Nixon phone call with an unidentified caller on Second term reorganization

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We're at a profile being dictated at 8.30 on Saturday morning, November the 8th.

Day-to-day, you know, conversations like the one with Bill Rogers.

The most interesting development was the reaction of both metal layers and they both said that they liked it, that they've earned to work with it.

that they considered him to be a very good man.

In the main, when I gave them an opportunity to introduce him, I realized that Henry was hard to work with during the program.

A sharp contrast to Rogers.

Henry has mistreated Peterson.

Larry, which badly is he, has mistreated Rogers.

Of course, Rogers is the treatment that's more in the public mind.

Actually, it would have to be said that

Henry and Rogers have had more set-tos than has been the case with Peterson and Blair, very apparently.

In terms of complicity seeking and the rest, he has put down Peterson and Blair just as much as he has put down Rogers.

What really comes out of all this is that Rogers doesn't seem to have the capability to

about someone who simply may have a bit more on the ball and somewhat more knowledge on some critical issues than he has.

I always realized that on those scores, that generates a massive, not only massive intelligence, but it's years of background

we are not his equal great.

On the other hand, we all have an unconfidence in ourselves that we don't allow this factor to blind us to Henry's enormous confidence.

What's up to, of course, is that the situation with Rogers and Henry is impossible.

But the one with Peterson and Laird

don't have an ego problem, apparently he was breaking his, uh, Rodgers' asshole with gold as his share of ego.

I think there's gonna come a pretty terrible tragedy that, uh, Rodgers feels this way about Henry.

Because, uh, Rodgers has had one of the most stimulating careers of anybody in our public life.

It's, uh, the, uh, personality which, uh,

gets him great notices on the press and on television.

He has charm, which exceeds anything that Henry could ever hope to have.

Henry has to make it all on what he does on his own.

Rogers has to, Rogers has to smile at somebody.

I think he's the greatest guy to watch.

The fact that Henry's activities are denied

Rogers and deny Rogers the front and center position on all issues.

He said it in an unbelievable way.

This is why Rogers tends to see what Henry wants and then deliberately comes up on the other side of almost every issue.

He said that he honestly believes that

The department has been downgraded for Henry.

The Secretary of State has been downgraded.

I understand this is true, but this is something the way I work with the Secretary of State.

In a sense, it was true in a relationship we had with Dulles and Eisenhower.

There wasn't any question that Dulles was making the big decisions.

The Secretary of State wasn't into the play that he could.

Period.

The ghost was, I don't know what the word was, Secretary of State, whereas Henry is not.

But the same principles apply to the State Department bureaucracy, because they don't care anymore for a Secretary of State than they do for a President.

They simply want to see that the President gets the credit for all the great ideas, and no blame for any of the State of the State of America.

Mm-hmm.

I think frankly he would be a better defense secretary than Elliott, because he's a tough, more efficient than Elliott was, and also a better AEW secretary.

Yeah, we need both him

by all odds would be a far less effective AGW secretary than, uh, uh, uh, whereas, uh, the difference is narrow as far as the event is concerned.

When I speak of being better, I'm not referring to general all-around capabilities, PR, et cetera, but really, uh,

accomplishing the goal that we want to accomplish in reorganization.

Cutting budgets.

The difficulty with Elliot is that while he will loyally carry on in his direction, it is given to him.

He is simply a member of the establishment.

And he can't bear to think of moving some of these establishment people out and

If we had left him in AGW, of course, he couldn't possibly bear cutting some of the really bad establishing programs like education or higher education.

On the other hand, he was just as well educated as... Oh, yes, just as bright.

...as he put it, doesn't really give a damn about the heat that he takes.

He'll do the right thing, and then he will go off with that...

I think it's going to be a very good double plug.

This report on meaning is extremely interesting.

And he said that makes two of us.

So there was a subtle change in his attitude toward the president.

He said that he started, he was referring to us over there as the boss, something that he had not done previously.

All the labor here.

But George thought that he would take one.

I spoke candidly to George about the Peterson problem.

Funny enough, in fact, I thought Peterson was brilliant.

I just had an uneasy feeling that, uh, that the Percy drive-off coming off of Peterson would not be, would not have as versatile as it was present for the Mike Peter Percy.

And when Frank Hassan was due, it was where Peterson's order went very well.

I don't know that he will pay for the jobs that we have offered, but it is a very good concept.

He is admirably fitted for it.

I think, actually, he will be happier there and will make a greater contribution there on the stage.

I'm not in the, uh, in the Commerce Department in a second position, since they were my first position.

They've continued to nag.

I've had a long talk with them and close to me, and they've asked a number of arguments as to why they should stay.

One argument makes a great deal of sense.

We do need to close the case again.

And I'm sold on that, but if I just can't get it some other way,

The man is capable of being closer to the one who doesn't have the vulnerability that he has.

It's all, uh...

It is good.

We'll record the comments there on the next day.

We'll see you at the next day.

This is the second thing that he dictated to me in November, was that we ought to let Colson go.

He realizes that he is an enormously able politician, but he feels that if we can get somebody else to build a slot, and also that Colson staying there would be like a lightning rod attracting all of the Senate committees.

The new Congress is going to be very testing.

They're going to be looking for any old, whatever, any former White House employees, not the earliest to see a target as a present White House employee.

He can't bring himself to say this.

He, of course, even says that if he stays in the White House, he has executive privilege.

John Erlich finds out that executive privilege wore very thin.

The Peter Feinig case, that we all lost our lives to Michael Erlich, where we ended with Peter Coe.

Roger, the woman, descended on us.

And he met with Colson McCall, who tried to observe executive privilege.

Bob and John Erlich.

The problem that I saw with it is that

First, we had to keep the presidency as clean as possible.

I found out how Eisenhower had even gotten rid of his top finance money raiser, Harold Talbot, Secretary of the Air Force.

Talbot, with no bad intention, whatever, had to write some letters on his own stationery with regard to some of his business matters.

It was hard.

He later died with a heart attack, or I think committed suicide.

I don't recall the record of all the treading that I was talking about in my time off.

Yeah, it's that episode.

This is the only thing that approaches anything like the ghost episode.

Now, I forget, but I start calling for Augusta.

Or, perhaps it was from the...

Yes, my name is Augusta, or...

I don't know.

Uh...

Ask me if I could...

I thought I would have to talk to Sharon.

I would have to talk to Sharon.

A big, big jar of... three or four of it at a time.

I took it.

I looked at that messy eye and stared at his.

And then finally said, well, Mr. President, why this?

And I said, I could not say that I was speaking for the President all the life that I was.

I said that most of the people...

Mm-hmm.

It wasn't a question of whether they were right on their mission.

because both were probably pretty close to right on their issues, including McCartney on his charges of communist militias and the State Department.

I suppose that when an individual becomes the issue rather than the issue itself, then he has lozenges with the Chief Executive.

And the problem with the case with Colston

He's probably right on the issue.

I think he was actually playing on Watergate.

Is he ready?

Most people, he has become the issue.

He had commentary that an individual can be really better aligned and liable, and that becomes a spectacle.

In politics, I hear that it's the case.

Of course, John Early can go further than most.

We've lost half the staff.

At this time, he had his wedding, and he was asked by the parents of Billy McGraw to entertain his approach because of the young question.

The parents of the young man asked him to clean the record, but to the end of the song, to tell him, however, the Buck's confirmation, the Hickel's confirmation, the Hiney's confirmation, and so on.

They would have been in a bad rat.

But then again, it was a real joy.

Because I could stop and get some of the presents that he brought to me.

As a matter of fact, I suggested a wall copy of the pictures.

Probably ten from that area.

And then I made a small office in the outskirts of the state.

And tomorrow,

I was over and I saw he had to lie and I got over and I said, let's go on the steps.

I've been in prison now.

I was able to do it.

He's always going to have us in danger all the time.

Thanks for watching.

Nixon phone call with an unidentified caller on Second term reorganization

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 18, 1972

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