Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Television strategy and China summit

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One thing for Rumsfeld, uh, Milton, uh, said that, uh, he was just permanent.

He was trying to get a, a bug, a stimulant to his cell.

He's good.

Hello?

Hi, Bill.

How are you?

Right here.

I was in the barbershop when you called.

Right.

Milton?

Yeah, yeah.

I could use him any time.

He's over there now, as a matter of fact.

Right.

All right.

The other one, I see.

Yeah.

You know, you start to think of it there, on the plus side of this, Vietnam, they did have an election for Congress, and you at least have...

And I'll get out to fight the ballots.

And also, you can look at the 50 of these countries since World War II, and you've probably only got three where there's anybody that's been, who has office, who's there as a result of a contested election.

Neither that, we can't argue, can we?

Yeah, well, I appreciate your calling.

Right, right, right, right.

Well, here, sitting around, I appreciate your remarks, Captain.

We have got a lot of fine wires on our broadcast, a great number.

Yeah, really a lot of wires.

And, yeah, yeah.

I think that it was nice to have the women in June for this kind of thing, and giving them a little deal of, you know, a good subject, too.

Okay.

Well, Furman University would be a damn good place.

You'd get a hell of a welcome.

He's young.

Well, what Sills did is he brought up pitch.

So, yeah.

But he also had made another argument.

You can always sort of get, if you run around the person who's male on the radio, what does it appeal to the private matter?

It appeals to the military?

That's exactly right.

We're talking to different constituents, Bob.

We really are, aren't we?

That's good for the network.

Actually, maybe a cool thing to argue is that you've gotten a conversation with Eric today.

Not in the week, but in the week.

I know it's a lot of work for Pat, a lot of work for you, but I think it was well worth it.

It's funny, she would be perfectly willing to do a day's work, get everything organized and put on a reception for 5,000 people at the White House, stand there and shake hands with them and think that was a very worthwhile thing to do.

But to do a

the same day's work for a television thing, you kind of tend to feel it's useless because it's just a bunch of... You forget the fact that all those millions of people say, oh, my God.

I did not understand this in 1960.

You know, I hated doing television shows.

I hated... You know, and I...

I was totally wrong.

Even on the first date, we made a mistake.

Well, we had to prepare to work like hell.

We didn't have a goddamn schedule so hard.

We didn't learn from the others.

The acidness of your television, you can go on and command to three networks.

It's a little uptrip.

You might go over it a hundred times.

But he did say Libby Dan was the one.

I didn't tell us about Libby Dan.

He was wild.

He might have had money coming in.

Right.

Look at all of what's going on there.

I don't know if you guys have heard of him.

I don't know if you guys know him.

What are you doing in terms of this argument in private?

My idea, in my opinion, is not explaining it.

Once you've got the question, a couple of times you might at least want to see it, you know, because it's very easy.

But I don't think you can really, I still think Rogers and Buchanan's theory is cool and it may be important when you are available.

Rogers' point of being important when you are available is like, don't get by cold hot areas again.

Yeah.

Or like that lady who just gets mad because you're interrupting news.

In my prime time, I couldn't agree more.

That's why I'm willing to do the news time.

I think that news time is a thing we're overlooking.

I mean, I think we can hit the audience that we need to hit with news time one hell of a lot.

I hesitate to have a press conference in news time.

Get out of the way.

You're certainly in good shape.

It's going to have, it's going to be like a China announcement, though.

It's going to be awful big.

You'll have the Russian announcement, you'll have the announcement of Enriched Trip, I hope, on October 4th.

The announcement on the 12th.

Enriched Trip will take place in the Klan.

It'll be enormous.

What kind of a company is it?

Oh, shit.

I think you've got it.

That was pretty awesome.

You've got a phase two announcement.

I'll see you on Saturday.

Another race in January in the residual force until Christmas.

I would think.

See, February or early March, he has the Russian lieutenant chair.

May, Russia.

I don't care that it was for two or three weeks at least.

It would be a pretty big show.

And that's one where I'll come back and make a report.

Yeah.

Just as sure as hell.

I was trying to figure out this media coverage thing, and I asked him, because he said you have to have a ground station, and I made my case why you shouldn't.

And he's completely sold me on a number of points that you really do have.

And Henry says that the Chinese were out of the chair because of the 150 president.

Well, we can't do that.

We had one hell of a time, Bob, on Russia.

I told you earlier that we didn't get anything out of Russia.

That ship was, that was surreptitiously shipped out of Russia for mad as hell.

Well, maybe all we can do, but his point is that we, for public event type things, things where you're out for a camera coverage in China in the morning from 8 to 10,

If you do it live out of China, then all the networks here are carried at the same time, which gets you this super massive audience.

Still, the networks will run their specials at different times, and you won't get anywhere near the same cumulative audience you get by going all at once.

That's one thing we know.

You know, Kerry, maybe that's what we should come for, Don.

Just take one crew and do it.

I could take one crew and beat all the sunspins.

Well, there can be none.

No.

Besides, is Richard Nixon the man that dominated television screens back home like no big public figure has ever done before?

We resist carrying them live because of the sheer drama.

In addition, the availability of a live program would guarantee it would become a backbone of any special ed schedule.

The fact that you would see the president live and speaking would ensure huge audience, which is greater than any hour-long scheduling together earlier, as a wrap-up of the activities of previous days.

This would be pool footage.

That's ensuring that all networks would simultaneously carry the same report to millions back home.

Sure.

And that's the idea.

It would start from the moon pool.

Yeah.

That's what this is.

Yeah.

Same thing.

Right.

He says, imagine what excitement there would be in the living rooms in Koshok in Ohio when the father puts down his newspaper and says, Mama, come quick, the president's on the air live from Peking.

Well, you know, Peking, what you do in the morning is go out just seeing the president of the United States shaking hands with some Chinese.

God damn it.

Henry will argue that you can't go out and shake hands with Chinese.

He's crazy.

There's a little argument that I couldn't do it in Russia.

The State Department argued that way, and I didn't.

I can't.

Henry's pitch there is that, was it Kosygin or Khrushchev?

Never read Kosygin.

It was never recovered in China from not acting.

I think it was Khrushchev, whoever it was, one of them.

I know, but Henry is very touchy about it.

But Henry is overwhelmed by the property.

They really have taken him in like nothing.

No, I won't do it in an ungraceful way, but we're going to do something.

Then he makes the point that they would tape your live output all during the day and put it together for a special at night, and the package things and all that.

The alternative, and this is what sales mean, if we had no ground station, then what they have to do is fly the film to Tokyo and transmit it from there.

So that means the first appearance of Nixon in Peking on the American television screens would be about 1 a.m., assuming he arrived in the morning, New York time.

Perhaps as a last-second insert on the Johnny Carson show or something like that.

That's based on an 8 a.m. Peking arrival.

If he arrived later, he'd be later at 3 in the morning.

Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry.

just like a press man, does not understand the enormous impact of television.

Now, do you know what I mean?

The future is worried.

And all the stuff we wrote, we did about China.

What really counted about China was that two and a half minutes I was on the air.

And would you agree?

Sure.

I mean, not all that crap.

Henry's big, big good stuff in the New York Times and all the big stories and the rest and the life and the coverage in the magazines didn't mean anything compared to that two and a half minutes, did it?

What you get is your first story, your first screening of any event in China.

We'll be on the Today Show and the Morning News.

And he says there'd be one afternoon specials on the president's activities during the day and news coverage in the nightly evening news of what the president's done 12 to 18 hours early.

In other words, it's all done.

The wires have already been fired.

The newspapers scooped the television.

You lose the thing.

Then he says, each network's nightly primetime special featuring what the president's done in the 12- to 18-hour period before broadcast.

These specials would include reaction commentary by assorted experts, and that's when they'd have, you know, all the old China hands up.

That's what I think.

When does Connelly get back?

I mean, why not have an NSC meeting Saturday?

He may be back Saturday.

Yeah, but I was thinking I just might have a floor as an excuse to go in the door, you know.

It'd be nice for all of them to get down there.

Hot or not, it's nice for me.

Oh, well, I just didn't come.

And I believe you can't walk.

Walk on your own.

I didn't want to do it.

Oh, yeah.

I need to do it.

Oh, yeah.

I don't know how to do it.

You know, David.

Oh, yeah.

Even more Q&As, you know.

We'll see how this one goes.

I'm doing them at night.

You know, we don't have to do everything with it.

We'll do it in the daytime and let them cover it.

What the hell's the matter with that?

Audience.

No, audience.

But I know, I know, I know.

But I mean, I wouldn't be... Of course you have to do a college or something like that.

The audience...

It is something that I'm not good at.

I'm good at Q&A better than most people.

And I might as well give you a few seconds.

I told you those Mike Coles things that were predicted by everybody, and they don't remember anybody else that ever did the damn things.

I talk a little story, you know, screw around and all that stuff.

What do you think?

In the States.

And I can't help but think of our occurrences in Ohio and Illinois and Idaho and so forth.

It didn't have some good effect.

It doesn't help our national polls, no.

But I'll tell you a money that must have helped in those places, don't you think?

Yeah.

Where did it help?

No, it didn't.

We're going to see effects of that kind of thing in this kind of a national poll if we can figure it out.

You know, we did see it in the Midwest.

I saw 30 in Ohio of them.

I went in on an intensive fold in Ohio.

I would bet before and after a visit, maybe we'd have a try-down sometime.

If we had a guilty fold, Canton, you might find something.

Yeah.

Canton, Ohio.

Come in.

With an adequate assembly, we get a deal with the... All right.

Feeling good?

Did you get that?

No.

I mean, this morning, I was at least a second on any kind of... Oh, I know.

I know.

I'm fine.

You left 14.

Two problems.

One, in Chile, the newspaper, the only non-communist newspaper there in New York.

Well, now, they're calling in all sorts of indebtedness.

And they would have to go into bankruptcy at the end of this week.

You go ahead, Bob.

Oh, listen.

You're following up on the Harvey thing.

Oh, no.

Harvey is quite significant.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, that drove him.

When he leaves, it's well to leave now, not later.

He's leaving at the top.

Things are looking good.

He's popular, huh?

No, absolutely.

And I must say, you think of these fine groups and business groups and the rest of them, everybody falls out the rest of the time.

That's a good time for it.

That's a good time for it in any country.

Right.

Okay, Bob.

Thank you.

I know you had a good time.

The book that we had was, you know, why nobody did it.

Just getting some money into them.

It's a hell of a lot of money.

It would be between $700,000 and $600,000.

But it would keep it going if they do nothing else for another year or two.

At the minimum, it would give us a chance.

It would give them a chance to just do it.

Why do you do this?

Because the joke is we put $400,000 into the election.

Oh, yeah, right.

We put $400,000 into the election.

You can't do that.

Roger just called, just before you came over tonight, and told me about the Montoya Amendment.

Do you know about that?

The military procurement bill, which is flying up there, and he was trying to reach out a vote, and he said to talk to you about it, and he said that some of it would be cut off unless you had a fair election.

There's a name for it.

I said, now, this is great for the government, but I want you to know what I think.

This is why you tell Sahara this, and God damn it, nobody's ever going to write what you will, and you have all the records, but you've got to write how often I got these ambassadors in and kicked in the ass.

And the Portland bureaucracy, we really fought them, and you've done them, too.

It's discouraging.

No, no, no, that may be a good point.

I'd like to do the following.

I'd like to go there and tell him that he's in control of the department.

He's going to find

The Rogers, I'm sure, will support the Resilient Force.

Oh, yeah, there's no doubt.

So therefore, that's why I want the Security Council.

We've got to get Rogers, Blair, Moore, I mean a whole Security Council.

I was even thinking of what I might do in order to get a little bit of a feeling.

I have a floor for it.

I have a seven-floor floor.

And really hammer this down and then do it and see it through.

No reason for us to do it.

The things we've got built for us.

Did you get them?

I asked one thing.

Did you get them ported, or would you have ported ahead?

I don't know.

I wonder if you shouldn't just, is there something more dramatic you could do?

Just walk out of the meeting?

I don't think my government is planning very well.

Why?

I just think you should walk out of the meeting for something.

That's what he's going to do outside.

He's going to do it fully dressed after the meeting.

Hello?

Nelson, I want you to know that at the legislative leaders' meeting this morning, at its conclusion, and it's been on the wire, but you may have seen it, but I, I, there were 19 Republicans there, and I said, well, I want you to tell us tonight, because I think you should not say my name, because I know how it is, and you have to handle the hard one, you have to handle it, and I have to wait.

I think you've got great support on this.

I really do.

I sense it from you.

We can handle it well.

Your people can handle it well.

I want you to know that down here, we're going to...

I'm going to...

I'm going to stand up on this thing.

I tell you, I...

Yes, Javits spoke up, you know.

And Javits spoke up about what he did, and it's been a carnival through the Congress in that area.

It was going up.

And he nodded, and he said, I elect the governor already, so...

But I'm sure they're going to nitpick this thing, and they'll say, well, people say this or that.

The point is, what the hell would they have done?

What would they have done?

You had to do it, and the whole thing.

We had to make these arrests, mass arrests, for these clowns coming to Washington.

So there were some people that were innocent who claimed they were arrested.

That's just too damn bad.

We had to keep the government running.

And the country.

Yeah, Henry.

Yeah.

Good, good.

Well, you just stand firm there and don't give an inch.

Because I think in the country, I think in the country, you see, the example you set may step in the backs of a few other governors that may have a problem.

But also, in the country, too, I think that it may discourage this kind of a riot in some place else.

Daily News, I would certainly support you on this.

How about Times?

Times?

Well, let Earthman know if there's anything more that needs to be said or done of this camp, if there is, and generally we should stay out, but you know what I mean, we're with you.

Okay.

Okay, bye.

I called him this morning, and he must have been grateful, because, you know, Nelson can shake him very easily.

I told him, you know, I think he gave him an hour or two just to do it, and I urged him to do it, and all the reactions set in, and he sort of backed off, but he must not now.

Nelson could be a hero, I don't know if you know.

It's like, it's like, it's like Trudeau, that's right.

People back the chief executive when he uses force against the budget.

I feel roughly the same.

I know they did say you supported it, but they didn't have any voice, I mean, anybody to hear it from.

There's no one speaking to the government.

But don't you think it's good that they did it?

Essentially.

I mean, the president is going to step up and support the law enforcement.

Also, let a few of these damn government officials...

The president, if they hadn't done it every now and then, the country would have congregated around that, and this would have become the best case for that.

He wouldn't have had any...

there's any possibility of keeping older than any other group.

On that kind of thing, do you do a checklist of what you're going to do on Saturday?

Do you want him to come back more?

Do you want him to stay an extra day?

Do you want him to go to Sunday?

But I'd like to call it United States of Australia.

He's the bastard.

I think we have to be brutal with him.

He feels we ought to have him sit down and say he's so concerned about the Laird thing.

And he feels we ought to have an NSC meeting.

And he nailed this thing down.

He nailed this thing down.

And we appreciate the way he's with regard to this thing.

But we don't want to let it go down the drain now.

We'll take an NSC meeting.

It would be very important that everybody lined up, and Monsanto, and Kisselman,

Where is, uh, uh, I feel like I just was talking to the president.

Yeah, you're good.

And he told me about it.

And now it's that almost anything he does is going to be too little to appeal to the domestic people, and maybe too much for what they don't, because it's, you know, it's a disaster what he did and what the result of it was from the other end.

And I also think he's beyond the end.

It's almost he's got left for, you know, he wanted them, and also he's got to do it at all times.

I don't think that the people need to be outraged at a rigged election.

the impact of the bomb and the amount of people who attack it.

Under the impact of American lack of approbation, he's going through the DM syndrome.

He could ride out of his election within South Beach.

Now, he can get a little credit for that.

But it's our lack of approbation that we can't do it alone.

If he now cancels the election, my guess is that it will be because the laws were changed, but if that would change, it's because people's anger comes back.

I want to mention two other things.

You mentioned two other things.

We do, you know, holding an energy meeting in the morning, either at Camp David or at, I don't know, about reviewing the exam now and reading it now.

And you know, whatever we want to do, we ought to pay, see for the president to hold back as long as we possibly can.

Well, you've been tremendous on this.

We don't have to convince you.

It's just that at the NFC meeting, the president would have normally appreciated it.

You could take a strong line and say, well, how did you ask for this to be mentioned in anything in particular?

If you all maintain complete evidence, then there's no other way of doing it.

In this case, there's no justice.

keep in touch with you uh president may want to have some other we don't know yet when he talked about the

He sent over a letter that the daughter of that astronaut, who's the president and the person who told him to fly to the president, you know, to send a thank-you note to the president about the handwritten letter from Domenico to him.

He said that Domenico was arriving on the 19th with $300,000 and all that.

If you want Connelly, we've got a good... Connelly will be back for Saturday, I'm sorry.

I think Connelly ought to be there, don't you think?

The way from here has a...

Mr. President, we've done a damn good job, and I'm just getting tired of it, but we've done it by high-wide advance.

But we don't have to defend this lot.

You know, it's a business.

If we have a communist government, it's not going to happen.

It's not going to happen.

We can make a big play.

Is there any way that Chew could grandstand and say, well, I'm...

Since Chee then becomes president, of course, I'm running against Chee and Chew.

I didn't mean to do that.

That's why I didn't touch the... Grandstand.

I think your analogy of running to the wire

is true now.

It may not have been true then, but I think now that North Vietnamese, Brazil, Cambodia, Laos, and the floods there, and China, and Russia, are in a hell of a shape.

The President of the United States

It was too long, but Roger was already talking.

Why can't we do, uh, well, can't we, can't we do something?

I just don't think we can.

We've made a number of trade mistakes.

We should have made a nice referendum.

If we could get the referendum, in other words, if we could come together with the people in the House, or the Black House,

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Television strategy and China summit

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Also recorded on September 14, 1971

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Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Television strategy and China summit

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on September 14, 1971

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