Nixon, Haldeman & Camp David Operator on 1972 Presidential Campaign

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I finished the, uh, started, I finished Eder and now I've got the International one.

But I also finished the cancer now.

Good.

I wanted to tell you on the web, there wasn't much to do that, to put down as a notation that Eder did a very good job on that.

Good.

Eder has turned out to be, in some cases, he turns out to be as dependable a man as we've got, and also

more flared than some of the others.

I think the reason is he sits around and studies the way I talk and what I say and so forth, and that's a way of getting it in.

But it wasn't, because I know he did this on one other occasion.

I don't remember when it was, but he did a hell of a good job.

But just mark it down.

He did one hell of a good job.

He got in the idea of the international thing exactly like I did.

I'd have to make about five or six little word changes, which anybody would have to make.

But I was very pleased with it.

It's done.

The other thing I was thinking was that I would like to see a statement for that museum setting forth the business that Eisenhower suggested and how it was developed and so forth to drop it off so that I don't have to say a hell of a lot.

That's the plan.

Well, they don't have one.

Isn't there a statement in there?

No.

Okay.

Do you understand?

I'm not particularly interested in seeing the statement.

I mean, I don't really have to, provided it's done enough.

That's the kind of thing that can be gray.

And with maybe a quote in it, they could put one, when I say quote, find one good line that they submit to me.

What they did at the, at Laredo was excellent.

Just that quick one day statement, and Ehrlichman picked up the thing.

He said, here's the lead, the hard news out of this is that we're doing this.

There may not be a hard news for this, that I realize.

If not, that's just fine.

It doesn't matter if there is the hard news thing.

press something in advance.

You know, it's an interesting thing about the press.

Put yourself in the position of the press.

You have a hundred poor bastards going along.

They've got to get in something.

And most of them don't.

I mean, a few of them are ideologues, but most of them don't give a shit.

They just want to get the story written, file, and start to drink it.

That's right.

That's really the truth.

Sure it is.

Now, so if you give them something, you make them happy as clams.

That's why we used to get excerpts of it.

We didn't do that for any other purpose.

The problem with excerpts is you're locked with them.

You've got to keep honest, or somebody hears you do, you don't hear.

Gotcha.

Well, they used to give us all the news.

But my point is, here you have a state, it's got a presidential statement, let her go.

But I mark for either, you don't need to tell them, and so forth.

But that was one hell of a good job, a hell of a good job.

Satmar did a very good job with international economics, too.

It would be a, to lose her to speech, I mean, as it turned into this, but it'll be good for the financial, I mean, it's a lot of, you know, really, you know, a row on a lap, but it's purely a bunch of cliches.

But hell, when Schultz is going to make a hard-nosed speech about it somewhere, you'll make the news.

everybody will be all excited and disturbed about their either one way or the other related if they get good for us and disturbing it's bad and doesn't make all god damn but a difference because nobody knows what it's all about or care i don't think about it i don't know anything about it they really don't know sir horrific i sure don't know

He's just like everybody else.

He changes the most important speech you're going to make in the campaign.

But two years ago, Conley would have told you, don't worry about the international economic speech when he began.

Just before he would have told you that.

And you get absorbed in it.

You get obsessed with it.

It's the biggest thing.

Because it's terribly interesting if you're in it.

Anything that you get into, it's fascinating.

Of course, it does involve huge amounts

It's significant as hell.

People don't know it.

But we've got those two done.

And we've got a pattern here which I'm beginning to like now.

It's made to order very early.

Because everything likes to get out something that is really sound and responsible.

And then he's the one that pedals it, too.

I mean, you know, like he works the press room on the plane and he gets some local people and bullshits on it.

Right.

I don't think we have to make many excuses, but no, man, it just won't atone.

No, if it ever rages, then what the hell do you think you were doing?

That's why you think you're right to speak.

That's what I'm concerned about all day long.

You know what I mean?

I was pleased.

It's good to get those two out of the way.

Now I have to work on the middle, which is the harder.

And we have a problem in California in the demonstrator thing, which makes it very difficult.

While we were going to build a crowd in San Francisco at the hotel when we arrived, we can't do it.

And I've been going over that today.

The problem being that there is a major demonstration planned, and it's a violent demonstration.

They plan to try and forcibly prohibit the people from getting to the luncheon.

And then they plan to forcibly pivot you from getting to the luncheon and to stone your car and, you know, a lot of stuff.

Who are these people?

It's the super, you know, yippy type.

What are we going to hang the governor on?

We already had.

Did you hear what happened?

About the thing in Los Angeles?

Yeah.

See, that sets the groundwork orange now.

I didn't see it, though, in the presser.

It was in the paper.

There was a box in the paper.

Oh, the tab.

reported, just as a straight-wire story, that they had ordered them to stop using the phones.

Well, that's fine.

It was on the radio heavily yesterday.

Was it?

On the newscast, yeah.

And— Well, that's—that has to let me say, don't drink the crowds.

We're not going to be demonstrations.

We're not.

I think I should just go right in there and get the Secret Service to— Well, what we're doing instead is we're playing the threat game there, and the yippy game.

Well, we're saying that there have been threats.

And the San Francisco police are fully cooperative.

They're very rough.

Are they police anyway?

And you can't fool with them.

They're not the kind we can... Will the mayor back him?

Yes.

He didn't have a career.

The mayor will on this one.

And the police, what they have decreed is that there is to be nobody allowed within a block of the hotel because of this demonstration threat.

And Dave Packard is very strong on not trying to turn any of our crowd out.

And what I am going to try to do is we've got it set for all these events that we're going to have a group of young people in the next room that'll be, you know, the youth for Nixon types that'll be allowed into the dinners.

I noticed you had a couple hundred in the yard, right?

And there'll be some, the same thing in L.A. and the same thing in San Francisco.

And what we'll do is those kids will have tickets, so they'll get through the police line and into the hotel.

And just before you arrive, we'll run them out to the front of the hotel, and they can hook it up when you pull up.

and a few hundred at the hotel entrance, wildly enthusiastic.

They're going to look and sound as good as if we'd had a big rally there.

We can't stage a people thing.

We can do the BART thing on an unannounced basis and probably get people there.

And it may work awfully well.

What is the BART thing?

It's the Area Rapid Transit.

The Area Rapid Transit has just started.

What do I do then?

Take a ride on it and we drop a statement on it.

What do I do?

You land at Oakland Airport, and you do that.

And I go to San Francisco that way?

You do.

Don't take it to San Francisco.

Apparently, it doesn't run underneath yet.

But it will take you part of the way in Oakland, and then you get out and get on your car and go the rest of the way into the hotel.

and it takes some attention away from just the luncheon in San Francisco.

It does something that's of enormous interest to the local people.

Well, we did the damn thing, didn't we?

We did some of it.

And we're doing others, and it ties to our, you know, the urban transit program type stuff and all that.

So it's a good thing to tie to.

Sure, a sentence goes in that statement, and credit others who have worked on it.

Don't just act as if we did it all, you know what I mean?

Yeah, just so that, so that you can point to that.

People in California voted the bonds.

Good.

Same thing that, tell anything, of course, they, that's where the telephony was to stage the anti-demonstration of the century class, and that we can cope with.

We've done it.

Where do they get these, get these bonds?

They, it's the same group that hit us in San Jose, isn't it?

Same kind of people.

Yeah, same kind of people.

They're violent.

They're based in San Francisco.

Are they students?

Mostly non-students.

They work the students.

They use the students.

They foment the students.

Are they strong?

I mean, are they dopey?

They were.

I don't know if they still are or not.

They probably are.

They're on that dope culture probably the same way.

Okay.

What do you think Montgomery's left to do at the port?

I'm not sure he has any control, I don't know if he is.

Maybe just to disrupt your, you know, just so you don't get a free ride.

Why didn't they go to Texas?

I just, that totally baffled me, why they didn't have the Mexicans, because they were helping get by a batch of demonstrators.

This was not the trial heat thing, really.

It was the other thing.

Just we asked approval of robots just to get a space there.

Approval was 32, disapproved 19, and 49 no opinion, which is what you'd expect.

They don't know that you have .

That's right.

I'm surprised that you have a 50% with an opinion.

Then we said, do you approve or disapprove?

Do you think the sale of the wheat to Russia was a good thing for the US, the Russian wheat deal?

59% yes, 18% no, and 23% don't know.

So you've got no disaffection with the grain deal per se.

Then putting it in a different way, will a sale of U.S. wheat be helpful to American farmers, harmful or won't make any difference?

Helpful, 57%.

Harmful, 9%.

No difference, 18%.

And no opinion, 16%.

Then charges have been made.

Some big grain exporters had advanced inside information with government sources not available to farmers, allegedly allowed the exporters to make excess profits at the farmer's expense.

Do you think this charge is true or untrue?

36 true, 18 untrue, 46 don't know.

Most of them think it's true.

Not most of them, but more think it's true than untrue.

Those are the ones that have the opinion.

Right.

Then, the FBI has been ordered to investigate the sale and see if there's any wrongdoing.

Do you think such an investigation should or should not be conducted?

79, yes.

10, no.

Obviously, everybody says, yeah, you should investigate it.

Then, if it's proven that advanced inside information was leaked to big grain exporters, do you think this will make you less likely to vote for President Nixon or won't it have any effect on your vote?

17, less likely.

71, no effect.

And that's putting it in its worst possible terms.

You're forcing them to look at it

say it's been charged it was done it's being investigated if it's proven that it was done is that going to you didn't ask your question do you think president nixon had anything to do with it if we had they'd say no i mean you can tell that from from other things we've got that on the water gate for instance which would be the same kind of thing

It's quite similar to Watergate.

On Watergate, we said more or less likely to vote, remember, and it was 23 said less likely, and 68 said it would have no effect.

That's a little more than you may have here, too.

And that, again, it's who are those people that said less likely.

That's right.

Very likely to be in McGovern's.

That's right.

29.

It will be.

It really is.

Sure.

I'm sure it will be.

I don't have that breakdown.

I'll get it tomorrow.

It's good to know from our own standpoint, though, that the bullshit on the Luzon Island is...

I thought it was.

That's what I want to know, frankly.

Right.

I just didn't realize it.

I've got the rundown, too, on our, you know, on our Wave 3 pole.

Yeah.

Like, you have the trial heat stuff, but I've got the...

All the issue questions and stuff, most of it isn't very interesting.

Nothing different.

And I don't have the data on the last one to compare it to, because we just got these over the phone a while ago.

But they still rank Vietnam as the big issue, which is good, because we got the approval of Vietnam as 60-33.

Yeah.

Can't help it.

You've got one-third disapproved.

And particularly, particularly with that zero casualties.

Do you notice an interesting thing is that when I mentioned that to them, that out there in Texas, and in the White House, they clapped.

They couldn't apply.

And they knew it.

It was a thing that hit right away.

On approval of economic conditions, it's 49-39, which is not bad.

Not a negative issue for us.

It's getting better.

Approve or disapprove of Agnew's?

Interesting.

Approve 51, disapprove 29.

Don't know 20.

So he's at least not... 51.

51, 29 approval.

Which means if he doesn't have as high as we have... No, yours is 62, 31.

Oh, just straight approval.

We asked the approval question.

That was a case... Now this is a pen...

Asking for personal energy.

Personal energy, not telephone.

So that's just, that's an unbelievably high approval.

$62.35.

About really as high as we've ever been.

Except that one flip of $68 after another third.

But that was in the first year.

Then, I see, they get a lot of this stuff on how it's,

How's the president, let's see, how well the president's handling problems?

On the plus side, on Vietnam, on Vietnam it's 69-31 plus, you know, positive versus negative handling.

Inflation, 53-43.

Unemployment, 53-42.

Taxes, 51-43.

Now that's a hell of a good positive when you figure that you are the guy in office and

With the dissatisfaction on taxes to come out that way is amazing, I think.

National Defense, 73-20.

And there's a Super Bowl.

Crime, 52-43.

We've been negative on crime up until recently.

Drugs, 46-48.

We're still a little bit negative on drugs.

This week ought to help.

Racial problems, 63-33.

There is your racial point.

When they say racial problems to most people, that means keeping the blacks in their places.

They thought they screwed you with that.

It was the best campaign commercial we could have had.

Healthcare, 65-29.

I don't know why that matters, but it's a big plus for us.

Fussing, 53-36.

The point is there, we're positive on all of them.

We weren't in the last wave.

I can't remember what they were.

But in the last wave, we were negative on most of them, as you'd expect to be.

In this kind of a question, you expect to be negative, because they're problem areas.

Ray McGovern's on the same thing.

He was positive on all of them before, because there was a very high.

It was about 40% don't know.

And then the other side was positive.

Now his don't knows have gone way down.

It's interesting.

In Vietnam, he's 35, 43, negative.

Still not enough?

No, but it's... See, you've got 78, but still 22 don't know.

All right.

Inflation, 32, 41, negative.

Unemployment, 39, 35, positive.

Taxes, 36, 40, negative.

National Defense, 35, 40, negative.

Crime, 40, 32, positive.

We've got some work to do on him on these things.

That's right.

We'll keep hammering him.

Right.

Crime, 40, 32, positive.

And that's one we've got to turn around.

And drugs, 38, 33, positive.

What the hell is our friend, the client, he's doing on that?

That's the kind of thing you've got to do.

Right.

Racial problems, 40, 33, positive.

Health care, 48, 23, positive.

Bussing, 34, 35, negative.

If there's a big 30, don't know him on busing.

We've got to get him known on busing.

Although that doesn't really matter because where busing matters, it is known.

And that's where we're getting a dang good pickup where it matters.

So we've got to look at that in terms of the local areas.

They asked on economic, which concerns you the most, unemployment, inflation, or taxes?

Unemployment, 19.

Inflation, 45.

Taxes, 35.

I don't believe that.

I don't know that they know that climate is not an issue, which is good.

Do you think Nixon or Walt McGovern will do the most over the next four years to reform our national tax structure?

Nixon 45, McGovern 34.

So even with all his talk of tax reform, he's still...

But we'll have something to say on that.

Yep.

Amnesty.

There's been some discussion lately of amnesty.

That is forgiveness for those who have left the country or gone to prison to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.

Which of the...

I would have put going to prison.

That's the question.

They put it in to get it down as far as we could get it.

Which of the courses of action on this card would you most like to see the government take?

Number one, grant unconditional amnesty now.

Number two, grant unconditional amnesty after the war is over and our prisoners of war have been returned.

Number three, grant amnesty after the war is over but require an appropriate penalty.

Number four, not grant amnesty at all.

And number five, don't know.

Okay.

Unconditional now, 13%.

Unconditional after the war is over and POW is returned, 11%.

So that's 24.

Amnesty after the war is over with a penalty, 26%.

No amnesty at all, 37%.

And don't know 13.

So it's 24 to 63.

Amnesty.

Now we say, do you think this policy should apply both to those who have avoided the draft and to those who were in the service but deserted, or that they should be treated differently?

Sixty-one percent apply to both.

Thirty-four are treated differently.

In other words, they regard the draft dodger as the same as a deserter.

That's what I do.

Which of these positions do you think Nixon favors?

Okay.

Four percent think you favor amnesty now, unconditional.

Fourteen.

think you favor unconditional after the war is over.

23, think you want a penalty.

30, think you don't want amnesty at all.

29, don't know.

And then you ask, what does McGovern favor?

34, say unconditional now.

21, unconditional after the war.

7, with a penalty.

And 5, with no amnesty.

So he's got 55 to 12 for amnesty.

But the point is, Bob, how does he?

the Catholics gained a little.

But then he'll turn off some of his kids, won't he?

Yep.

Here's Mitchell's constant point.

The contest between two men.

And this other guy, he wobbles around too much.

That's very good point.

That's untouched.

Yep.

Here's an interesting question.

Regardless of who you are for personally,

Who do you think will win the election for president this fall?

83% Nixon, 8% McGovern.

9 don't know.

There is much doubt in people's minds.

Do you agree or disagree with Senator McGovern's decision to replace Senator Eagleton with Sergeant Shriver on the Democratic ticket?

41 agree, 43 disagree.

16 don't know.

Will this incident make you more likely to vote for McGovern or more likely to vote for Nixon or make no difference?

Five, more likely to vote for McGovern.

Sixteen, more likely to vote for Nixon.

Seventy-three only.

And on the Watergate, awareness now is 70% versus 29 to 30 unaware.

Who do you think was responsible 13%?

I think the Republicans, 10% Nixon's campaign committee, 21% other, 52% don't know.

Do you think President Nixon knew anything about it before it occurred?

10% yes, 58% no, 32% don't know.

Will this make you more likely to vote from a governor for Nixon?

7% more likely from a governor, 4% more likely for Nixon.

76% won't make any difference.

13% don't know.

That's the thing about that.

It's a killer.

is don't care.

How about our Watergate attorney, Mark, the doctor?

Yeah, the problem there is the police don't want to put it out and don't think he should.

He now thinks maybe they're right in that he's been broken into four times.

And they haven't put the others out.

They haven't, they can't make a case yet for going for your records.

Now, if, the thing is, though, when we work the files, we can go back to the FBI side of it.

If we can

If they can get, if they have prints, and we can track down who it is, we might find something interesting.

The FBI would work on that.

I would take the prints and I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd,

Apparently he's had all doctors' offices, I guess, get a lot of break-ins, and he's had some and hasn't taken precautions or something.

All right.

I'll let it go.

I want to talk to the Bureau tomorrow and see what happens.

Ms. Woods, please.

Ms. Woods.

You know, it might be good for you to tell Lori that.

I've always handled that.

I agree with that.

I don't want to worry about it.

Demonstrate.

That's right.

They get rough.

It's going to help us.

It's possible.

If somebody gets killed, it's the main thing.

If somebody gets killed, it'll help us.

Well, some fire people get killed.

We want it to happen.

Oh, yeah.

Go on, go on.

They said theirs is so damn rough that it's...

And it ain't our police.

Especially in San Francisco, it's clearly, you know, that's a Democratic mayor.

L.A.'s a Democratic mayor, supposedly, not in part, so they're supposed to.

Well, good.

Nixon, Haldeman & Camp David Operator on 1972 Presidential Campaign

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