Nixon & Haldeman on Vietnam troop withdrawal and SALT talks

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Could you get a, a, just a very, very brief talking speaker over to me by, uh, 315?

I don't want to avoid it, but it's kind of crazy.

I don't know if they say 3 o'clock on that, uh, on that Secretary of Agriculture thing.

I don't know.

Yeah, there's just got to be a brief talking speaker.

Yeah, we might.

Yeah.

Do your best.

And we will all set, I have a feeling Bob, I think you will agree that it would be really better to do it for our purposes of getting our own announcement.

Ron agreed, and also by 4.30 they're going to have a hell of a time rushing up on the hill and getting people to piss on them.

Don't you think so?

And get people to piss on them and so forth.

So Ron agreed.

All right.

Other big news?

Oh, absolutely.

Instead of the schedule, they scheduled the NSC meeting for .

Yeah, it's on the tree now.

I'll leave it on.

Whenever.

If it's already been announced on the tree, leave it.

Fine, that's better.

Leave it at 4.

Then call them all.

Call them all for 5.

And it should be announced as a meeting on SALT.

I want that to get out.

Meeting on the SALT delegation before they go back.

And tell Ron to put that out.

Your thought is very good.

Thank you.

Great.

I'm cutting an awful 25 acres, but we're not in the office.

That's also, and it's a little hard for me to do that.

They will.

Once they've got their big story, they're going to want to go on.

About a 4.30, 4.30 sharp, I'll cut it off.

Was this FBI on the shore or something?

Why don't you remember?

Was it on the shore or was it some leak?

Yeah.

Well, I think one of the routine reports of it is not an investigation for the purpose of firing.

I see.

Yeah.

But then the way you handle it, this is... Yeah.

Yeah.

Then they did it.

Yeah.

And, uh... Yeah.

How did Ron handle it?

Yeah.

Did you put it on the environment?

Oh.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, don't.

It's much better to get the specifics to not go if you're going to knock the story out.

That doesn't make any difference that we have one in mind.

The point is, I would just say, well, it's basically an environmental field.

Did you put that out?

Environmental field.

Because he's been hot on the environment, I'm sure.

Yeah.

All that we wanted there, Bob, all that we wanted there, all I ever wanted, is simply to open them up and see whether they've already been active in a communist crime.

You know, that they're supposed to have.

And you don't go out and send them.

I didn't have, we didn't have any field investigation.

I hope we didn't.

What happened then?

What did we ask for?

I want to see.

All right.

I have a question on how you respond to that song.

Oh, Christ, no.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Seriously, it's some jackass feeling.

You know what I mean?

I mean, what I'm getting at is not a full-time job, but I'm on a road and just have to check to see what one of the environmental orders is to get my claim.

And just to say that it's been happening.

You want to kind of train, you know, especially.

Okay, that's the way to do it.

Now, uh,

Oh, could I mention one other thing?

I had a really good problem with Julie last night, and a couple things were raves that I'd like you to handle.

First of all, first of all, she had knocked against her mother's name, Christian.

You know what I mean?

And she has, and I mean, they would do it willingly.

And the other thing she's convinced her mother, I mean, her mother can go out and read something.

Now, and, but she reads well, you know what I mean?

And that's much better than trying to memorize something.

And that's easier on her.

And it doesn't matter.

They have to live a couple of sentences in and read.

Now, second point.

The word person that I want is really used for this, even though he's of great use to me and Andrews.

He's the only one that really seems to sort of fit their style.

So we could tell Ray that I'd like to, or Andrews, always to at least edit the kind of stuff that goes over there.

Andrews is capable of a varying amount of work too, and there's something terribly important that I wanted to work on on that cam, but I let him do what I wanted to do.

Okay, we'll get Andrews to work on that story.

The third point is that you've got to work out, and Julie said, and she was talking to Mr. Taylor, you've got to work out something that suits better the evening.

Is one of them there?

The staff member wrote a memorandum, a padlock, and said, Julie, she's probably being exposed too much, and they ought to cut down on her schedule.

Well, that was just for a shift, and I didn't ask her who was, but, you know, somebody could show you what they're up to.

Now, Julie is not being exposed too much, but if you saw that courage out of there, she would be exposed to a lot more.

I don't know whether you heard it or not, but I got another person to show you that our own people, this is the kind of nation you're watching for.

They said the most emotional, the biggest moment of the Washington General is when they were talking to Joe Irvine.

Well, what it was, once she got off the G7 status, the world had ended seven years ago or not.

And she heard the results.

And then she said, because of people like you, we've had many.

And here we are today.

And it just brought everybody to their cry and standing up and sharing.

And I see here again, we've just gotten to have somebody on our staff that sees that kind of thing.

You understand?

Somebody should have been there.

Somebody should have reported to you.

Somebody should have gotten it out.

And I think one of the reporters did, but that's far more important, Tom, than one of the, you know, somebody else said that.

Why don't you get what she said and do it?

And then get it around to Zicker and Moore and all of those.

Get it on the same line.

It occurs to me that, and I'll go back to what I described, that if we could get somebody maybe to Rob's age, but more of a

but more, maybe it's a scallop, I don't know, a reporter type, who does see, who can be with me when I see people who are blind or something like that.

It's got a good story, I know, I know.

I know it is, I know it is.

But it is basically not Ron's, not Ron's tea.

Ron should really stick with the hard news.

This is something where you can let somebody, like Bob, have a chance to come in and say, that's something Ron should not be doing.

It's not his bag.

He got out the what she said, what I said, and so forth and so on.

It was a nice emotional moment.

It's the kind of thing where Scali, you know, would come out with tears in his eyes.

See my point?

And I wonder if we are, if we've tried more and it doesn't work.

Do you think Scali will do it?

No, no, no, no.

What I meant is, it doesn't work, not because of Moore, but because Moore's not a press man.

See what I mean?

I was wondering if maybe, uh, maybe you'll put Scali in some of those, uh... Well, having in mind, I'm thinking how Julie has to live in that, it's that kind of thing.

I really feel we, we have to, uh...

that would have been a perfect one

But I'll go back to that.

I don't mean they should be there for every event.

That doesn't work.

They don't need to.

We don't need to record them.

But I do mean that when you've got one that you know you want to be a singer, like the Bonnichons, let somebody be in.

And I think it should be somebody out of the park.

So it's not considered to be hard.

And I'm looking for hard in what I've said and what you all have said about it.

But we're looking more for, you know, this sort of emotional, emotional, right?

And, uh, clarity.

But that did give me a good start, I know, and that's to Ron's credit.

And I think that this is one place where we can share the responsibility, perhaps, you know, for a breach.

Now, the Julie story was quite something.

She was very knock-on.

That way you could see how she would have told it and smash it.

But I can't get back to that staff situation.

I just can't imagine anybody over there writing a breach in such a ridiculous conclusion.

except that I believe that they are really up the wall because, as they say, the West Wing is taking over the thing.

Yeah.

Can we get it?

Can't we get, can't we get those, I mean, they are all over there, Bob, and they've got their desks in the main place, but that's not what I want to hear.

And there is a way to save their people, but you know what I mean.

How can you do it?

Can't you bring them in and tell them all about it earlier?

And the main thing is the coordination of my schedule with theirs.

If we get the invitations here, let them sit in on it.

Couldn't Parker do that?

Are you sure?

All right.

Yeah, I see.

That's what it is.

We had a sale on that.

It fired 100 again yesterday, and retired TV, too.

And she says, that's my last one.

And I said, it's terrible for the man.

She says, and you're right.

They don't do a goddamn thing like she's done until they run out of here.

However, somebody ought to go back and at least Connie should have the brains and the intelligence and vigor to do this.

get the number of people she personally has shaken hands with in peace in the White House and go down to the store and let them do it as an enemy.

She has now agreed that she ought to do it on a one-day trip, this is really a one-day trip, but as far as she's concerned, she won't do it.

I think she will buy the idea of letting others do it in the White House, host them, in effect.

But she doesn't have to be there.

And I just, it was just damning.

And she said, well, when she said everything to us, they expressed disappointment.

She wasn't going to ask a question.

They'll express disappointment because I wasn't there.

I said, they're goddamn lucky to get the right for the secretary of transportation.

There is the point.

And to have the tea and the fine wavers and all the rest, what in the name of God?

Sure, they say, well, I go back to that.

I was so disappointed.

You know how they all go right back to that.

I didn't get to see you when I was hoping to shake your hand and get your autograph.

Yeah, you have to reach your autographs.

We must get thousands of those.

Up there, at the mart of the day, you know, I showed it to the guys.

I missed one group, the Steelers.

I said, they're all schools.

I really love the Steelers.

I know they would, Steelers.

And here's a lot of other people.

They were a little older.

And I went, you know, I should bear that.

Why do you want me to go over to third graders?

First graders, huh?

Well, you know what I mean.

Nevertheless, do that.

First graders are sad.

But they were from Washington.

The other kids from Rottetown.

Yeah.

The whole point is this, that in any event, you've got to play the out-of-towners and not the DCers.

It's not fair that the DCers are here.

It's routine for them.

Out-of-towners, it's a big deal.

So, anyway, we've got the patentate moving along now, provided it can be handled with discretion.

And bring the east wing in.

I want you to tell Ted Parker right over the goddamn head and tell him he is to work with.

You're to get Connie over the head.

She's out and gone.

I'll tell her she is to work with.

Now I just want to be sure she handles the other one.

And on the schedule and paper, we'll cut those keys down and I think we can get something going here.

very, very good.

But the key to it is the writing.

He, I think, I just tell Ray, delegate it to him, and that he or he writes, and that he can use the other, because he's young and he understands it.

Okay.

Nixon & Haldeman on Vietnam troop withdrawal and SALT talks

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 11, 1971

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