Nixon & Haldeman on Alaska and Phase II economic policy

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that we're over today.

We're, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we, uh,

When you finish meeting the emperor in the last minute, good night.

He leaves at 1140.

That's 2 a.m. Pacific and it's 5 a.m. You might as well go to bed all the time.

And you do this to stay in the last minute.

Sure.

It just doesn't make any sense to leave.

No.

There is...

good facilities at the base there.

You don't even have to go into town.

I go tell them to stay right at the base where the meeting is.

And because of Pat's business on Monday, because Sunday's going to be a horrendous day just on time and body parts and everything, I think what they do is spend the night in Alaska, get up at a decent hour in the morning, get on the plane and come back for one.

do the stuff on the way out.

Now we can make some hay on a Saturday and Sunday.

This is the time to do Montana because of weather.

So let's get it done.

If we wait any longer, Montana's gonna be cracking.

But we can go in there, go from here to there.

We should go from Washington to Montana and take Mike Lewis.

All right, do that right.

What he wants you to do is the Hungry Horse Dam.

Yes, two dams.

We knew it, but they had to wait to do it.

And they'll do it.

They'll get an airport crowd where you land in an empty helicopter 20 minutes to a place at Glacier National Park.

It's all tied in.

You can do that at midday on Saturday.

It's a good day to do it.

Then my key would be go to Portland rather than San Francisco.

They're going all the way down and back up.

Make this a northwestern trip.

Go to Portland and close the media briefing.

Saturday afternoon.

Saturday's a better day if you need to do it anyway.

They can fly in.

Some of them are going up to Alaska because there's an editor's conference in Alaska on Sunday.

So some of them are going up anyway.

Well, throw the pool of our money if you have money.

It's too late to say go up early.

Now, there's another...

If you close out Portland, then you can either spend the night in Portland or go on up to Seattle and spend the night.

There is a...

The only other possibility would be to go to Seattle.

It isn't going to work.

I don't think there's one remote thing.

The state of Washington has a high school convocation once a year where they gather something like 30,000 high school students.

Maybe.

It's done on a weekday normally.

Maybe it could be done on a weekend.

And they have asked for an administration spokesman to address it.

That might be a thing to run you into.

It might be that you can do it on a Sunday.

Of course, the governor's going to be in this afternoon and we're going to talk to him.

He's here anyway.

We'll talk to him about it.

was the only other thing to do that makes any sense at this point from their viewpoint, unless the governor comes up with some more stuff today.

On Sunday, well, on any given time in Washington, is there's a major cross-state highway, which is a very important economic thing to them, and this is just dedicated.

That's a pretty bad shot for a president.

That sounds like a good one.

Really cutting.

The dams.

Sorry, sorry, that's different.

And it's Mike and it's the West and all that.

That's not a highway.

Highway just doesn't make sense.

The other thing could be just to skip Washington, just not do Washington now.

And another possibility that I think we ought to at least consider is to go into Alaska early and let Wally Hickle give a reception for you.

in Anchorage.

One hell of a coup in Alaska.

Would you like to do it?

Oh, yeah.

And to arrive, you're kind of insulting Alaska to arrive there.

We're spending the night.

We'll help some, I think.

Sir, I don't mind arriving earlier in Alaska.

Well, I noticed that we didn't want to at first, but now he wants to give a reception.

There might be a thing where you could arrive, let him give a reception for you in Anchorage.

So you arrive and get your own airport arrival in Anchorage.

You drive into town, we can get some overkeep and they don't have a hell of a turnout for you.

Do the reception up here, we'll just then go back to the base.

We'll kind of get ready, then meet the emperor, go through the emperor bed, then go to bed.

We should spend the night there.

It looks like we know what we're doing this way.

The other way, it looked like that really... Slapdash.

Well, then, if we spend the night, and we get the flight back on the 6th and a half o'clock, I reckon, 7 o'clock, 7.15 o'clock, 6.15, 6.30, 6.30 and a half o'clock,

So, you win.

And what time will we get back to it?

Ten, five, five hours, time change.

So it's eleven and a half, probably twelve hours.

See?

Well then, if I go, is that a, is the other thing a medical thing?

The old thing, I understand it is, but I'm checking it.

I want to be sure.

Well, if it is, I should go.

I mean, I've got some things to do.

I go, but that way, we won't go so that manner.

No, if it is men and women, there's still no reason for you not to go.

Are you going to let the president come in so it's all women?

Whatever the A.R., it's all women.

He went.

Let's do that, and then let's have me and Pat arrive late, right as the program begins.

We're in the middle of goddamn time.

We're in a line.

We'll be in a line all the way from the last, back from the last minute.

Why don't we get up on our ass and get there at 6 o'clock to one of their carpenters.

I think you should drop by and watch the fight at the end.

It doesn't count.

At the end.

We'll find out when they're leaving at about 9 or 9.30.

It would be, if they could do it on a Sunday, it would be an idea.

Do it.

Do it till it runs out of air.

You can't do it Sunday morning.

You need to just forget Portland and go on into Washington.

I agree.

I mean, go to Montana, certainly.

Tell what you could do, but I was thinking of going to Montana for me.

Do you agree with me?

All right, then do, uh, do, uh, do Washington, uh,

Washington High School Friday, and the media briefing, and Portland Saturday.

It was not good tonight.

I'm just going to California.

There's no problem.

It's funny, because the last time I was home, you know what I mean?

The bad that you've gotten out of California can't be any more than the bad you would have gotten at the same time in Washington or anywhere else you live in.

It's the people that are going to take the shot.

I'm here to ask, should you work on, I suppose, a hard-working question?

You're saying that I should have dropped you?

People in the U.S., it's hard work.

Well, it's the truth.

It happens to be also understood.

How about trying to do two days out of the band?

Or, if you did that, you'd have to stay in Detroit.

You couldn't go out.

If you do Detroit Thursday night, then Montana Friday would make sense.

So the 9th of Detroit.

Oh, no, no, no, Detroit's Thursday, yeah, you're right.

Yeah.

Yeah, Detroit, that's right.

Detroit Thursday.

And then why the Montana Friday?

Why the Montana?

Do it Friday.

Friday.

And then on to Portland.

And, uh... Or up to Seattle.

Do the high school thing.

It's only an hour's flight from Washington, Bob.

There's no time to go out.

You know what I mean?

It's a matter of 50 minutes to Detroit.

It's really close.

Go out to Detroit and get the hell out of there and come back to Washington the next day at 10 o'clock.

I don't really believe that that is not even worth screwing around with.

All right, I, uh, would be if you try to do two events on Friday.

If you wanted to do Montana and Washington.

I think we ought to shoot for Washington on Saturday, though.

Do it Saturday morning.

Which is how I'd be worrying about the way to do it right now.

Well, and then shoot down there Saturday afternoon.

You know, the high school kids ought to be Saturday morning.

That's the way we get TV on.

Do the day on Friday.

Montana.

and go on into Washington Friday night.

Right.

Well, you're trying to take it.

Where do you want that?

Where do you want the goddamn media briefing?

You want it on Saturday?

Oh, do it Friday?

No, that's right.

That's right.

Do the media briefing Friday.

You're right.

Yeah.

Go to Portland.

Friday afternoon.

It's just for the birds, anyway.

On 10th Friday noon.

Yeah.

Media briefing.

In Portland, Friday afternoon.

You don't want any media coverage on that anyway.

No, sir.

And overnight in Portland, then.

Make it easy.

Right.

Saturday morning.

Oh.

So we get 20 times, right?

Saturday morning.

Late.

Another way.

Another way you could do it with me to do... You mean, let's start doing it all on Saturday.

Go out and do Montana Saturday.

Do, uh...

Do something in Portland.

The best thing is to do something in Washington on Sundays.

You've got a hell of a lot of time on Sundays.

That's right.

The best way to do it is to do Montana Saturday noon, do Portland Saturday afternoon, and overnight there, which wastes more time.

Then Sunday morning, get up and go to Washington.

And stop there and do something there Sunday afternoon.

Well, forget about the high school kids.

What would do the high school kids if they forget about the TV?

They would get totally wiped out if they do something that's important.

The high school kids will.

So what's the use of doing anything else in Washington?

You go and just go up and visit your brother on the way to Alaska or something like that, you know?

Then we'd be a bit of Washington.

There really isn't anything to do in Washington.

We all, everybody makes us a wipeout.

Or it might not be.

Still, we'll do it later.

Maybe they can find some other thing for us.

And you'll at least get an airport arrival Sunday.

It's a good day.

People come to the airport around then.

And the idea of being there, go.

I think the best thing to do, though, is to go and spend the night in Washington.

If you do the media briefing in Oregon, Portland, then let's go spend the night in Washington.

At a motor hotel.

I could have always made it to a motor hotel.

Could we make the Montana thing a little bit earlier?

and I can't even tell you thanks to her.

Well, they'll get the media briefing, so we'll get into the Washington in time for a decent airport arrival.

The way to do it, you say, is to have the airport arrival Sunday morning, but I don't like to do it.

You've got a little bit of a problem, you know, out there.

On the road, you've got a little bit of a problem with what the hell you're doing on Sunday.

But I think you've got to go to church on Sunday.

You know, we can close, we can be in Portland by about 3 o'clock.

Close the D.C. agreement.

You can get up, you know, 4 or 4.30, get up to Washington by 5.30 or 7, which is still daylight, and it's a good time.

Especially for the airport arrival.

Do the airport arrival, and just go to the hotel.

Hold up.

Sure.

Because it's late.

Boy, 9 o'clock by then anyway.

9 o'clock.

Go to bed.

Sunday morning, get up in Washington.

Do the church.

Church.

and then see if there's something maybe Sunday afternoon to do.

How about doing something today?

Rather than Washington, it's just so important that the church put on, the church is doing something about that.

The church is doing something about that.

on the dark ages.

Well, maybe.

Let's work at that.

I'll get evidence about what could be done.

And then leave late afternoon from Washington, go up to Alaska.

In fact, if you go up, if you're going to do the reception, you go up most any time to Alaska.

I would go to Alaska then and get an airport arrival from Manoa.

But that's all.

All of a sudden,

Oh, hell yes.

We go there.

Oh, if we get an airport arrival in Greece, they'll come up to the airport in Alaska in the middle of the midnight.

And then go to Wally Airport for a reception.

Good.

And then back to the base and tell you if you can get time to go back to the base and take a nap.

Which I will do.

It'll be nighttime then, so it'd be a good idea to go back and get a couple hours of sleep before the information.

You know, you've got to relax and back out.

And while you're still arriving on the night of the date, like that.

But you get a hold of those women now.

Can you do it so that you can get screwed on tight?

With radio even?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Either you or one of our people rather than time.

So it's screwed on very tight so that you know the exact time.

Good.

Well, it should be done in the one day.

It should be done on the Saturday.

I think we've got too much time on the line.

Yeah.

I think reaching for California on this one is just too much.

Well...

Across the door, there's a tier there that makes sense.

California, you remember, we can do it.

It's a long time, but we can just fly out there anytime.

We've got something to do.

Well, you've got to go out there for the Thanksgiving.

It's a long time.

Medical time.

We just made the Bible happen.

We go to the medical center right then.

Well, I spent a couple of days then at the end of that to meet a few, get up to San Francisco then.

That's the job.

And just not spend the night.

Just go into San Francisco and do the thing.

Yeah, well, yeah.

I think spending the night and also land in an Air Force base.

I think it was never a blue man in San Francisco.

I'm not getting this.

It is not getting to the city.

It has to go up and land out in the remote country of Omo.

Land in Santa Rosa or something, you know, something there.

And then, or land over, or hit something in the valley on the way up and something.

Maybe Santa's way.

Yeah.

Well, good.

But that's the hell of a trip.

We want to get back to San Xavier.

We will.

And that's a long time that you don't have the weather problem there.

And it looks a lot better than zipping into Alaska and doing the emperor and zipping out.

Well, I don't know if the Hickel reception, we, you know, we've got to figure that out.

Can he work?

Can he act?

I think so.

Stanton's been talking to him, and we've been trying to play it kind of carefully.

Now, there's another possibility, which we might want to do, and they're also checking out, which is a pipeline announcement.

Probably we'll be ready.

And then checking on the question, Mitchell thinks that it would be a hell of a political coup in Alaska.

And he thinks that we either ought to announce it ahead of time so that you get the credit for when you arrive, or that we might want to figure a way of announcing it right there and not the right time.

So that would be another thing to do.

We could do that at the airport when you arrive, or something that we tie in.

And you could tie people in there somehow to talk about what they were from.

He started it.

you know, the great credit he deserved.

His book is coming out in October, you know, just shortly after that, and it's, Irwin's got a manuscript of it, he says it's, it doesn't hurt you, it is pretty rough on White House staff, and that's egocentric on Hitler.

I agree.

Your idea is good, sir.

Let's not for three states all party now, Bob.

You know, California, we just might want to plan a California trip.

Yeah.

For just about that good reason sometimes, you know, and I just don't think we're doing enough good thinking about California, about what we're going to do tonight.

And we didn't want to let them, so that's all right.

Better places.

Or as good places.

That was a good one though.

That was a good one.

That was a good way to get in that area.

It's not as much as all of this, as Northern California.

Just past us, or even probably the same one he found.

Yeah.

But we just have to realize how far it is.

I like the art of laying down all the big things.

Yeah.

Good.

Making sure to come in and hang out with us, coming to all these events, like the Japanese dinner and everything else.

Yeah.

That makes sense to me.

I think it's very important, looking at this schedule, particularly in October, to get hungry on those special dinners.

Yeah.

California dinner, the Ohio dinner, the Illinois dinner, New York dinner.

I don't know which ones you have in mind, but I did go down to Florida dinner.

Incidentally, that should be here.

I mean, bringing them here would be a whole lot better than going down there and having to key this game.

Oh, yeah.

And the same in California.

I applied in again.

Hell, they killed it.

The plane gets drunk.

Come back here.

Yeah.

And then

Apparently, it's a letter column between the schools, I guess it is.

No, the mail-in.

No, I'm confidential about it.

The meeting is this week with the people there putting the whole committee together and everything.

As soon as that's done, they're set to roll.

They found a young man to go along with the 80-year-olds.

Well, we've given them a whole list, and they're going over.

That's what the meeting's about.

They go over and they go, oh, we've got some other, you know, a whole list of good young men.

Good.

And, uh...

I had a rule out for everybody, and it's almost heaven for everybody.

Dinner's now, this is the time to have them.

Yeah.

They come in for a break, they get a thorough break, and I just give them a hell of a nice social dinner, and the Army chorus, you know, and God bless America in the home.

Correct.

Yeah.

I don't stand around and talk to them.

Do you agree?

Yeah.

We really don't push it on the receiving end.

Another thing I would do, another thing I would do with that thing, is I'd make the dinner with brown tables and have people around.

See what we've got to do.

It's not really hard work, but it would work well.

Well, in the White House, I hope I wouldn't do it.

I'm sorry, but I meant in the White House.

You understand, if you had four, you're in trouble if you're going to miss something.

I would just shift by force if you don't care about it.

It's hard to break.

It's kind of like working events, you know, the kind that you do.

Maybe you could do this.

I have an empty chair at every table.

We could have some others move around too.

We could have cabin officers move around.

Well, you see, maybe not necessarily.

They'll make these dinners a good idea.

I do, and I think John agrees that they are.

Certainly it's good for New York, and it's good for Florida, and it's good for California, and it's good for Ohio, and it's good for Illinois.

I think we ought to have a hell of a Texas dinner, too.

Don't you agree?

All these swearing-ins we're having.

We're working on it, aren't we?

She'll have to play it.

She'll be working on it.

Yeah, also there's a chance to go to Florida.

So I just went ahead and said, yes, I don't think we care.

I think it went better for us.

I had my eye on this president.

I think you could talk to him.

What I ask is, if I take Buchanan, it's a good antidote to those on the staff who feel and, of course, who have to get mesmerized by this whole idea of a precedent.

He knows the battle with the precedent comes with the battle with the enemy.

I mean, and he's got the, you know, the, uh, like, uh, the point that I made is, for example, a very important piece of it is, uh,

Well, it must be covered, or whatever they have on the next cover, 68.

No, I mean, it's a definite...

I think any fair-minded person would say it's just a definite publication of the observation.

Yeah, it is, because it...

I may be wrong.

No, it is, because any time it takes the negative and says, you know, he's accused of having a temper or something, they put that in to look objective.

But then they kind of lightly dismiss that, and they say, but...

All of his associates say that he would never make a decision while he's in a temper.

He never does that well.

They face the negatives that they have to face, but then they slash a lot of white paint over them and say they don't do any better.

Well, Bob, I want you to force everybody on our staff.

I want you to force them to reach out to us.

Because I want them to know, and I want even people like Roy Price to know, I want the Sapphires to know, I want everybody in the Senate to know, so that we will go into this with our eyes wide open.

The more I think about it, the more I think about this year, about this case, the appendix, and the sentence, what about this?

I mean, cram all over the goddamn country.

But beyond that,

What do you think in terms of the events?

One of those eight years, we have two in one month.

All right.

The other thing though, the wedding.

but it was about once in eight years.

And nothing has ever been quite something like what you want anything.

You can talk about everything that we do in terms of war, time, everything like that.

That was enough to last a year.

It left more of an impression.

And all of this will have crashed up if you have to deal with it another time.

Is that true?

Yes, sir.

Sure is.

And it will always be remembered.

All right.

Okay.

Now, in the light of that,

We actually should be doing better than we are.

And I think what we have here is, and you would say, oh, it has to do with war and all that sort of thing.

Correct?

Maybe so.

It goes deeper than that.

It has to do, it seems to me, with the running battle that we have on the media side.

In other words, the erosion that occurs

because of just the day-to-day Washington meetings.

Now, on the plus side, out through the country, you know, even for economics, we were rather heartened, and I think partly so, by the warm reception we received.

We've got a hell of a lot of strength.

In other words, our 50% is, I think, doing pretty good.

A lot better than Perry Hinton, I think, or anything.

The general of Alabama, part of it is the president.

The other one is some support.

The idea of our support is very thin, you know, and all that.

I think that's true.

I can't believe it's true.

I think that may be what's changed.

That was true.

It can't be true now with China and the other thing.

I think you've given the people that want to be with you, because I'm going to be saying, well, God damn it, we know why.

And I think you've

You've given people who don't want to be with you some reason to be if they don't want to be with the other guy, too.

They count it as a choice between you and whoever it is.

China and some of those things may make more of a difference than they do now.

Could make a great deal of a difference.

Particularly if you get some orders, you know.

But what I'm getting at is

It's really true, I know, isn't it?

I've told Sigler this several times, and I just smile, that we have had the worst press coverage in an incredible century.

Now, there's no question about it.

You can talk about Hoover, you can talk about all the others.

They at least had some very strong supporters in the press.

We had almost, you can name them on three fingers, correct?

The strong supporters?

Yeah, that's right.

And they aren't.

The other problem is our strong supporters are not significant.

They're not important for us people.

They aren't Scotty residents and, you know, we're a studious guy.

Now we come to the point, though, as to what we do about this.

I think it's a...

I'm guessing Colson was on this show.

He worked on it every day.

And also, let me say, thank God we've got it.

We've got it.

of the newspaper associations from Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Utah.

That's what that newspaper means.

You're meeting in Anchorage on Sunday and Monday.

On Sunday evening, Bob Adler, the publisher of the Anchorage paper, is having a reception for them.

That could be expanded.

You could drop by that if you wanted to.

I think if people want to do it, it would be better to have people do it.

I don't have a show, but I'll do it.

No.

But I could do both.

Yeah.

I could do both perceptions.

That's what I would do.

But I think Hickles should be the big one.

I think Hickles should be basically a big public perception.

You know, let him have 500 people shake hands and then drop by Atwood's first when I'm not so tired and then do the other.

But I wouldn't see any reason not to have both.

Meeting the publishers is more important than anything.

Meeting the publishers is more important than doing anything.

But Hickels is symbolically important.

Well, we've got plenty of time to look.

We're killing dragons, so there is no bad thing to do.

We're getting back to this business here.

I'd say at least zero in on that, and zero in at the...

The wire services, I must say, we do pretty well on them.

Do you agree or not?

Yes.

All right.

Our doors are open.

Yes, we've got to keep working at them because we don't, you can't have them.

But the wire services, except there's a shed or two here and there, but generally, and especially the ones that cover us regularly, try most of the time to do

They don't get glowing stuff, but they're fair.

Well, they do.

They'll cut loose with a glowing thing every once in a while because they get impressed.

They do glowing stuff on your performances, on some of the things that other people don't see.

The little ones, when they see you do it like the Woodrow Wilson thing, one of them really got a lot of the snap with one of them.

That was Pierpont.

He just completely smashed Pierpont with that one, and he got a very low one, which is great.

I was thinking, for example, how the wire services were probably handling that Chicago thing.

I mean, that was, I mean, it has occurred to me now.

Well, it's been played that way.

Yeah.

Anyway, you keep bread on this, and then, and particularly, I just feel wonderful to be here.

You've got that.

You've got to keep them in the back, and get good people in.

They're right.

They still do.

You know, we're always like that.

They just don't buy the...

Finally, they just feel, you know, it's our fault.

What it is, Bob, is they all come in and say, well, it's our first relations that are bad.

That's something wrong.

That is not true.

Well, that's bullshit.

As many think, they're too good.

Our first relations are bad.

Well, for Christ's sakes, we kiss their ass all the time.

They can't be followed.

They ain't going to be kissed anymore.

When I go to Florida, after the, this is,

I'm just going to go up and I'm going to say a goddamn word to the man, not an hour.

I'm just going to give him, I'll say, a half hour, he's ready to go to the floor, he's ready to go to the floor, he's ready to do anything he needs to do.

So, on the hatchet man thing, maybe here, we need Buchanan, if Buchanan is under security.

He's developing that a lot.

As a result of the way we focused in December, and I don't know, are you reading it now?

I haven't.

I saw it yesterday.

We've changed it a little bit, and they took the stab at changing it, and I like it better, and it'll be interesting to see what you think.

But what they're doing, instead of separating TV from the stories and putting them together,

but they put the feature on the TV.

Now, a couple years ago, we had to force them to separate TV to pay any attention to TV at all, but they now are very much dominated by the television, and it's the thing they react to.

They get much more disturbed.

Buchanan still gets very disturbed by what America and Human Events, I don't know, National Review, the reporter, not the reporter, I don't know.

Those still...

And there's some reason for that because those do affect the broadcasters because the TV commentators reach out and ask more to find out what they think.

So there's some merit to that, but that's that.

And you've got to look at it for indications of what's going on.

But they're focused very much on the TV.

It's interesting, now that they're providing how much the TV dominates.

Is that right?

The overall news story.

In other words, when you cover the TV, you've got to go in because the TV news is not complete.

What about getting in?

What about getting in hatching men?

We've got Dole.

We've got Moeller.

Those are only two I can think of at the moment.

And we have, could I just urge six hatching men?

We've been screwing around with this, and every time I do it, you know, I had that horrible meeting, I've had two horrible meetings, one with the senators and one with the fathers, where they bring in 15 guys and tell them to make some oil, and they come in the ditch.

You know, that isn't what we need.

I agree, I thought it was something wrong.

What you really need are just a couple, three or four, you know, total dicks and men that are sons of bitches.

The problem is, you say you're the next loyalist, and they immediately think we're the strategy planning committee that have got to tell the president what he's doing wrong.

It's the same thing you get in the staff.

You know, you could equal your set of

And it's right, you don't want everybody just blindly taking your mind off that question.

Well I know, we've got to get them, I want to do it, I want to have now and then a chance to meet with Buchanan's group.

I've got to get them a little stuck on high now.

Just to be with them, that part of it, you know.

They've got to be charged up.

Here we are charging up the cabinet, the sub-cabinet about leaving us.

Why not our own people?

Our own people have to fight a little bit of battle sometimes.

Now and then they've got to get going.

Better a queen.

— 1 min 0 s with no transcribed speech —

that does a meeting party.

Now, he's, the Quadriads currently have

session yesterday, and George wanted to talk with you, and he said maybe you don't want to take the time to do it, but what he wanted to talk with, what they wanted to suggest is that on the consultation process looking at phase two, that there should be meetings, separate meetings set up with four groups, a labor group, a business group, an agricultural group, and a congressional group, and that they have natural resources.

groupings that make up each of those they think you ought to meet with each of those groups with the across the living council members in a what is billed as and conducted as a listening session in other words you ask them to come in and talk with us about what they think their views on phase two are and uh i thought that if you wanted

to follow this process, that you would gain a lot of mileage by saying in your speech that you were going to do so, and that we could set up difficulties.

We shouldn't really be caught here.

I told Price last night, or whatever, this whole thing, I said, talk to Schultz.

Correct.

If Schultz, yes.

I said, if Schultz wants that in, put it in.

I talked to Conway about it last night.

I mean, the thing is, I don't see why everybody has to bring it here now.

Goddamn, why do you have an editor?

I said, Bryce, I said, go over there, and I said, I think in a paragraph, because he's concerned about whether you want to do the process.

I don't give a goddamn what it is.

You know, I don't care what the process is.

If these people, if the four of them agree, I'll do it.

And I understood the four agreed, and if you can get Arthur Hearn and Schultz and Conley to agree, I'll do it.

See, wouldn't that be a problem?

He says they agree.

The question he's concerned about is whether you want to get committed, whether you want to get committed to meeting with those groups.

That's better than being from the cabinet.

Hell yes.

You see, the cost of living council bothers me.

The cost is damn big now.

He wouldn't have the whole cost of living council.

The idea would be just to have certain people, have a couple of representatives in the council, plus you, and then it's...

They want to have meetings, huh?

When?

Of course they want to have meetings.

Well, probably next week or, you know.

I could, but I told Price to go to Congress.

Okay.

Let me follow up on that.

Well, no, Price is supposed to be here to let them have that one, but they're in Congress.

I've got a paragraph all worked out.

And the price has got to go to that very line.

So I'm going to get the speech handled by 5 o'clock.

I don't want to wait.

I'm fine.

I'm all for it.

I've got to catch the speech.

He thinks it's a good idea.

And he's got the room set up.

What he's thinking is if you're going to do it, we've got to contact the groups today before the speech.

So that you can then say, I am going to be working.

Forget it, forget it, forget it.

I told Pricey that he probably didn't.

I'll see whether he didn't.

If he didn't, I'll call you.

We'll develop the contract.

And then I'll have Price school and work out a barrier.

But not being paid.

No, it would just be an issue.

It would be an issue.

You should be with all these

I don't know.

They only want to raise a question, which is Congress.

Well, Mansfield has sent you a letter suggesting that you consult with Congress and suggesting who you consult with.

And it's not the standard leadership that's chairman of the ranking members of specific committees.

But we're all on the same wavelength.

No problem.

I understood that they wanted to meet you tomorrow.

Could I suggest to you that in terms of the time, I'd like to keep just for my own, this is sort of a different thing on the schedule, just for this weather.

Well, yeah.

Actually, for...

What?

You want to try to do this every day?

Well, no, no problem.

Probably.

Maybe once a week, maybe twice a week, but I've got to have the days cleared because five times out of six, something's going to happen when I can't do it.

You want to keep every day clear.

That's right.

Keep every day clear.

By the first of November, forget it.

Because I will do things until now.

But this is a pretty good time to be out there, be serious, and get there.

And also, because of the weather, we've just got to keep a careful time.

We'll just do our scheduled stuff between 11 and 3 o'clock.

And there might be some people down here for 10 o'clock.

Kevin, if you could call them all, I think.

Do they know they're going to have one?

Yeah, one of them.

Monday.

Billy Graham's mother is providing insurance for his son.

Yes, sir.

Oz, and then Brad, and then O'Shaughnessy.

I don't think Billy's coming.

Schedule 7 on the D3.

I thought this would be marvelous.

His mother, he wants his mother.

But we have a problem.

Oh yeah, we've got a government chapter in Tennessee that Billy recommended.

Great.

Billy has two ministers he wants you to have.

One's a black and the other's a Chetney.

We've got the Chetney.

We've got this time.

We'll give her a black later on.

He figured he wanted to start the season with a black.

That's enough for two reasons.

Yes, sir.

Just about right.

I put another one on the 10th of October, right?

Maybe another one on the 23rd of November.

I don't know.

Just take that one section and submit it to us.

We'll make this an exercise.

Sure.

It's not going to be an exercise.

We're not going to stop the ride.

What the hell?

We announced it yesterday.

That's the lead story today.

What's the price for it?

We're currently going to address that.

Watch.

I was talking to Dave at the very time, and he had a little bit of a delusion when I hear about it.

I think he ought to take a secret trip to Anaheim and put it back to China and talk to them about it.

And I thought about it for about a month or two, and he told me that I cannot go to Anaheim.

That's the second thing I did.

You know, I have never had fear of the high.

You know, I think that now...

What I'm just about to say is that we're talking about all kinds of things.

But what I'm concerned about is if it's going to get over here, if it's going to get into something like this, if it's going to get into something like this, if it's going to get into something like this, if it's going to get into something like this, if it's going to get into something like this,

If it's going to come, it will come.

It isn't going to come because we're talking.

See my point?

That's what I'm getting at.

To them, talking is a tactic to win.

To us, talking is a tactic for the purpose of agreeing.

You try to explain that to them, they don't quite understand it.

But they're going to take a little bit of a reaction, and I don't, just don't.

You and Al had a little talk, and I said, I'm going to figure out how to do this.

I don't want to trap you, you see.

They're coming along, so...

Now, as you know, the troop announcement, we do make it.

We do make it.

We have to make it then.

We don't have to be on TV then, you know.

We're just going to be on time.

They made the final announcement in December.

This is the 12th one, however, the Soviet announcement.

I will make an office press conference.

So clear the 11th.

Have the 11th cleared.

Uh, when they got the office, the press conference, I invited them.

I have a, we break it up.

We've got some hell of a big way to do that.

You know, we're slapping that show up on the floor.

We're dominating that evening.

It was the only afternoon for that day.

The press conference was the 16th.

Okay, did anybody contact the Detroit Jets to see whether they're open for that meeting?

I mean, in the hall, that sort of thing.

Where...

If they can't do it Wednesday, Thursday, I can do it Wednesday.

I can also do it, frankly, Thursday.

We've got Thursday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

The problem is which, is what all, how big it makes the economy, but that's 2,500 members.

If you come, they'll all come and all want to ring again.

You can get a pretty big haul.

The other way to do it, which is better, it seems to me, from our viewpoint, is to go with their executive order or something, which is 500.

No, I don't think $500,000 is a loss.

$2,500 is fine, but I don't want $40,000.

$40,000 is bad.

$10,000 is bad.

A crowd up to $3,000 is a pretty good crowd.

But he takes questions.

Well, they go to the panel.

They have a procedure.

They write.

That's right.

They send the request.

Just like the common home.

Yeah.

And they write.

Yeah.

What club do you consider, Rob, to get a New York, New York, New York, New York economic club?

Now that this goes up, economic club, economic club, and Detroit, but certainly has between Detroit and New York, you know, all of the group, all of the group.

New York, that's more, that's raising the question.

They don't want to do it.

Well, no, they think the idea is great.

They raise the question of whether it's a good idea to go into Detroit because of having done as much as we've done in the automobile industry of whether it looks like we're, you know, laying it on the management of an economic club in Detroit and all that.

I just, I don't think it's going to come through that way.

We are, all of us, never lose anything.

take credit for something we do.

Like, for example, do something for Catholic schools.

They don't want us to go out and brag about it.

We've got to be flexible.

They were just raising it as, I don't know, a point to consider.

And I think it is a point to consider.

It is a point to consider.

I'd like to get to Michigan if he had a better way.

That's the thing.

It's by far the best way to get to Michigan.

It's the best time to get to Michigan.

And he's done Michigan.

I'm going to hatch this thing.

That's what he had lined up today to see what happened.

New York, he got the PR guys.

He got one yesterday.

Must be good.

Where?

On a press conference?

Yeah.

Has he had a press conference every day?

No.

He did have one yesterday.

Where did he have it?

San Francisco, I guess.

What happened?

Well, he kept it.

Okay.

They served in on busing, and he walked away.

And he said, well, nobody's come up with a better idea, including President Nixon, than busing.

And he tried to go with the law of the land business, and he tried to keep both sides happy with what he did.

And he made the press mad.

It's a pure, it's a musky, grumpy type of approach.

You know, they're trying to walk both sides of the fence and they go off in opposite directions.

What do you mean?

They criticize him for an equivocating answer.

At least I don't equivocate.

That's actually how I'm against it.

That's right.

And boy, you're, as Earl was saying this morning, that...

I thought at the time maybe Wallace was doing us some harm on that, but he thinks, and looking back, that Wallace really helped us.

Why?

Because at exactly the right time, he made the issue important, and he gave you the opportunity clearly to establish, without any doubt, across the land, what your position was on Dustin.

There can't be any question, really now, and they all jumped on you, which was good,

as to what your position of busing is, you're opposed to it.

And that's exactly where you want us.

And you think we were helped also by the chief judge?

Yeah, but that was substance of why we always thought you were helped by that, but the question on the other side was whether you were not hurt, whether you were hurt by Wallace.

Wallace was incarcerated, probably.

I'm waiting for a chance to recognize George Shultz.

George Shultz doesn't need to just talk to me.

He's doing the writing.

I'm going to work on this speech now.

Let me get to work on it.

You just tell Ray.

Now, Ray, they've got this idea that I want it in one paragraph.

And I want it very precise.

And the need is to sit down with Shultz and Connolly.

I want Connolly to be

i can't emphasize about how much college ego is involved in these things he has got to know the truth once you agree with him and uh just run the paragraph by him too and not say he's cleared with schultz he said here's what the president wants to say if you agree with me

that I've already lifted the curtain on tax reform, so we've got to put something in on it here.

Find a way with Connelly to say, well, I heard from Connelly last night that she had something with George suggested.

And the reality is that we need it.

We need it for speech in order to have something in the way that we need it for development.

We're asking her for an issue.

The thing that I was going to say about the... Are they...

Did it appear that Muskie will finally come down on the side of being for busting or not?

Or is he against busting?

He comes down pretty much on the side of being for it, but not enthusiastically for it because

But it seems to be the best way to accomplish what the law requires to be accomplished at this time.

And there probably should be a better way, but he doesn't exactly know what it is.

What are our people going to do about that?

Well, I mean, we'll ask them all.

We'll keep doing what we've been doing.

We said we are.

I would not get credit for it.

I would not blast him.

I would not blast Muskie the way that I've asked you to.

He doesn't take the position.

The more effective way to blast Muskie is to say that he has taken the position.

Yeah.

But it's...

that's going to irritate the hell out of people to see.

His plan, all Buskey has to do is get the Democrats to vote for him.

That means to say nothing.

Therefore, whereas I, as a Republican, did not have that luxury.

I had to win Democrats.

I had to say something.

It is not to our interest to say that Buskey, to leave him there and say, well, we don't know where he stands.

Understand?

Don't you agree?

You've got hip muscles, right?

Straight in the ass.

I'd say, God damn you, where do you stand on busting?

And I'd get a busting, I'd get a whole dent.

Where the ambiguity hurts him is with the press itself, because it makes the press unique.

You think the press really is?

Well, you got that impression of the thing yesterday that it annoyed him, and they kept, you know, he would say, and as you know, they do.

when they think they're getting a run-up, and should they get upset about it, give them a bad time.

The more the press becomes disingenuous with Muskie, like they did with Romney.

The press wanted an L. You know Dan well, the press wanted Romney rather than you.

And yet they became fed up with Romney, and they tore him apart.

out in the west.

I think that's right from our strategy that we ought to take the position that's unpopular and say that's his position that he needs and hit it forward for our whole nation.

That's his marijuana thing.

And he's leaving for Europe or something.

Why don't we get...

Get Connelly on any time you can.

Say 2 o'clock tomorrow, for example.

2 o'clock tomorrow.

Or he has the Japanese cabinet people, of course.

Or just say any time between before 3.30 on Friday, okay?

You call him.

You're not going to lie to me.

Do you think though that, do you think our group is, well, let's face it, let's face it.

Scallions, man, that's not, yeah, no.

Yeah, they were, no, they were, no question.

Colson?

Colson.

You're canning, of course.

You're flying.

claim, understands it, keeps trying to, I don't know.

And Scali is somewhat that way.

It's hard for Scali to have to accept that he's more and more excited.

I know.

But he knows that it's there.

Let me say, I don't, I think it's just a question of being sure we've got some that understand it, that will pop, that's all.

So I don't think Scala will, I don't think, except in certain cases.

You've got to say, who is the person, I guess Colson.

Colson's the one.

Colson's the inspector.

That's the best thing we can do.

and Ron Wharton at the reporter level, and Joe G.

Why don't we get Connelly in any time we can?

Say 2 o'clock tomorrow, for example.

2 o'clock tomorrow.

Or he has the Japanese cabinet people, of course.

Or just say any time before 3.30.

On the Friday, okay?

You call him.

No, you're not going to do that, right?

Do you think, though, that... Do you think our group is... Well, let's face it, let's put it... Scala Amos, man, that's not... Yeah, I'm telling you.

Yeah, David?

Oh, David, there's no question.

Colson?

You can, of course.

Fine, plain, understands it.

Keeps trying to, I don't know.

That's all right.

And Scali is somewhat that way.

He's got all of it.

It's hard for Scali to have to accept that he's more and more excited.

His friends are out there.

I know.

But he knows that it's there.

let me say i don't i don't i think it's just a question of being sure we've got some that understand it that will pop that's all so i don't think scala will i don't think except in certain cases but you've got to say that who is the person

And Ron works on the required level and is guaranteed level.

Ron likes to get into that kind of like, that's kind of like, you always want to pack him up, kind of likes, he likes to run first, yeah, when he's running, when they want to be sure of something, he likes to move in and jump along, which is great, but

Well, you have a very, very good...

The press secretary should do that.

That's a good part of his role.

Just only when they're totally...

When they're wrong.

Very, very wrong.

And they just knock their brains out.

They're very wrong a lot of the time.

They get a sonography.

Well, mostly, I would say this.

Most of the stuff in the book, and I have it on credit, is the ambiguous kind of, you know, who the hell is going to say what, or who is going to characterize it, and then you're going to read one way or another to see my point.

Yeah.

They're going to say, well, that's just the way I saw it.

Well, but if you're forced to say, she thinks you can defend it on the basis that if you're forced to say this is for or against, it's clear that this is either for or it's against.

Something about Nixon that you say he's devious, well, I'm not literally against, I'm for it.

You say he's hardworking, that's for it.

I'm not against.

You say he's hardworking, but devious, then he's low.

That's another thing that kind of makes it understated.

Hello, I'm Peter Washington.

Oh, there's a question there.

I didn't get to deal with that problem.

It's not a given to Washington.

That's the only thing that matters.

You know, the Democrats had their congressman there last night.

They had all the congressmen last night, but that was another thought.

They're getting a lot of problems with it.

It's just very... Well, last night was the congressional preview.

They invited all the members of Congress in the diplomatic corps.

And then they had to admit in the story that very few of them came.

They sent their staff assistants and people like that.

Yeah.

Of course they came.

Well, some did.

Even they, I wouldn't be surprised.

Why wouldn't they come?

They won't come unless you've got a person there.

A lot of them figure, you know, the hell with that.

A lot of them will go tonight, probably.

Got an invitation from some other way, and they're going to do it tonight.

This will be the day.

But they went...

He went up to the stage last night and kissed everybody.

He said he kissed everybody he could get a hold of.

So apparently they were trying to get away from him last night.

Well, I think they're doing it because they want to.

It's like, I've talked to some of our people who were there last night, who were senior type people, and said, you know, what's it like?

And they said, I don't know, but I think it was terrible.

And why did everybody go out and listen to each other?

Because it's the thing to do.

And it's, what it is, it's awesome.

Somebody was saying that it's sort of like the combination of Jesus Christ Superstar, this rock opera, you know, and hair with clothes on it.

What they do is apparently they perform the various steps of the Mass, and then when they get to the prayer, they each step in the Mass.

Instead of a prayer, they come in with a Bernstein musical, with ballet and singing and all that stuff, is the prayer.

In other words, it's a modern musical prayer.

and the prayer segments.

And everybody's supposed to like it because it's supposed to be a thing.

Everybody's supposed to like modern art.

Well, somebody said, you know, this is brought to church up to date.

Somebody said this is, you know, shit.

He was there and he was crying.

They said, did you cry?

He said, oh my goodness, yes, of course.

Because it's the thing you do is to cry.

People here have said it's basically very horrible.

There's long, very dull periods in there.

There are some very spectacular numbers, some very rousing and loud.

And it's big kind of stuff, putting a lot of staging and a lot of atonal kind of music and that sort of thing.

I don't like good loud music.

That's what the kids like.

They like it long.

But it lasts apparently an hour and 45 minutes with no intermission.

I've never dealt with some of it quite, quite, you know, just to see her.

I'm sick of it tonight.

She isn't coming out of it completely.

She isn't coming out.

She's still free.

I was going to sit here and do it.

I'm going to do it.

They screwed up the reception last night.

Another good item in the story is the Kennedy family insisted on three computer tickets for tonight for the Kennedy family.

They had a divine right to the theater.

As McGregor keeps saying, he won't call it the Kennedy Center.

He calls it the National Theater.

which is what the Congress originally passed the will for, and then it got perverted to the Kennedys.

They ordered 300 tickets for the Kennedy Bank for tonight, and the thing the newspaper says today, the center officials admit that very few of the 300 tickets have been picked up.

In other words, the family isn't using the 300 tickets.

It is an unfixer.

Yeah, well, actually, how was the morale of the Congressmen when they came back?

I don't know.

You know, you've got to have to keep fighting all the time.

And so does McGregor.

McGregor feels pretty good, doesn't he?

Very good.

Well, we've got one cheerleader in the cabinet now.

We've got McGregor now cheering on the Congress side, as good as he sure is.

He's a cheerleader.

He really is.

He's an enthusiastic person.

Oh, for example, when we have a Russian son, we'll borrow him.

That'll be a big deal for him, don't you think?

Oh, yeah.

But the little things are big deals for him, too.

Are they really?

Yeah.

Well, that's good.

You know, Stigalli basically is a very enthusiastic man.

That's good.

One of the reasons you like to have him around.

He's got a kind of emotion.

He gets in charge of...

He's a...

I think we should, and we would be if we had, if we were fairly important.

I think we've got to work in the real world.

You understand, you understand about it.

We don't have a hell of a lot more big, big things, bombs to pull.

We've got two trips.

They were just trips, you know.

I think the trips themselves are going to have more effect than the announcements did.

The announcements affect the intellectuals, but the trips are going to affect people because they're going to see you night after night.

They're going to see you in China.

They're going to see you in Russia.

And they're going to...

It takes more saturation.

The announcement is an intellectual exercise.

It's not a habit.

And the fact that you're going to go is sure, so he's going to go to China, and that's a big thing that people will understand what it means.

So that will be true of Russia.

Right.

Syria is going to have a hell of an effect.

And also, I don't think you're going to get any... Those will give you some big pushes.

If we could just...

Well, the point is, I see very little push to give us a push.

Okay, except the balance of this year.

Well, except the economy should get better.

People's personal situations should get better.

The economy could get a little better, but it might not.

The war should get better.

Now, last night, CBS reported that for the first time in six years, the Defense Department yesterday did not release any names of people killed in Vietnam.

Yesterday, week in and week out, for the last six years, they've been, I mean, not on this particular day, but on that day, there were no notifications the next weekend, which is really what they released.

They confirmed deaths, you know, they list the names.

They didn't have any names yesterday.

And they made the point the other day, there's a big story, talking about crime in New York, making the point that more people were shot and killed in the streets of New York last year than in Vietnam.

More Americans.

More Americans were shot and killed, killed by gunfire, in the streets of New York than in Vietnam.

Sure is.

to compete against all handguns.

I don't think anybody should use a handgun.

You?

I don't think so, but I hear you're doing that.

A lot of people think they should protect their own guns.

Well, I know.

Why not a rifle?

Actually, I've got rifles for the purpose of hunting.

What do you mean?

They want the handgun case done for the purpose of hunting.

A lot of people keep pistols by their necks.

Including Justice Burke.

Well, you know, there was a story a while back where somebody came to his door and he answered the door with a gun.

That's why this gun lobby, you know, even Swiper in Pennsylvania ran on that issue.

The fear thing is,

It's a horrible thing.

There are more people, kids, who are killed with guns around the house.

I wouldn't have a gun around the house for anything.

I don't.

We've never had a gun around the house.

Right.

Anything, a shotgun or anything.

My father used to have a shotgun.

My father used to have a shotgun and a rifle, but I mean, we would never have, we absolutely never have a gun.

I mean, I don't know what a goddamn pistol was, but we lived there, and our car was just eight blocks from the black area, six blocks from the black area.

Everybody around the neighborhood had guns.

They said we were not supposed to have a gun, but it could come to us anyway.

Absolutely.

Because I'm bound to lose.

I'm not going to lose.

You're going to lose.

That's right.

They'll kill me.

That's right.

Because in my place, I'll let you know what an epic reaction I had.

This subject was great.

Roses had read something straight out.

She said her brother had told her she had to buy a gun.

Now, Roses had got her goddamn mind out of a gun in her mind.

You know, somebody had come to her door sometime, something dropped.

She was crazy.

Ridiculous.

Nixon & Haldeman on Alaska and Phase II economic policy

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Nixon & Haldeman on Alaska and Phase II economic policy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on September 8, 1971

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