Nixon, Haldeman & Harlow on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Democratic Party

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Right.

Did you get your hair cut?

Yeah.

No, I didn't want to hurt you.

I'm sorry, I thought you'd left, but they told me you were still here.

When are you leaving?

Tomorrow.

Saturday.

Oh, you're not going there or something?

You're almost there.

We'll discuss it another time.

Good job.

I thought that it would be interesting to have Bob, but for you to run over, for the purpose of this, to have a little talk, right, about this law in the woods that they're having on Democratic Party.

I'll give a rundown.

I'll give a personal rundown on some of the options.

I don't have the thing here to tell you.

We have a reporter.

Quite a little stuff running on the news we use.

Beyond that, we have quite a little of news we didn't use this morning.

He really cut loose, and he said that these sons of bitches were out to get him, that they were out to destroy the country, and that he was going to back any Democratic campaign.

He wasn't going to attend a convention.

He would ask whether he could attend a convention or not, but what they will be upset about when they find out is that

He put one on there, and then he referred me to Clark Clifford.

He said, the Austin Library of Dedication says the motherfucker kept hiding behind the tree so I wouldn't see him.

He says, I know who my friends are, who they are.

And a very strong point that there was no way that he was going to direct any of these operations and break the convention.

Strong language, you know, to be honest with us.

The entry to 10, of course, is going to be a lot.

He is very upset with

I'm free.

The whole thing, particularly the Fulbright, I'm free.

I'm going to testify.

Under no circumstances will he back a peace candidate.

He says neither will Scrooge Jackson.

I mean, they're a Dove candidate.

There are no circumstances.

He said that the convention, the way it's set up, is going to nominate a Dove candidate.

In this case, it will have to be a regular Democratic candidate of some kind.

He hears talk about it, and we'll work it out.

Mr. Rinaldi?

I'm just calling to tell you that I, uh, want to follow the, uh, the way that you, uh, you're, uh, you're, uh, you're, uh, you're, uh, you're, uh, you're, uh, you're, uh, you're, uh,

particularly about our high school children.

It's really a very outstanding thing to do it, and I like to do it under greater difficulty than some people have, but it's very encouraging for us in terms of the future.

And I noticed that you're teaching U.S. history and other courses of that sort, is that correct?

I was a history major years ago,

the best of you could offer and give perspective and also I think it's particularly important that you agree with me that there's a lot of players in high school that they can get a sense of what the other side of the model can do.

I think there's certainly a chance that you can do that.

Well, I just want you to know that I can find work to keep doing.

Men like yourselves, we're grateful to all good teachers, such as the teacher who's a great hand in the camel, right in there, who's done this kind of job.

It's really very helpful.

And best to your students, will you?

Tell them to study that history hard.

It's the best training for anything.

Okay.

Oh, he's dying.

He's dying of muscular dystrophy.

Anyway, the, of course, I've talked to a couple of my KBA friends, of course, I guess.

I mean, there's some patients out there who have difficulty, none of them.

They came out with that thing out there in Austin, Washington, D.C.

They're probably wasting gas.

Oh, many does, kind of.

Well, anyway, what about your reaction here?

The one thing that I've been worried about, you know, I've been on the road, moving around, and at least in some, excuse me, I don't know if that's what it should be, is the minority that we've been in a position of looking like we're being covered up.

I thought what you had layered against me was good.

We were all in progress.

And I recognize... Not to be classified, but...

It'll be over this week.

I'm very happy.

It's one of the sources of all these cuts.

Now there's an interesting kind of piece that starts off a lot.

There's a peace group.

There's a kind of very rising peace group.

You see some other peace guy who shows up out of the gate in peace group.

Very massive basis.

I was wondering what your thoughts were on your relationship with people like...

You see, let me say this.

Let me say this.

I think it's just as wrong.

Giver Genoa had to organize what he was going to do.

And he will have a lot of different going on if he had to.

He'll have Catholic labor.

A lot of them are going to have to have a plan.

Well, for example, the teamsters will have that.

We'll have the teamsters.

And they'll have some of the construction work.

Some of that can't be done.

Catholicism can't carry it that far.

It might be.

The Tars have...

Or can you say that again?

I know the only thing we're seeing in the South right now is the busing situation.

But even so, you know, you see that coal bill they had to see?

Yeah.

Only about 10 to 15% of the people are blaming the President on busing, but we haven't got our busing done yet.

And that's the only thing I can say.

Of course, we're doing our, we've got our best man on that, you know, that bull on the market.

He just sits on it day after day, every day, every week.

Right.

If we should do anything to support anything, maybe that's extreme.

But anything you could do, I'm afraid of that one issue.

The only thing, when I saw that some people had that decision, I figured it was the only way in the South.

And that, I don't think it would kill us, but it's going to make it closer.

White people are moving out of cities, out of Columbia, South Carolina places.

But they're getting out of suburbia.

And you're going to have the same thing happen down there.

You're going to have the same thing in the area of resegregation.

Yeah, resegregation will go on.

And I'm just afraid we can't escape once the bussing comes and describes one of our problems with people getting bussed in.

They're not going to have enough busses to do it this coming fall.

We're going to carry over in the same way we're going to have enough busses.

And I don't know what buses are trying to do.

What we've got to do is level us over with a bus that makes us money.

Right.

That's our only problem there.

Now, the President has noted that we've paid a bit, and I just read six speeches last week, and all that.

I'll do that later.

They respond.

They really do respond.

If you saw a permanent name on it, I've been telling you people this.

If you saw a permanent name in Moby, that's what I've been running into everywhere.

Well, we saw it in Moby.

Yes.

Yeah, but we also saw it in Atlantic City and in Rochester.

Rochester.

Well, I mean, there's a lot more.

It's not a rejected president.

But they respond to that flag in your lapel, and you wave it.

People respond to that flag in your lapel, and you wave it.

They like it.

There are a lot of people out there that like it.

You get the flag, wave it.

And even on the bus you're driving on, I have an interesting question.

Just kind of saying, the president, Richard Nixon, who waved the gas, they hung it.

They attended the bus.

All of them's got to be all out for busting.

For more.

And for housing.

And for every damn thing.

I wish there was something that they'd do.

But I haven't thought.

I can't.

The only difference on the president is they're not having him for the busting.

They really have nothing to do with it.

And they don't have to take the decision.

They will in the campaign.

They'll never come here to stop them.

I realize the problem.

We're coming down to this thing here.

uh, the only controlled variety in any of that certainly possible thing is, is this, uh, I don't have any time to speak about it, basically.

It's prior to the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party that nominates not just a Wallace on the left side, but what's old George going to do?

But he lost his campaign director, though, to Turner Siegel.

He fired Turner Siegel, his campaign director.

He did?

For a couple of reasons.

Turner Siegel said he was going to make the new white, the Jackie Onassis of the rednecks.

Let me tell you exactly now.

What the Wallace people are thinking.

I've talked to two reporters who've been writing to me.

I've talked to two reporters the last couple days who went, after we left there, they went down to the society and made George and his wife, saw all the George and his wife people and tell you exactly what they wanted.

and supporters around here don't want him to run for president.

They want him to be able to make a public deal with you before it's even possible.

And that's why they told that story about that deal.

I don't know if your theory is always that they want him to make a deal in order to refute you.

Well, no, I know it's not necessarily, but that's what their aim is.

And they think, seeing 64, George Wallace trying to make a deal with Dole, and he thought he'd give him a ticket, and then the world would come to be so strong, he'd be like, get me out of the way.

But in this situation, he did not even understand that he could force a deal, but he wanted to be a public figure for the purpose of ego, and to show that he has influence in the Bible.

That's exactly what the strategy is now, and it depends.

I don't know.

Well, let me say this on that one.

Harry, what do you have to do?

You watch it.

I have a brother to handle my staff.

Yeah, fine.

You watch it.

Stay out of the blunt.

There'll only be a blunt.

What do you do?

Die?

No.

I'm not going to run.

I came up to see you.

I said, I don't want to see you blunt.

I think they worked it out.

I don't want to see you blunt.

He wants to run for governor next time.

He's a nice man, a gentleman, and so forth, but he's too damn old to be in a Senate.

In this turn of the season, turn of the season, go ahead and take spot.

Turn of the season is the man's name.

Yes, that's the name.

You can't make your own.

So he made his own turn of the season.

That's your turn of the season.

Not my turn of the season.

That's right.

John, he never crossed us in anything that was important.

I just have that.

So that's one thing I want to say on that front.

You know, we've got another development, Bryce.

Bryce, another development, Western Chambers.

I don't know .

Somebody ought to raise $100,000 to pay it off and elect him.

Yeah, because you can win that.

You can win that.

Going back to this thing, Christ, we only decided, we ought to concentrate on it.

Because he said it to many other people.

He said he would not support.

He said it through proposal.

You can't support.

You were both paranoid.

You can't support.

He might be able to take Muskie, but Muskie, for God's sake, said he should come before the Senate.

Or voluntarily.

Well, no president.

I talked to Mike about that.

Mike and Molly would agree.

And I said, look, voluntarily, I said, it must not happen.

You cannot allow that to happen.

He doesn't say so.

I think the real question is keeping a very close line in the jumps.

So I was having a good relationship I had with the people I called in every day, and I was saying to them, you know, you know, just feel the fire.

Just feel it.

And it's in the mind, of course, when you talk to them.

So I was trying to keep my support back, my support back.

But Bob Bryce illustrates it.

If you come down to that, the tents went down.

They had an alternative ticket.

An alternative ticket on a whim.

Well, I think the Republicans had a chance.

It's like the Republicans were in 1912.

where the Republicans, where the Democrats were then, minority party, as we were a minority party today, where the Republicans had Teddy Roosevelt, Bill Mann, and the Cavs.

They tore each other's guts out.

And as a result, Wilson stood down.

That's the way it would be this time.

They're not going down.

The country, they got two Democrats and one Republican.

First of all, the Republicans will stay with us.

Well, if there's a conservative Democrat who wants to stay, then he's got a chance, but if he doesn't have a chance, he'll come to us.

But here's more important.

And I take Harry and Peter.

He's an honorable man, but he makes a lot of noise.

He's been to the school of Jackson, technically, because he's got problems.

Domestic.

He's been to the school of Louisville.

You take him on a foreign policy, but not on domestic.

What about others?

What about the crossover priorities?

And why can't, why cannot we get the House and Senate leadership of our parties to sit down and allow a lateral crossover now?

It really ought to be done.

I can tell you honestly that they will not give up their committee for anything.

No one will give up a thing.

Well, we have one.

We have one.

It doesn't mean that someone should pursue it a little bit more.

All right.

Don't bother.

Anyway, that is not our main concern.

We'll have to get along with the, basically, we're going to have to get along with the southern Democrats.

What we really need to do is to have a number

Not London, just not Harry Bird.

We ought to have, like they did with Eisenhower in 1952, where several of them came out for Eisenhower.

You remember that all of them came out for him, and Louisiana came out for him, and Jimmy Burns came out for him, and Harry Bird didn't.

Everybody knew who he was for.

Alan Shivers in Texas, and Shivergrass.

In Texas, we're in pretty good shape.

That's what I swear we're going to do.

I had a job.

He had a lot to lose.

And his cash was going out.

It was a lot.

He said, oh, and I said, John, how are you going to get you in there?

Work that deal out.

I said, well, I'm sure you have to do this.

I said, well, I'm just myself.

And I was talking to myself.

I had a long answer to each side of it.

They're a hell of a lot of them.

Bird Democrats, hell of a lot of them.

They, well, they just are.

It's always going to happen.

If you have enthusiasm, right, you'll be a bloody guy.

Sure.

I don't see how they can avoid that.

It would probably boil down to the battle of the giants between somebody and some survivors.

Survivors, yeah.

If they're in a practical way, they would have a better part of it.

How would you give it to them?

How do they put anybody else on the ballot?

going to those states individually.

But what about time?

There's a lot of different methods in each state.

And will they have time in July or November to get on the ballot?

Yes, you have to get on the office.

You have to get on Monday and a lot of times you have to get on Monday.

Well, they all try to attend, you know, about each other by, at least personally, they'll try to do this, try to pass, you know, by putting together a hybrid, you know, by putting together a dozen lacrosse fans and putting Jackson, you know, on the second.

In a way, it's going to be, you know, more like a legacy platform, huh?

It's going to be, it's going to be terribly difficult now because, you know,

Somebody has said that Hubert's conduct is disparaging.

This is just general question.

I saw a statement, I'm afraid I didn't read it.

It says that he is not a new spirit.

Even if he is, who will call him a new spirit?

I really think he went off on that.

I'm afraid that he went off on his own.

Did someone tell you the chances of him being a new spirit?

No.

I see him as being able to tell you not to kill him, so you can pretend you didn't kill him.

That means how did he kill him?

There is no way.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

I feel like he has a great name.

He goes, you know, I don't know if you want it.

I'm going to hand him the flag and the other piece.

It's the right of the black community to be peaceful and for people to go their own way.

But people do want security and stability and they do want peace.

But they do want a patriotism.

And they do want the honor of America to stand.

If they don't call them an alternative team, they don't want to go back to that convention and say they can't get back to the U.S. and they can't get back to the other side.

They were able to at the end, they all got together and basically the relationship stayed.

This time, the war will be as far as we're concerned.

We will, one way or another, we will end it.

One way or another.

Another question I get, and I explain it comes to challenge.

This night, they've got a lot of rockets there.

It's behind 4,000 tickets.

And they bought them.

The other night in New Orleans, I had them.

and I explained to them that it was smaller, and so forth, and why, and they all thought it.

But the question comes back to me, and Phil comes to the channel and talks to me, there's something to be done about the new amnesia situation.

I get the question back, well, okay, but why do we have sanctions against our friends when they're going to help the United States?

Well, let me say this, Harry.

I sit on a bachelor's in the State Department.

It's very weak on religion.

You know, me, I don't believe in sanctions.

What I would say is that really religion is involved in our relations with Britain.

I don't know what we can do on it.

It's a reason.

I agree completely.

And I will sort out over time.

Coming to this thing, what we have to do is to not let them get well.

They have played a dear responsibility here.

They know that we've had a whole sense of negotiation that we had with them.

and a tax facility amendment, which may be necessary, probably will be, which might appeal.

If it does, I told Mike this morning, Mike, I don't know what you told me.

I'm just trying to figure it out.

Is that what you mean?

I, of course, will have to publicly say, look, regardless of what you do, the Senate of the United States says it's not important to the United States.

that you would draw on the basis of the phase that you would draw.

It was the first one.

So if Ron Clee in Paris says, hell, oh, notice he takes winter, he says, but it was a long time.

He'd never agree.

He would retrain the draw.

That's it.

But just let me say, I don't know how it's going to come out.

One way or another, it's going to come out.

And we've had some other ones that will be.

I don't promise.

I don't know if it's going to come out.

We have got to keep that, that democratic hierarchy.

We've got to be at each other.

Is there more, I don't know, it's just too interesting to me, but I'll leave it alone.

We're in this place, we're in the community.

We're in this part.

I don't need other people to be in that position.

Yeah.

That's the main part that I haven't decided here.

We're all in this.

I just can't explain it.

I don't know.

You've got to get them to...

You know, the other thing you said a while ago about what you do about decent Democrats, of course, this is a second-tier economy.

You can't have it on the side.

You can't do any of the work.

I don't believe you can handle that.

I mean, there was no young Democrats in Louisiana and people like this.

Well, you take, you take a whole lot of heavy aid there.

Well, I don't know whether Louisiana could be had or not.

It might be, you know, if Louisiana did try to have laws, but right, with a two-way race, you could win.

Yeah.

Now, in a two-way race, what does it last?

I don't question whether it would be good.

But look, you take heavy aid there across the wall.

You've got the, uh, the first possible problem is the rate for a Democrat vote.

It's going to be the oldest son of a bitch.

You're having a race with them, aren't you?

You didn't take any of them, did you?

You realize, I mean, regardless of what they do, some of you hold them, some of you don't.

I mean, you forget about them just now.

Yeah.

I hate to say that, but they see a list.

You'll carry New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

What are you feeling?

Not that we go along with the war.

Yeah, let's suppose, for example, all Americans are out of Vietnam, or they're out of combat or on the way, you know what I mean?

Or you can say, well, the war's finished.

You don't make that announcement, so then you've got to continue.

Actually, that's a good question.

All that's important.

Well, that, of course.

That's the point.

They aren't patriotic.

And I really think that would kill them.

I think that would kill them.

The patriotism.

Deep down, that's what it's about.

That's why they talk about who comes to county, from people across the country.

Emotional things, the first time I've ever seen the publicist respond so informally to anybody stating a thing, it was simply a matter of an American boy out there who had done wrong, but an American boy fighting for his country.

How has that dropped to?

It went up like a rocket and then dropped like a rocket.

But that was the point.

It shows the people what I'm doing.

The purple box seems to drag.

I don't think that the country, other than I think the country, will have no confidence in the strength of these men.

That's a horrible situation.

As it will be, it will still be dangerous.

You know, we all get lost, despite the fact that we've got some college people who are potentially, you know, they're all regarded as so hostile to the Chinese.

There are all sorts of cultures around the world, and we've got a lot of them there.

But the more talks you have with the Soviets or the Chinese or anybody else, the more dangerous it gets, really.

You start opening the doors, and then it gets... You've got to have somebody to knock the door before you get taken.

We're going to do that.

This will remind the country of the need, I think.

We're going to do this because this will get them into it.

Patriotism and prosperity has to be the issue.

Patriotism must be from America.

That overrides the other.

You can't get most people right into it.

It's a problem because it's all about being a champion.

It's about being a part of the world.

It's the only thing that all of us out there take on immigration.

You can get them to a room, you know, in a closed room or out in the open.

You can make a speech to them, but you can tell them to come in a whole lot bigger than a cotton patch, you know, and you wave that flag at them and you can feel you're in this patriotic situation.

And the rest of that stuff is no longer there.

And it's not just the people of the South.

I mean, it's out of the people.

And that's what should be your standard.

And always is.

We should make it.

That's what everything's got to be.

And also, these rioters, these kids that are out, you know, saying, fuck you, and all the rest, they make that issue.

We want them to have their convention supporting land.

We want that.

And in the event that something does happen, you know, you want to go down as a patient.

I mean, it's a perishing thought, but you don't lose it either way.

Right.

Well, I guess, you know, six million dollars a year for six years.

Hell, no, I live for that.

It's not going to be like it is.

Mr. President, some of the things I hear you saying is aggressive leadership.

You've been told that.

What would you say on national television?

You made a speech last night, one of the 19 meetings, and I want a tape recording of that.

You said television is late, and it's big, and it's not going to be second-rate as long as I'm president.

Things like this, are you safe to come close to this on national television?

But you need to say some of those things publicly that I hear you say, oh, listen, Kevin, we're going to get to the American people.

The thing that I kind of make you talk to, I give you anecdotes about things that you say, and I quote those, and I say that, and I drop them, and I show them to you.

And that's what jerks do.

That's what gets them ready to do it.

Well, actually, I say that quite a bit in my public appearances.

I don't get to do it.

But when they're beaming in on you on television and on news conferences, you need to make sure that you give them that God bless America.

So I dare them to do that very strongly.

I mean, I see you at your best, but I know you're close to building over there.

You know, you've never lived in a place like this before.

This is because of purpose.

I'm here to ask you what I did with this.

What is this National Association for Archaeology?

Take 30 minutes.

You go ahead and shake their hands.

Yes, sir.

And what, is it just a board or something?

It's just a little one, so it must be relatively small.

It is a small group.

It's a group of, uh, 53, possibly.

These station owners from all over the country are going to be chaplaining for a minute.

So I'm at their board.

They're going to present you with this cavalcade of broadcasting equipment.

I think the pen and the compass, right?

The pen and the compass, I mean, the paper or the book.

Oh, that's great.

Well, I'll tell you this.

We've been treated with something to happen.

They don't want this war to end.

They want to kill people.

They know what they're doing.

They know very well what you're bringing.

They didn't want to get a war, either get a war or destroy it.

And they'd like to see it end in favor.

That's another thing to see.

They'd like to see people get out of the conference room to prove they were right all the time.

Now, one says it's very difficult to understand.

There are four total Republicans in all of this country.

What a miserable lot they are.

Huh?

They were right.

They were wrong.

They began to see how we'd end up.

Which one of them involved in the nomination?

The other hand.

So you've got that great, great, great person in all of this.

And, uh...

Now, this, uh, in this, uh, scuttle on this paper, yeah, in this validation of security safety, there's quite a bit of concentration.

Right?

And it's so, uh, in support, in no way, that ever, uh, can be made to be

Well, the only thing about these papers that is difficult, as a medium to this point, is that there are certain things that come across with some people.

Well, it's an old story.

Why should they do that?

And the people aren't doing the revelations.

That's the only thing.

That's right.

They're asking the right question.

Do you believe the newspaper should have the right to break the... As they classify, they say, no, do you believe the newspaper should have the right to take out the stealing?

This is going to be changing.

That's what's going to be good.

People don't like somebody to feed stuff out.

In particular, he's a horrible person.

What have you seen his presence?

He's spreading to other people.

That's the portion I'm sure of.

Well, I was just thinking, why don't you do some exploiting?

You can't get the best of both worlds.

We're going to get, we have to keep talking about it.

Every part of this is an honor.

And yet, it's hard to hear.

I want to be sure I didn't touch a set of his speech out there.

But it didn't really touch me at all.

And I can make two statements like that.

So that's what it feels like.

I've heard a lot about the New York Times.

I said, would Mike Mansfield be on?

He thought the president was releasing those goddamn letters that Mike Mansfield runs over with all the time.

About his secret negotiations.

Yes, yes.

Just before we ever made a speech.

We ought to put that file together and ask Mike to be on.

The time is to run.

Thank you.

We're going to start mining it now.

Nixon, Haldeman & Harlow on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Democratic Party

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Nixon, Haldeman & Harlow on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Democratic Party

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

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Also recorded on June 23, 1971

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