Nixon, Haldeman & Connally on Supreme Court nominations and Pay Board

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I want to see this job.

One, after I do this thing, it's very important that no calls come through.

Their first burglars play their government manager attitude here, which you're not probably familiar with.

They're a hell of a time.

And I'm not going to let them call me.

I'm going to lie to them right here.

I'm not going to let them call me.

You should not be calling me.

All calls will go to Rose.

You've got to come through.

So I just have to take any calls at all, period.

That's clear.

So I'll just say, I'll have the dinner.

Rose should take any calls.

Get that done.

Don't make calls around the country.

There's no reason to.

It's not that kind of thing where calls around the country to see what did you think of what he did and all that bullshit.

We're not interested in that.

The other banks, it's too damn complicated to understand.

They don't know the math.

The only thing there is that out of those, we tend to make some pretty good

Well, limit it to the ones where we're going first.

All right, fine.

Call around the country only for the purpose of getting people to make statements.

But don't have every client call all these people and say, what did you think?

You know what I mean?

All that sort of thing.

Only have her call people that he wants a statement from.

This is a hell of a point.

That covers Virginia very heavily.

Yeah.

Uh, check to see whether...

I just haven't run down a meeting to talk about an assessment for excellence or superior people on the court.

Find them and have Klein or one of his, uh, you know, just call and call these people and just say, you know, here's a bunch of, you know...

Before it all lined up, you had enough.

You know?

You don't know.

They don't know.

Yeah.

And still debating between, uh...

The only thing is, the strongest man.

Well, the two that they had yesterday, both won't pay them.

They're now thinking they need to go back to the judge.

was very good and some of them, some of them wasn't because he wasn't, uh, I'm not imposing, I know he's apparently a small man, little, physically little, and they were afraid he wouldn't be, wouldn't command the majority over later than he did.

The procedure is we're doing the family thing.

They come in and watch him.

Get the hell out.

Yeah.

Two of them don't have families.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll be gone, but it's not urgent, and I'll call in in an hour or so.

No, don't hold him.

No, because I had to go over to you.

He'll be out in 10 minutes.

Why don't you just leave and call him?

I'll stick around for 10 minutes, but I'll have to leave.

Don't rush him.

Working it out this way, I'll continue to do it.

I must say, I hope you see the picture.

The ride went about ten hours, I think, in a few minutes.

It was a wonderful trip with golf games and vacations and so forth and so on.

And the big fun is, Jesus Christ, I'm traveling about ten times a week.

We're at the top of the pyramid.

Make sure you travel better than I did.

I did follow you.

Thank you.

The battle is not Conley versus Finch, it's Conley versus Laird.

I just said screw Laird because the son of a bitch didn't go to the thing.

It's his own problem.

Conley's on a presidential mission.

Laird's on his own trail.

Hello?

Yeah.

Well, how'd you get along in the West?

Right.

Kept you awful busy, didn't they?

Right.

Powerful group.

That's the movers and shakers.

That's right.

That is a power, that's like the probe and all that.

It's the same kind of a...

Right.

Fine, fine, fine.

Incidentally, I don't think we ought to be a bit concerned about the stock market coming around on that.

Those batteries are just playing their usual line of sort of wait and see.

Don't you agree?

The best they can come up with at the right time.

Don't you agree?

Or do you have some other ideas?

Yeah.

They'll buy us.

Yeah.

That's right.

But then what happens is that when the Senate passes our tax bill, and that goes, and people start to buy on Christmas, then they start moving up, because it's all there, John.

God damn it.

The psychology is that, isn't it, John?

They say it, and they... Yeah.

Let me tell you one thing I want to talk to you about briefly.

I am seeing Kishi tomorrow.

Now, I am going to give him a couple of tidbits on the Voice of America thing in Okinawa.

I mean, that's easy to get, but there's a problem with that.

We don't want anything to do with it, except on the land of Okinawa.

Of course, they had built up his trip as if he was gonna come over here and work out the situation.

Now, I think what I should tell him

that you, with your trip, will be prepared to discuss it, and I'd like to know what he has in mind, and listen to him, but that you'll be prepared to discuss it, and then when you return, we will be prepared to make a decision, or something like that.

Now I don't, I'll be very loose, but if you have any other thoughts as to how I am, naturally, you go right back to your brother, Sato, and all the rest, and tell him everything.

So, how do you want us to play the job?

I mean, that's been, that they know already.

So what they're really after is to get it out in some other way.

Well, I'll tell them what I'm going to tell them is that you or my representative will be there to discuss these things.

Very frankly, we're not going to do that.

We won't make a decision while you're there.

But your views will have very great weight when you return.

I appreciate their talking very frankly.

That's what I believe.

How's that sound to you?

Good.

All right.

That's where I'm going to let them.

And I'm not having Arthur, the son of a bitch, as we speak, not play in the ball for a moment.

We're just keeping him on the ice for a while.

That's what your view was, wasn't it?

No.

No, sir.

You have to handle it when we return.

When we return sometime, you have to block the end of the gap around us.

Yeah.

take them on, and I'm going to make the announcements.

And I can't tell you what they are yet until we get some clarity on that at 11.30 or 12.

That's on this afternoon at 5 or 6 o'clock.

Hey, John Mitchell was just shot, first with regard to the woman.

They said she is the best, probably the best qualified woman to be a judge.

That we have found, that they have found 11 to 1 that she was not qualified to be in the Supreme Court.

So we are really off the hook on the woman.

Don't you think so?

Yeah, put it on the bar and also revert to the fact that this is a stat jury, because it's 11 to 1.

I asked, would you license any women on that?

He said, no.

How do you like that?

We'll let them have it.

And, of course, you know I'm not leaning on the woman anyway, so that's that.

Now, with regard to Frank, just to show you what we've got here, since he was suggested, and here's a very, just a lawyer's lawyer talking about, never has been in a meeting, never in a speech, he's only represented the Supreme Court and so forth as a lawyer.

Because the law school deans and others barraged this contact committee, and they're meeting, of course, in New York City successfully, they turned him down because of his views on civil rights.

Now, I understand John, not because he was not qualified to be a judge, not because of anything else, but because of his civil rights.

Now, for Christ's sakes, they take another moron like Birgit Marshall and put him on.

They take Arthur Goldberg, who is totally on the side of labor, a labor lawyer, and put him on.

But here, Lloyd is determined that because he takes a view which is

a reasonable view, they don't have to do it.

They don't approve it for the court.

And then they work on that basis.

If I got there, I'm gonna stick it to them again.

I mean, I probably, by the time, it'll be good then.

I'll find a company that will have a hell of a time coming down.

But isn't that something?

We're going to get that around, too.

The ADA has hurt itself with this one.

I'll tell you, we're going to track.

Turned down a woman because she was a woman.

Turned down another guy because, a fine lawyer, because he had to disagree with them on civil rights.

That's right.

But anyway, if everything's fine and you're, just keep well and get ready for your trip.

We'll see you on Tuesday, huh?

Great.

Yeah.

Okay.

By the way, drag us up.

Yeah.

I see, I see Wilbur Mills.

No, no, no, no, no.

Tuesday's just fine, because I'll be... Well, I see Wilbur gave us an F in economics.

He's clever.

Get a little mean.

All right.

We'll take it.

We'll take it quick.

Okay.

He must be called.

That Mitchell ought to call him.

And I think he can be called, of course, earlier.

Oh, my God, he's going to bed.

I thought he was going to do one thing on the ADA because he's going to put his letter out there afterwards.

Well, I thought he was going to put in another.

Anybody else in that paper that's strong there?

Paper department?

Right.

Strong man.

This is one where we're probably going to end up in a battle.

It's one where we want to play to win the confidence of the business community at this point, rather than the namby-tambys, rather than the middlemen.

That's where I am, too.

It's a tough draw.

It's very hard.

Keeping in mind that they, sort of, many hassled over Brown's appointment, I think you ought to anticipate the possibility, which just occurred to me, that in order to needle this, following that, White was starved, and they were trying to, that time might go over Henry for man of the year.

That would be very, very, very disturbing.

That would kill Roger.

That would kill him.

I don't have a good roster.

And then, question.

Have we in the past ever tried to, I don't mean amass in this, but people that are intelligent and known to the mind, maybe get big advertisers and people that are very close to us,

Jackass gets the man of your things.

Actually, the man of the year, the president usually, I mean, he gets a bunch of these things here.

He ought to go for it.

Breakthrough in China.

Breakthrough in the Soviet Union.

Maybe you've got another way over here.

Yeah.

at the highest level, not just these shit-ass little letters, you know, anyhow.

I don't think they affect them.

I think they just look like that.

I don't know who the hell lives around them, but we must.

Maybe you can find out in public.

Who knows this boss, you know, would be, you know, sitting down on the sky and won't probably look good with money.

That's what they're after, you see, is trying to be ill-treated.

I don't want to talk about the Nobel Peace Prize next year, but I wouldn't say you don't want it now.

That was before the war began.

No, if it were offered next year, I would turn it down on the basis of it.

Well, the only one that can get it can be the president.

Sure.

Well, nobody's done it.

I don't think anybody's done it.

Well, I've learned my lesson.

It's good to die.

I know there are great risks, but it ain't the problem with fighting.

I'm telling you, you can do this, this, and the other way.

This is the other way, the other way is the other way.

It could be the other way.

Yeah.

Fire on the staff.

You're the best you can be.

You want to save yourself.

That's true.

I'll save myself from my son.

He's working on it.

Yeah, he's working on it, but they don't have any key things for him to work on.

I don't want him to get a sapphire.

I don't want him to go out.

write some stories about how I did it.

I don't think there's any problem with leaving today.

Not to leave it, but you have to come up with a background story to answer what the president said, what he looked like, what he did, what he decided, why he didn't take the woman.

I don't want to play more mysteries.

It's kind of crasher and faster to do what ideal would like to do.

So I'm afraid, you know, of course it takes a lot of work to do that.

It's more just, you know, you've got to love it in any way.

And it's kind of a little bugged up.

And I'm not used to getting this kind of assignment.

And it's kind of a joke.

How do you do that?

Or how do you do it like this?

It's harder than you get in the building.

I'm just kidding, they didn't have a big welcome floor.

They had 25 out of the airport, and they had a motorcade, and the streets all blocked.

So at least they got a little help there.

So we thought we should have, you know, plenty of people in the square.

Oh, I thought that was a good idea.

Come in.

Fine, all right.

Oh, sure, don't say a thing.

He had told me his letter was going this morning.

You should say that.

But I want to get it.

I mean, this afternoon, you might hear it.

Did you talk to them about the two paragraphs?

About the possibility of the assembly sending them off and asking about the ABA and making wrong the assembly's responsibility on their license?

That would tend to focus it back a little bit on that, on the six.

So I think in terms of...

It would not lie at that point.

I want to focus it back.

What the president said, what he looked like, what he did, what he decided, why he didn't take the woman.

I don't want to play more mysteries.

The price for a disaster is what ideal would like to be.

So I'm afraid the most powerful person in the world

The boarders got a lot of it anyway, and it's not all fucked up, and I'm not used to getting this kind of assignment, and he's got a joke.

I've been in one before, I'll give you a reference.

Started in the beginning of the building.

He came and didn't have a big welcome board.

He got a pretty good name.

He had 25 out of three airport, and he had a motorcade,

the streets all blocked, so at least the other one.

I don't know, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know if there's gonna be people, I don't know

But they don't realize that everything they have is juridical.

They're not an acceptor.

It's fine.

All right.

I've raised the point that the attorney general didn't mean to go.

Oh, sure.

Don't say anything.

He had told me his letter was going this morning.

You should say that.

But I want to get it.

I mean, it's actually going to be my day.

Did you talk to him about the two paragraphs?

about the possibility of the assembly sending them on a task about the making wrong of the assembly's responsibility for their license.

That would not require the ABA to walk on their license.

That would tend to focus back a little bit on that, on the six.

So I think the Attorney General would not mind at that point.

I want to make it appear that if you go the other way, it will create .

Then you'll create the impression that .

Okay, so what are you going to do without the idea that we don't, their consent is not required to make them think that I'm going to appoint .

The key quote is,

But they do not have to be told off.

They don't have to be seen.

And that'll make them think, well, the president's going on television tonight doing that.

Suck them out.

And why don't you suck rather into a... Rather's already done.

Why don't you suck in deeply and say, look, Dan, you don't really have one of your guys that doesn't know stories.

You're right.

All right.

Better yet, call them in and say, where did you get that Friday report?

This is one that I seriously- We want to know where you got that.

Okay, where they got it is McClellan's.

Anyway, it doesn't make any difference.

I just want him on that trail.

I want to force him to be wrong, and find a way to get him to be wrong.

In Sampyre, in Sampyre East, everybody can't compete.

They don't like Scallop.

Scallop goes to... Actually, they're right there.

Just briefly to review the bidding, I'm not going to rule out anyone, but I'm going to leave the discussion to maybe the 6th or maybe 7th.

I just don't know.

Gentlemen, I do know that the Sixers, I will confirm that the Sixers have been and are under consideration, active consideration.

I frankly can't tell you whether there are others under consideration.

I cannot tell you that you don't know.

And you don't know any names either.

I'm going to tell them that you and I have a relationship and that Mark has quite a nasty relationship.

Perhaps you could say that I don't know, I don't know, and just say I frankly do not know any other names under consideration.

But to be honest with you, Professor, I cannot tell you that there are not, that there are not other names.

In other words, the name thing is the way you do it.

I just want you to confirm these six names have been and are under consideration.

The president is not voting.

There are other names under consideration.

The attorney general has indicated that others were, as he recommends to the president.

As far as I'm concerned, you see, I don't know, and I cannot confirm one way or another.

All right.

She's Frank Dale's syndicated gal on youth volunteerism.

She's writing an article?

No, sir.

You're telling her she's doing a great job promoting volunteer participation, right?

All right.

So she doesn't know she's going to sit in there with her pencil and start taking notes.

Okay.

And also, she does know the answers.

It forces the farts to cover her stuff.

Positively, you know, she talks positively.

And they don't use that.

And she knows how to talk positive.

She has a non-shamed way.

The rest of our people are so, you know, concerned.

They may be overdoing it, but I understand that, too.

They don't want to be like Valenti.

They're all very, very different from the Valenti thing.

Yeah.

The staff, terribly burned by it.

And I don't like it.

They've got to retain their own sense of their own, other than the most important.

must mean, goddammit, that the cabinet

Farmers and the staff isn't doing as good a job as they should.

Now, about that, I just can't, I don't believe that.

Do you agree or not?

Yes.

Well, we'll meet you at the election.

Sure.

What do they say?

They'll all try it.

They do.

One of the problems is none of us is anywhere near as effective as God is.

None of us at all have the ability to make that happen.

You take Rogers, he's a guy that's really, really, really sad about suffering a horrible death.

Don't you think that he is just, I think Henry has really tried, and Rogers has kept things to himself and tries to get around and tries to, you know, he's too frankly sneaky.

Don't you think so?

Except for that, you know, this monosyllabium is so...

It's blindly wrong.

Huh?

It's blindly wrong.

And yet Bill was so proud of what he did at the legislature.

He does do it, though, doesn't he?

He does.

He did it to the VFW.

He is good.

He damn well is.

He tried to, you see, Bill visualized himself as Dulles, of course.

Dulles didn't visualize himself.

Dulles was, believe me, ever a captain.

Dulles spoke everybody else's.

Bill visualizes himself and tries to play that role.

That's why he steps into it.

That's why he steps up.

We appreciate what you've done.

Mitchell will never...

The likes of Sears and Buchanan.

Well, you know, you come down to it, you know, you have a real, totally groundless staff.

They don't, they don't realize that the real question here is enormous strength.

Not a guy who says, go to the church and pray, or fire General Hershey, or, you know.

Mitchell would never, never, never suggest such horrible things, would he?

I never would have gotten into those things with Mitchell Brown, would I?

If he'd been invited, he would have advised me not to do that.

And he would have been wrong sometimes.

Sometimes.

There is a point where you just can't do a goddamn reaction.

He likes to go away.

He likes to go to the ocean, too.

He likes to sleep.

We took Glenn Olds and his Kent State students yesterday and dropped out so it didn't become a big plan.

They came in to see you.

Well, they came in to see you.

Their whole business was to know that Glenn Olds' pitch was he could deliver that petition to you.

That's just nice.

If we had refused to accept it at all, we would have had a big fuss about it.

I don't have a lot of...

But it led to the...

And he's gotten awful good about, you know, he doesn't run around afterwards and say, geez, now you've got to do something about this.

I know.

Lance has seen the light in a lot of things.

He's great.

He's still got his, oh, sure, he's got a soft, warm heart.

He wants to do his credit.

They can't take it long enough.

They're going to have to come right out and say it's philosophy.

All right.

They will.

Some of them, like Joe Rao, have got to as much will, but I'm not sure they'll get enough going into the future.

More particularly, we've got Teddy Will.

The Harris Poll, I mean, it's a rather bad one, so we'll go with it.

There is a couple of countries behind this, but we'll go with it.

You see the report that the Washington Post canceled the Harris Poll two months ago.

because they question its reliability.

So they don't subscribe to it anymore.

Which I'm sure has been the case since when the Periscope started showing this.

When they used to talk about it, they started showing this as well.

Which I'm sure had nothing to do with it.

Of course not.

It did start, it did start when it started showing up.

A month after you started out, and then the month that it moved up solidly, and so obviously going on up is when they decided it wasn't reliable anymore.

All these years that it showed you down, it was very reliable.

Was it carried anywhere else?

Yeah, not in Washington any more than that.

Yeah, it's pretty good carry.

Oh yeah, very.

It's a better model than Gallup.

He's a much better showman.

Gallop stuff.

Gallop, hurry back.

Give him another chance.

Any news out of him?

We can better on our O.R.C.

stuff.

How the hell is Colson going to get the damn Harris thing around?

Can't use Colson.

He's got another big firm here.

One of the magazines I picked it up is not all waiting to die.

It needs a bigger headline.

Well, when is Gollum coming out on Sunday?

He's playing games, isn't he?

Yeah, he sure is, because he was in the field.

It's too late, you know?

Nixon, Haldeman & Connally on Supreme Court nominations and Pay Board

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 21, 1971

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