Nixon, Colson & Haldeman on 1972 Presidential Election and Thomas Eagleton

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I think it's just the sun.

What was it?

It's probably just the sun.

Yeah.

Hi, George.

Yeah, you, I guess you've been on a little lot of television, huh?

Yeah.

What I wanted to tell you, then, on the basis of just the private instruction, and not the, and the responsibility, but what our people say about the reason behind it, but when you're talking to Walter, the next time, I don't even want to frank talk to you, because he's cold turkey along these lines, all right?

All right.

We are waiting to see.

Never.

With regard to.

over 100 civilians murdered in South Vietnam, killed by bombs and so forth.

Over 1,300,000 refugees.

Now, this son of a bitch doesn't do that.

That's that.

The second point is, I think you have a real question if you need to come to him.

You were gonna curtly say, no.

You got it?

Okay.

Good, shake him.

The State Department will be putting it the other way around.

That's awfully good.

You're right.

George needs the signal.

Head on.

Because George will be strong as long as he's told to be that George's inclination has any use to me.

Well, the things you want he would do, in particular, is an invitation to put down Henry.

I wouldn't go with any of that.

There are no certain lines over there.

He's been pushing me through, and I told him.

But I guess he's trying to work through it.

Well, the point is, just the whole mindset of all men is stuck in the neck of the mouth.

Just do it.

Just say no.

You don't give any reason.

Oh, I'm sorry.

He's too busy this year.

It's a political year.

He wouldn't want to go this year.

Screw him.

No.

Let him decide.

Oh, the dark side.

He's looking at it in a different way.

He thinks it's a good political thing because he shows you it's the international culture.

And the UN doesn't need it.

Not the UN.

Not that you don't need it.

You don't get it.

Because when he walks into the UN, those assholes don't stand up.

And that doesn't show the President of the United States.

And that doesn't show the President of the United States as an equal of some asshole from God.

Boy, I get my butt hurt every time he's going up there.

Because if you sit in that chair, the President of the United States walks in and they don't stand up.

And that is just plain common courtesy to their host.

I understand the vote.

Thank you.

But anyway, anyway, it's the, we have some of the cars down here, so if you want to know, in all of our shops, there should be no discussion.

On the go lead mayor call.

It's okay with just one cool, real candidate to come tonight.

So why?

For some purpose.

Yeah, for our purpose.

And we carry out this regulation on television out of Israel.

That's the way it's going.

Get it out there.

And we'll send it down where it is.

We'll send it down.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Thank you.

I think we should shut up the meeting.

Should that be the way to get another guy in?

They ought to be coming because they work like donkeys.

See, we have to maintain that.

We turned that off yesterday before we got into it.

We've got to maintain a facade of a client running the communication department.

And we try to, to a degree, make clients think that he knows it isn't true, that he's sort of now fallen into trying to believe it himself.

But we move across to him as his deputy.

Clawson runs his office under Coulson's direction, right?

And is really part of Coulson's operation.

Operationally, but I understand that technically.

That's heaven, and I'll take care of that.

That will then, it's a great, that'll be a good one.

I see Clawson every day.

I don't, I don't.

Well, I'm in Clawson, and he should have his, you know, have that guy's company, and we've got, but he hasn't signed off the whole bunch.

I'm not doing it for fun.

I'm doing it for the purpose of people's brains.

And I don't know what fun it is.

It's important to tell the world about it.

They are.

I don't know.

You said it.

They are different kinds of people, but I was even thinking the way you're trying to say that.

There are a lot more viriles in Christ's group.

This is a very masculine virile.

And I'm trying to do what I'm trying to do.

I just got to go up and check the water.

And I'm not sure that any of them are this long.

I can't tell.

I'm sure that I wouldn't want to do it.

I wouldn't ask that question about anybody in that close group.

Because you can sort of, you can feel it in the room.

I guess it's probably impossible in the Christ type.

to get people that you can count on.

No.

And I think you've got to be able to count, but you've got to determine.

To have that many, though, and without having a few.

If you remember, we got screwed like hell.

We, I mean, that terrible McGinnis book, you know, which we didn't pay much attention to, which got one name on its plate.

All of the day, you know, everything else was a result of garments.

And they quite, uh,

I'm sure Christ is so careful that he would never have anybody with a bad record.

The difference you have is that this is partly reflected with the leadership of the group.

Chuck is out fighting and chucking everybody.

Correct.

And running them in and out.

Right.

On the parade, he's turning them, starting them.

low-level, not low-level, low-key.

And Ray has been, the thing that Ray provides for us is an enormously important balance in getting out members.

We make very few mistakes on letters and statements and so forth.

Maybe, and frankly, they are better than us.

The standpoint of elegance we get credit for is infinitely better than awful stuff like Johnson and Eisenhower, and unbelievable for that.

And we're covering many times the ground.

The one point that I want to make sure is that, and I know that we consider this not very important, but on the responses to letters and so forth, the recognition thing and so forth, that department should be very heavily increased at this point in time.

because I do think those things, you never know when they have an effect.

You know, I've seen them in the past, and I'm sure it should be done.

The scamming theory is correct, ultimately.

It is a game of inches.

You never know when, you know, there's a picture of somebody looking at the letter or the certificate of recognition.

I just like to dump those out on the hundreds right now if you can.

And I know that there are

How many cars do we see?

A thousand.

A thousand?

Yeah, we do.

Do we have to send it to the minister?

No, no, no.

Here's the problem.

You don't get them all.

That's what we're concerned about.

And we just keep getting them.

You're, uh, I'm sorry.

I'm feeling this morning a lot of depression.

This won't be the first story.

We don't.

If you're on.

We don't.

We're really not doing that.

Unless he takes him off the ticket tomorrow.

He finds out he had a request conference and decides he needs to be on stage.

He'd be taking him off tomorrow and then he'd top it.

We're not going to knock him.

What about if it doesn't happen?

We're not going to take him off.

There's an advantage in that we're, we're, you, I still think strongly that the contrast of you

some stories, and at least two or three of them there always are, mixed with stories.

All the press conference relaying to the specific government thinks not that anybody gives a shit about the stories, but the fact that you're there running the damn government, while they're out wallowing around trying to decide who they got on that other ticket or not, is a good contrast.

The thing yesterday couldn't have been better.

Right?

That little mayor shot early.

It was substantive.

It was governmental.

It doesn't matter what people think about recognition.

I know.

It was that these, all these Democrats are out there saying the president has exercised outstanding leadership.

Speaking of offense.

I mean, that's a great event.

If you're going to do something, you're going to do it on a very high level.

And you're speaking to those damn warmers who run all through that area.

So, that's a great one that came into the past.

And it's, you know, we had a great one located in the 70s.

I just want to be sure.

.

Well, that's so cheap, such an easy shop.

And I would think about that on that sort of thing, you might have a concrete bridge.

I don't care if it's even business week or, you know, or the plumbing, the Elks weekly bulletin.

They want to stay present.

I agree with you on that.

Don't you think so?

And our people, we've got people, right?

I don't see.

We don't need some stuff like that.

That's right.

I think any turned down statements to local, any kind of publication is basically, this doesn't require any of the issues.

That's right.

You've already had in mind that after Labor Day, the Congress is expecting us to turn it down.

I think we need to do something that's very important to this.

If I go to somebody in Ohio, and I'm going to be in the walls, you know, of medicine, and I'm going to be in the walls, you can talk to a doctor, or a doctor, or a doctor, or a doctor, or a doctor, or a doctor, or a doctor, or a doctor, or a doctor, or a doctor,

just so that we're paying attention to it.

Yeah.

And I would like Al Haidt, who's called, who's a Christian, who's a president, who would like it.

I don't know if you might be able to hear me.

I'm listening to that.

I was in a poor house, and I was in that cave around the city.

The offer should be made simply of the common sense.

.

If you would indicate to me what I'm trying to do.

I contributed to the discussion.

Maybe John DeRose, maybe say something indicating that our hustle is fine.

I'm sorry, I know we can do something very close to what we're trying to do.

your way.

What I'm engaging in here is something that will get the wall of attention now.

And it will get the power of the enemy.

Absolutely, at least he's sane.

No, he might not become that way, right?

That's right.

Unstable, basically.

He's unstable.

Unstable.

Instability.

Right.

And what could be worse?

What could be scarier than a guy in here who isn't in full command of everything?

And?

The grueling nature of this job is very clear to the American people.

I think they have hard work and all that.

They know what great shape you're in.

They know you get tired from the job.

They know it's tough.

They know it's the mental pressure and all that.

It has to scare them to death.

They may not talk about it.

They may not want to talk about it.

And they should die what they don't.

But they have to.

They can't help but think about it.

I think they've got a very tough time trying to build the vice-presidency question.

That was an issue they were going to make.

How are they going to make it happen?

And also, to the extent that it's as an equal to the other ones and everybody else is concerned about credibility, it sure punches a large hole in that one.

I don't think that's an issue anyway.

Okay, but if it is, if they're going to peddle the line, if you're the dishonest crook and they're being honest about it, or if they're superb, tell them straight guys.

Here is this son of a bitch who's done all this lying about, to his own leader, kind of eventually... To the electorate in 66.

To the electorate in 66, to the press, to the press.

And it reminds me of his president, his leader.

So how do you ever learn from that?

And that's a very clear thing to all people.

That's the lie that we all tell our children all the time.

If you tell one lie, then people never know when you're going to tell another.

And that's the reason, sure, some of the lies may not hurt, but they hurt if you were under...

And that's just locked in there.

They can't undo that at any time.

And if this campaign gets rough, a ways down the line, we'll start putting some signs in his crowds.

We'll start shouting some hecklers out about his stuff and all that.

You can, without anybody on our side,

What I would put it out is, not about incidental insanity, is honestly, lie.

Sure.

Why did you lie to the governor?

Why did you lie to your health?

Why did you lie to the governor about your health?

If you lied about your health, what else are you lying about?

Why did you lie about your health?

It's the way it works.

It's the way it is.

It's like your sign.

What about the usual?

No.

The sign that was everywhere you went for a while.

No.

What about the usual?

No.

That's, uh... We should win the election.

That's it.

One gun.

We're going to be strong on it.

A thousand percent.

I agree.

We're going to be strong on it.

We have to get to it.

We've got to.

We cannot allow that.

We've got to do it quietly, though.

We can't let it be a martyr.

I know.

Yeah, there's the puns.

We have to go just cool with it.

We don't want to be a martyr.

We sure shouldn't talk about it.

Let it come down.

Let it come down before we start.

Just before it was.

You don't let it come down with a voice cracker.

You let it come down with a group when there's a group that you belong to.

You can't keep it around.

You don't give it any indivision.

Well, that's fine.

And when he says, why don't you let me in?

He said, he said, because you want to do this.

That's right.

Just say, but you can't work it out.

Just let him say that you want to do it.

Because I would have given that thing to him.

And then he'd probably say, no, you shouldn't do it.

Just, just, just, just have them able to, just have them able to work it out and start to return it.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I understand.

It was terrible.

I'm sorry.

This is what we had turned to see, and even I know that we were able to talk to him, and all of us, fibrosis, you know, it was a crisis that had put him down here in one of the buildings.

And what it was, it was the best thing that's happened.

He didn't actually, I mean, you know, quite worried about it, because he doesn't need to go into the studio to see it.

I have one super pressure item, and I'm going to ask you about it.

What is it?

It's the board minister walking down, and of course, that's the only thing I'm going to ask him.

There's an old show.

Tell me who is here in 70 years.

He's got a letter from that chief.

They all bring letters.

Yeah.

And the arguments on this one, the reason that it makes it...

The argument on the other side is that Medici has received Connolly, August Siemens, and Arthur Burns in the last few weeks.

Are there rumors that Delphine is in trouble?

I'm going to try to show this to show its prominence, so I don't know what you have to do with it.

They're afraid of you.

I don't know about the declaration or what we said,

On those things, Bob, I'm not, they don't either really have to be raised as much as we, you know, when you realize it, you tell them, God damn it, we've got to see them, we've got to see them do it.

Well, except we've got such a firm rule, and I'm trying to make, I'm trying to make them all as far as saying, hey, as soon as we start back together, we're going to get well.

Well, particularly with the U.N. coming into work.

That's right.

And they're not going to let that interfere with other more important things.

That's particularly true.

Right.

On the other hand, we can take advantage of that and do a couple of panel amendments with art to our advantage.

I think this is going to be good.

It's a good time to get international stuff in before people's eyes.

And you having the guy down here doing something is a hell of a lot better than going up to the UN.

That's it.

That's it, my man.

If you're not going over to the corner, I don't know.

We're trying to let go here.

If it goes down, we can't go.

It won't work.

I think there's something wrong with it.

We have an engineer coming in.

Maybe it works.

You can leave that door open, too.

Before that, you might want to...

Extend from here, maybe... Three turns, five turns.

We don't have any money.

No, but this party is ready to do this.

We're going to call it.

That's a good way.

It's better to play it instead of having her come and let her linger out there.

And then you say, is your wife here?

Bring her in.

So that it's you that does it.

Because he's set up because he wants to cover this job.

Look at this book.

I'm a different than the old ones.

That's bold.

That's foreign policy, too.

Bold.

That's great.

They're getting them.

I know what that means.

You can always send us two books.

The price is thick.

We can't know what the questions are.

I'll get some of it.

I'm always willing to review.

I will be prepared for it.

I just think that we don't have to worry that much about it.

Especially when you're on the show.

I'm on television.

And it's just as well not to have everything.

Oh, I hear all of a sudden, particularly.

Yeah.

That's right.

It certainly is the matter.

It's coming over.

Nixon, Colson & Haldeman on 1972 Presidential Election and Thomas Eagleton

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on July 26, 1972

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