feel it.

If one of us, if Bill Sapphire had gone in there and discovered Tanya and whipped up a thing, and you had just made it up and gone out, then it would be true.

But you did feel it.

You found Tanya.

You marched down that walk and laid the wreath up.

uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...

What is your feeling about Rob's reaction to the attack?

I think he's right.

I didn't have a strong feeling about an attack, but I felt he should do it.

What tilted me toward it was the fact that Price had it in.

Darman had it in.

I'm not going to be in a situation like Andrews did.

Everybody had to do it.

uh... uh... uh... uh...

want the word.

They don't like humiliation.

No president will go.

That's for sure.

They don't want to say the U.S. should not be humiliated in Vietnam because that sounds like we're trying to win the war to avoid humiliation.

That's different than a president being humiliated at a negotiating table, I think.

You're probably right, though.

The risk on it, the balance on the negative side is greater than the balance on the positive side.

And other people can push.

We are and continue to push that banking

Take the line that I'm going to have on the court.

That's a hell of a cheer line.

The line that I'm going to have on the department without losing the nation.

Now that can't be a drug that bothers us at all.

Because basically that is what we're just going to be saying.

I still think you're right, but nobody does.

I'm going to ask you this.

Do American military help you here, or are you just too afraid of the NAN?

I don't think the NAN means sin.

They don't have to initialize it.

They will.

You might try that on...

It's a good place to stay.

This is a good place to stay.

You've been driven out of your home.

You said come home.

Not to another party.

You need to leave.

Join a coalition.

Protagonistic groups held together only by their desire to gain power.

Good.

But I ask you to join a new American majority bound together by a common belief.

Coalition thing.

Reject the coalition, yeah.

You didn't mention that the other day when you were talking about it.

I had a draft.

Specifically, rejecting the coalition.

Not a coalition, an antagonistic group.

All together only by their desire to gain power, which is, of course, what they're doing.

Sure.

I asked you to join a new American majority, together by common belief and principles of civic intervention in America.

or would you just strike the American majority?

No, I think the new American majority is good.

It's better.

And from there on, I can say the majority.

Our new majority.

You know, your person in the majority.

Sure.

It will come out as a new majority, I think, in the end, probably.

But I'd say, the first time I'd say it as a new, it just kind of rings nicely there where you say a new American majority.

A coalition.

I don't think you need it.

George doesn't bother you all that much.

No.

Lacking a better alternative is...

Right up to John's point on that, but I don't... Oh, yeah.

Well, I thought so, too.

Except I...

I mean, how many times have we asked?

I read everything in there.

I read coalition, realignment, you know, and everything, and none of it sings.

No.

You and George didn't sing much either.

Yeah, I haven't done it.

And it plays off that great silent majority, which is... That's the point, which I'm sure that basically most of our electors didn't like either.

Well, they didn't.

We know they didn't.

Huh?

I heard you.

We know they didn't, but it sure cut it short.

They didn't know it.

They didn't.

They didn't know it until... We know they didn't until the mail came in the next morning.

And you're still getting stuff about the silent majority.

Do you know that?

Do you notice that next morning?

Are you ready?

They should have given them a way to do it, didn't they?

Right.

Absolutely.

I'm a member of the silent majority.

It's time for that great silent majority to speak out.

And they did.

This plays back to that, and I think that's still there.

And people want to think they're part of the majority, and you're giving them a way to show that they are.

concept of majority rule and the power of the majority in this country is still damn strong, even though they put the minority complex up.

The history of the house is so hard that I have never quite been part of it.

My greatest disappointment is that my parents pressed me into time when America was at war.

I was impassioned with peace, which my greater mother left enveloping in my heart from the time I was a child.

Whenever I get tired, whenever I become discouraged, I should beg her to be the part of respect that we ought to make for our peace.

I think of the face of the child.

When I crept to the Soviet Union and I was in a cemetery, I only grabbed a three-hundred-pound bill.

People died in the city.

That city, World War II, are buried in mass graves.

In the cemetery, I saw a picture of a 12-year-old girl.

She was a beautiful child.

Her name was Tanya.

In the pages of her diary, Carol felt a terrible, struggling war.

Several words of triumph she wrote on the desks of the members of her family.

My sister, my granny, my dad, my uncle, my uncle, my uncle, my uncle, my uncle, my uncle, my uncle, my uncle, my uncle, my uncle,

See that other children will not have to endure what Tanya did.

Not his enemies, but his friends.

That kind of thing.

That's good.

Go ahead.

Hello.

It's an ideal way to make your point.

Or, why did you not answer it?

How many meetings you've had?

How many are there?

There's many meetings.

It's all funny.

This stuff is indispensable.

However, it's not important in terms of public relations.

You're giving a real feel to the fact that I've been disappointed.

I've gone as far as I can.

It's too bad.

We don't want to give them the feeling that I think Jesus' everything is great.

Yeah.

I've been disappointed.

I mean, they've got to deal with Jesus.

It's a hell of a tough thing.

But he's working his butt off the way that Jesus is working.

Well, I'm not tying to you then, because that goes back to that old thing that showed us, you know, the one thing that you've got no problem with is he's doing the best he can with a tough situation.

Well, I didn't tell you.

I called close the last night.

He would have been good.

He really grinds away, yeah.

But anyway, I called him, and I said, I told him, can you tell me about Harrison?

Most of the thing we can think about in Paris, which you said is going to come up, is that Harrison, of course, thinks that the fall of Gallagher, I don't know if you're right, but anyway, whatever it is, maybe other documents are on it.

I don't know.

Which candidate, which of the two candidates, which of the two candidates, which of the two candidates, which of the two candidates,

Now, the point that I make there is that even people from a record, in other words, they say, I trust you more than anything.

Well, in the job.

And the point that I make also is that we may have going for us here something which you must not have.

You cannot be watered or be thrown away.

You may have going for us here something

we tend to downgrade ourselves too much.

I think it's because our whole staff serves that way.

They get discouraged.

They read the Washington Press.

We catch it from Conway and we catch it from all of our people.

The President does a good job.

He doesn't really have much support.

The idea that

Kevin Phillips' line on the left side.

That's a fashionable line.

The point that I make is I have always felt that there's a hell of a lot more support there than we realize.

I mean, you take a bell thing, it doesn't show much support.

It just shows people are against the other party.

I have read his comments.

He was having some depression.

I don't know.

Well, that's the French people.

That doesn't get to the point that I make.

It may be that there may be more support from the United States.

I think, if you look at this place, remember when we were coming home from China, we said, you know, that's probably mistaken.

We said, gee, the country has changed.

Well, we said mistakenly.

If we weren't mistaken, all that happened is that

What happened, what we did there, we allowed it to be screwed away by the IDT going on, and it just messed us up.

And we struck a wrong turn.

And to keep the beat down, there has to be a hell of a lot of people that are for you.

I mean, our mail people have to be too cold.

But there's a lot of good mail that comes in, not just shit-ass mail.

There really is, you know.

We get lots of good stuff.

I have a different view now on presidents.

My point is, looking at other presidents who have been in this office, and Eisenhower came in with it, and it could never be brushed away.

In other words, he was an authentic hero, and that was in the end.

And others had the development.

He wrote an F.D.

article from it because he had a war, and therefore he became an example in a big war.

uh... uh... uh...

That only occurred to me just yesterday, but I said, no, we haven't been all that excited about this.

I think about Prime Minister Dodd and much more than any other president.

You've already gained because you've already been on.

And you've been on really in more meaningful ways than this.

Because you've been on for specifics like May 8th.

People wanted to listen.

Or China.

Or Russia.

You should have people all, they'd sit up and do that.

This, they'll chew their gum and spit the spittoon.

But they aren't going to be that bad, like you understood it.

They'll be out there.

But it isn't all that big.

No.

uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...

You do something.

Am I right?

Absolutely.

That's why, in this view, I do care.

I'm just getting up there and babbling along.

People say, well, it's all tolerated.

Well, I mean, I was naturally able to look at these and so forth and so on.

But I do think that there's something else here.

I think it's important that this audience not be a cold one.

I mean, I've got to show the ability.

with some comparison.

Because they, the press, the media, and so forth, comes to give the impression that, well, they'll make whatever they want.

There's no enthusiasm.

That's a better thing.

Now, we aren't going to change too much with this.

The point is that if you do reasonably well on that, I mean, let me put it this way.

It would simply add to that attitude.

Well, what they've got, and I've got Andrew still working on trying to get it put better.

This administration slashed federal income taxes paid by individuals by $22 billion, the largest dollar saving to taxpayers in our history.

It's the biggest tax cut in history.

Okay, and you can say that, and this will... That's right.

It's true.

We provided this, and we have provided the biggest tax cut in history during this administration.

Right, and that's true.

Thank you.

And the other one, federal, state, and local taxes now take 31% of our net national product.

If the new spending proposals of the Democratic platform were enacted in law, Texas would take almost 40% of the net national product.

What about the $1,000?

And if on top of this, Senator McGovern's $1,000 a person federal grant were enacted, Texas would take over 50% of our net national product.

So you've got 500%.

That's what I need to know.

You can get it higher if you want to by going on personal income rather than that national product.

But I'm not sure you want it higher.

It gets you to where you want to go this way.

But they're going around with it.

I don't know.

I guess I'm interested.

It's 31, almost 40, over 50.

Oh, over 30.

Let me ask you this before I get into that.

Do you think I ought to, frankly, leave them alone on the fact that they have to be people?

In fact, what did that rub you wrong with?

I wanted just a little bit of a light touch.

I thought it was kind of a response to the message.

I had to find a way to create a goddamn platform and so forth.

In other words, here's the way we begin.

Four years ago, standing in this place, this very place, I proudly accepted your nomination for President of the United States.

With your help and the votes of billions of Americans, we won a great victory in 1968.

Tonight, I again proudly accept your nomination.

Let us pledge ourselves to work for an even greater victory this November.

The fact that they repeated their performance on Prime Time two weeks ago should not be a chance.

The more they talk, the more they demonstrate their incompetence to undertake the great responsibility of guiding the destiny of the American people over the years.

And that's fine.

I don't like that.

No.

But I may be wrong.

Well, no, it's okay.

That's the area where I do think you can get on a somewhat dangerous ground.

You don't want to take all the bite out of the tongue.

I think it's probably a good idea.

I don't know why you'd have to.

I congratulate you.

No, I don't think you need to.

I don't think the convention is going to know that there are some people who sure as hell don't care.

I don't really think it's going to make any difference.

I congratulate you.

In a way, it's self-serving.

And regardless of what his critics say about him, I'm not going to change my mind.

I think that is a soft singer.

It's a singer, which everybody will like.

There will be no question that they'll like it.

I think that works okay.

The other has the real danger of coming through as a cheap shot.

I think that's a cute line.

I had this feeling last night about that very thing.

I struck it out.

I was curious to see if you'd agree.

It's a hell of a good line.

Oh, sure.

You ought to really give that to Reagan.

Now, that's my deal for Reagan.

As a television man and all that, it's perfect.

And you might pass on to the president's audience the idea that we use.

Let's make our conventions a striking contrast to the late, late show, which aren't always known in the same hall.

The fact that we beat it every month in some prime time two weeks ago was not a concern.

The more they talk,

Show America their incompetence.

Or they demonstrate their incompetence.

Guide the destiny of America.

Three world leaders.

Don't you think that's a good one for him?

It's a great gag line for him because he's on The Late Late Show all the time.

It's a simpatico line for whenever he uses it.

But he gets, I think he gets, you know.

You love him.

That's what I like about him.

I think it's, I think the quota thing, honestly.

The way you put it, I do too.

You could do it very briefly.

I congratulate the delegates for demonstrating to the nation that we can have an open convention without dividing the markets.

without dividing Americans into quotas.

Dividing Americans into quotas is totally alien to the American traditions.

Americans don't want to be part of a quota.

They want to be part of Americans' proud self-respect and individual self-esteem.

This nation proudly calls itself the United States of America.

Let us reject any philosophy which would make us the divided states of America.

That is true.

I just love it right there.

Now, the other way, however, is to put it in certain dividing

Let us recognize that there has been and is unjustified discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, age, and national origin.

We commit ourselves to remove the last vestige of discrimination.

The way to end discrimination against some is not to begin discrimination against others.

That goes beyond quotas in a sense.

It doesn't deal with the quota as a technical issue.

It deals with the quota as a basic principle.

Bill White came today.

He's got his whole column on quotas today.

And on America.

us, but as a part of the partisan principles which can unite us.

Great.

That's good.

I ask all of you to decide how you will vote for Member 7, not on the basis of what is best for your party, but on the basis of what you believe is best for America.

So, do you like that?

Sure.

Six weeks ago, our opponents in their convention rejected many of the great principles of the Democratic Party.

To those millions who have been driven out of your home of the Democratic Party, we say, come home.

Not to another party.

not to a coalition.

Is that right?

Yeah.

That flows damn well.

We have one of those historic opportunities which comes once in a political lifetime to build a new majority in America.

I ask everyone listening tonight, young and old, black and white, black and white, all the proud people of their national backgrounds make up the American people.

If you join our new majority, not on the basis of the old black and white,

on the basis of what counts as confidence.

I relate what you learn to what counts for what you believe in your arms.

One thing that loses the track there, or bothers me at least, is the once-in-a-political lifetime.

He criticizes it rather than keep... You're working on principle, and then all of a sudden you throw the... That's one of those historic opportunities.

What do you mean?

It might be the historic opportunity.

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Okay.

Political lifetime is what bothers me because it, and I don't know why, it jars and I don't know the rest of it.

On the record, what I had in mind was this.

In asking you for support, I mean, I thought I ought to, I really think they feel so damn strong about it that they may be right and I may be wrong.

Right.

Maybe.

Well, just a little on the record.

Okay, let's punch out.

In asking for your support, I shall not dwell.

We have made great progress in the past four years in bringing an end to America's involvement in the long war in Vietnam, cutting inflation, providing the biggest tax cut in America's history, and stopping the rise of crime, improving our environment, and most importantly, beginning to build a new structure of permanent peace in the world.

In these four years, it can truly be said that we have changed America, and America has changed the world.

America is a better place in which to live, and the fear of nuclear war, which has haunted the post-war world, has been substantially reduced.

I am proud of you, but I am unsatisfied.

A record is not something to stand on, it's something to build upon.

What I ask tonight is for the opportunity to complete the great unfinished missions which we have successfully begun.

I do not ask you to join our new majority because of what we have done in the past.

I ask your support of the principles I believe in, which will determine our future.

That's exactly it.

And that fits the kind of thing that Billy Graham was talking about.

When I go on, I begin with an article of faith.

It's become our fashion in recent years to point out what is wrong with our American system.

Great extent, it is so unfair, so corrupt, so unjust, that we should tear it down since there is no system in this place.

I totally disagree.

I believe in the American system.

I do not contend that it's perfect.

I wouldn't throw that line away that I'd demagogue it.

That's one thing.

You ought to bring those.

I believe in the American system.

And let them come to their feet.

I mean, that's one that should.

That's one.

This is a great and a good country.

I believe in America.

you get that positive affirmation of faith in America, which is...

I have traveled to 80 countries in the past 25 years.

I have seen communist systems.

Why did I pretend this perfect world would always be a perfect world?

But it is the best economic system in the world.

I have traveled to 80 countries in the past 25 years.

I have seen communist systems, socialist

I realize how fortunate we are to live in America.

We have the highest growth in growth.

We have more jobs and higher wages.

Our rate of inflation is the lowest in any industrial nation.

People on welfare in the United States would be rich in most of the nations of the world today.

Our system has its problems.

And I go on to say that there are 83 million American wage earners.

Unemployment today is less than the average for the peacetime years.

You know, the way I hit it in place, for instance, I just hit it with the back of my hand, is that we are proud to have given the biggest tax cut in history.

We've cut inflation in half.

We've just cut it further so the wage increases are not even on the price increases.

On a planet that is less than the average of the beach time here is in the 60s.

Our goal must be 100 million jobs.

There are 83 million American wage earners who die as real income in our history.

Our goal must be 100 million jobs by 1980 so that every American who wants to work can have a job without war, without inflation.

The wage, you said so wage increases can be greater than price increases.

So the wage increases are not even up by price increases.

But shouldn't you say we should continue to do this?

That's true now.

That wage is one half.

We must cut it for the wage increases.

Nobody believes that.

Well, I know nobody believes it, but that is the reason not to say it.

Since it's true.

I think it is a reason.

I know 20%, it's 20 to 80.

I don't think I can get up there and say, look kids, you're better off.

So the wage increases are not easy.

If they don't think they're better off, then you can't tell them.

The way to achieve this goal of 100 million jobs, if you like that you have 100 million jobs,

I don't say by 1980.

That's not an important line to people, but it's probably worth putting it in because it says 100 million yards by 1980.

That means that we're not going to bury it.

Haven't you already said that?

Why?

Did you use the 100 million jobs in the State of the Union or something?

No.

Why not?

Our climate is less than the energy.

But our goal is to continue to expand our economy so that every man who wants to work can have a job without employment.

on the higher road we have been driving.

And not to take the sharp detour to the left, which we were dead in.

That's the way it is in America.

You like that?

Yes.

Yes, I sure do.

Take the road instead of the turn to the left.

A higher road.

Responsibility.

Take the...

No, no.

No, you see my point.

You've got to say something like that.

If they don't be... That's the low road, which has to do with campaigning.

Well... Take the straight road that we've been traveling rather than during the last... Straight road.

Yeah.

I think that's what it was.

The choice is not between standing still

I think the Harris line, however, if I do this, if I do the left here, I'm not going to put it there.

I think that other one's better than here.

The Harris line.

I do, too.

Yes.

Of course, as Colson said last night, I told him, I thought I could do it.

Well, I think we had Harris before.

You know, that's what gets him off of Kennedy.

Harris, in some ways, is good, in some ways, isn't.

But the point is, he's got ideas.

And, frankly, Kennedy's never, you know, this lesson, you're just cutting him off.

You're just always cutting him off.

You're a good one, cutting him off.

Well, what would you say then?

Years ago, we had a road that moved us forward, did not take the sharpie to our little life.

High prices and so forth.

High, uh, business.

Just stay on the road you've been traveling.

You might put it high enough now.

Stand the rope that moves us forward.

It is moving us forward, rather than veering off to the left.

And not pick the sharp detour to the left.

Stay in the air, just moving us forward.

Stay on the rope, just moving us forward.

Not pick it.

I think I've got to say I think you can say that there, but then as you go into it, you don't have to spell out what our approach is.

They preach the new politics and practice the old politics.

Yeah.

uh... uh...

He hasn't been.

That's a better way to put it.

It is wrong for a man who works to support his children to be required to pay more taxes to support the children of his neighbor who refuses to work.

That's for us all.

That's what I put it for you.

While we're talking about wealth, let's quit treating, here's my word, the older, tired people in this country like welfare.

They have worked hard all their lives to live in America.

They haven't asked for a hand on it.

What they ask for is what they have earned in retirement.

I think that's a decent way to get that in there.

Don't you think so?

I got that from that new guy who was their counsel for the retired persons.

He said, if you could just say at some time,

They want to put all the welfare on veterans.

They want to treat the welfare of the veterans.

And they're looking at it all the same, just as a bunch of goddamn people that need handouts.

Well, the old folks don't want to be treated like these loafers.

Would you like that, or do you?

Yes, I do.

You know, you had a great line, which they're using in the advertising, in your old folks' speech.

maybe fits there, about not treating them as a burden, but rather as an asset.

Because it doesn't fit there that you're talking about the money.

Because that gets it, it goes beyond that.

Peace at the price of humiliation for America.

Who ever sought peace

let me let me say

they went beyond that and it didn't hurt them but i think it hurts us where it doesn't hurt them they get away with stuff we can but because they did name calls they and they went too far but they got away with it

I think you've got to kick him when he's down.

You've got to make sure he stays down.

Try to keep him becoming respectable.

We must not make him a respectable candidate.

Basically, Bob, we must not have him be thought of as a respectable, serious candidate for president.

That's all it is going to be.

Those are the only three points where I think he's going to take on.

I don't think so.

I think at some point he got it set up as early on as it was.

I don't think, also it's a little bit tricky to say.

there and sought to say that, well, there are those who say this.

Everybody knows who he is.

I think this line that they briefed as a politics of practice, the oldest politics of all, and every voter has his price, $1,000 a person, that line is saying, yeah, don't you agree?

Yeah.

I don't think it's a clause line.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't,

This time it's $1,000 a person or something.

I mean, the old politics doesn't say that the price is $1,000 a person.

The old politics, the price was $1 a person.

The person has his price, but now they've raised it to $1,000 a person or something.

It doesn't sound good trying to qualify.

You see, every time you start to qualify, that's a trouble.

That's what you're trying to do.

That's right.

I've taken the stuff that I've written.

We have about 150 words, and the package has got to get down.

It's got to get down.

He's incidentally going to send you up some words in case you want them on the basis that the labor plane, he says they've come up with a good plane.

They've not come up with as good a plane as we would have liked.

They've got all the bad out of them.

left out right to work and left out you differential.

But we haven't gotten in as strongly.

And you might want to read out a little in the speech.

The only difference.

Is it ever?

Is it they say?

Is it they raise the price?

Is it the God's coming?

Is it they raise the price?

It's not about who's the person.

That's the way.

Yeah.

But don't you have to say our opponents.

Yeah.

Is that positive?

No.

That's right.

Christ is running from the wall.

And incidentally, if we are all that far apart on some of these things, let's say, the best population of that being, they've been waiting constantly to come back.

Please don't mention those names.

They're just afraid that it's going to be a gas house gang.

Smash a room, let's say.

That doesn't sound to me, though, when you ask me.

It doesn't sound to you?

It's great.

No.

And that's the thing, I think, that we ought to be concerned about, is that we not do that.

I don't think there's any danger.

It basically sounds strong and honest.

See, there's the other thing.

I've got to be a little candid here.

That's right.

A little honest.

That's right.

Now, the main thing is, is it taking you seriously?

That's the real question, you see.

No, I don't think it does.

I talked to David a little last week.

He said, well, you've got to have the more the people.

In fact, there is a choice here.

It isn't just confidence.

You see, there is the thing where I don't agree with Henry and all the liberals, Bob.

It's very interesting how it shakes out all the liberals, Price, Henry, and suddenly say, well, the issue

They say the issue is competence.

It isn't radicalism.

Now, the point is, competence will get some of the lips, right?

It'll cool some of the ardor of the media, right?

But in terms of how people vote, really, in terms of how people vote, they can say all they want.

What Goldwater was for, didn't you think?

I mean, in fact, when you really come down to it, what was the thing that haunted him all through his campaign the most?

That one statement?

Extreme.

Extreme for the right.

That was what killed him, right?

It wasn't the fact that, well, and then added on to that was that the media says, oh, Jesus Christ, this guy's a psychopath.

Yeah.

No.

How do we know?

They change all their minds.

They say one thing, one thing, and one thing, another thing.

I mean, a lot of our guys, they're just like that.

The lids are ripping him on that on their own, and let him go ahead.

That's fine.

That bothers him, and it's a good line for him to use, and it is helpful to us.

Anything that you turn down is helpful to us, but I think you're right.

It isn't the key.

What did Henry do?

Henry is doing a good job.

You should have heard Julie last night.

The thing about both Henry and Conklin is they don't want to be with Conklin, so they don't want to be with Conklin.

I think I will have you come tonight in a minute or two.

Because politics will come in a minute.

And you have to qualify to keep Henry from being

Have more, too.

It tends to downgrade those positions.

Or do you think it's better just to have Haig and Henry?

Haig won't speak up.

Haig would speak up if Henry weren't there.

Haig's good with Rogers.

Yes, that's the point.

There's some advantage to having Haig there to build him, build his relation with Rogers and to position him.

Was there anybody else that we could have?

Because Haig handles Bill.

Anybody else that we could have?

I don't have five.

Too bad.

Not a bad idea at all to have Ziegler.

Let him get a build in.

He ought to know what's going on.

He's going to have to play off this stuff.

I don't think Rockets would be worried about Ziegler again.

I'll write the others mainly because I want them to get the other three of us.

I'll look for having the others here and I'm heading here because I want, you're going to have to handle these polls and so forth and I want you to get the guidance and listen.

And because everything we do now is both with public, with PR and political significance, which is more important or as important as assumptions.

Thank you.

I've got to have Sunday and Monday totally by myself because I'm going to finish the speech.

He was going to take his family out right from Miami rather than Hawaii.

I'll see him in California.

Right there.

I'll say it, and then he leaves.

Oh, no, no, no, I'm wrong.

He doesn't leave until after he goes from here to Hawaii.

Yeah, that's right.

Then he doesn't leave until after he leaves.

following the idea of having of having you and a and say there's the the thing is that it will also it will certainly mean that rogers won't be at henry's throat all the time in my presence the only thing is mother thank you henry will be tired uptight

He isn't quite as bad in a larger group as he or I think I know.

He's awfully bad in his small group, terribly.

I mean, what I just mean with him and Roger's getting is just something like a referee of heaven.

He won't go out of there.

There's no point in getting to this.

There's no need to get into this going on.

All right.

Now, with regard to that, this was my own time.

He said to do the dinner at 7.30.

I thought we ought to do that at 8.

To give him an hour with you first.

But maybe you don't need it.

No, let's do the dinner so we can all finish.

Well, then if you have to, you can talk to Henry after dinner, after the people go.

I don't know why I

Well, a half hour ago, I ate with him anyway.

Okay.

And after dinner, I made my tea.

Before he goes to bed, I'll say, I don't really need you a lot about that.

I don't know what else happened.

Nothing.

Except he'll tell us about you.

Yeah.