Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Thomas Eagleton

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Let me tell you, before we get involved too far with that, I think we should just have a go.

I think there's a little bit of a two down.

And he could say, the President thought you'd be particularly interested in our national tax problems, and he wants you to know that he makes your views and his press releases extremely helpful in keeping the Senate doves, you know, the government doves, sort of becoming the voice of the country.

And he hopes that if you can see your way clear, he would appreciate anything at any time, any time, in which you continue to speak up against the very good economy that's coming.

I would make a very hard point on that one.

Second, I think that McGregor, whoever makes the statement here, should particularly praise him for his, that he is a patriot and his strong stand on national defense matters and on

The United States, having in honor, went to the war in Vietnam, and they're getting our POWs back.

It's a stark contrast to that of some of the doves, you know, some of those who are hamstringing the President's sabotage, the President's sabotage.

He's put his country above his party.

He's put that country above his party.

And then on the busing thing, I would just clip out of the news summary, whatever it was that wasn't busing about that, and said that it was on a subject that they said that I'm not really, that I know the president's strong views, and that you'd be interested to know that.

And the president was upset and said, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you,

He had very strong views on this, and the platform was only the beginning.

Well, that's his question.

Does that sound to you like a good drill?

Yeah, yeah.

I really, I think that's much better.

Unless you can test that truck and get the point out that it was in the new summer.

But you'd be rather interested in that.

See?

But urge is support.

Ask for support.

Ask them for something.

That's what we want.

Right.

On national defense.

It's good that the word got out.

Ordered everybody to shut up.

There was a wire thread that said there should be no Republican camp or something.

Absolutely fine, but...

being subjected to the oppression of the Jews.

Who are really on the hunt.

Are they?

About this problem.

The Greek government has just given it another shot.

Do the Jews understand that?

I mean, the liberal Jews are against the Greek government.

No.

They understand what the basic...

They'd be against the Greek government, but they...

They know that they say cutting the great age of Greece thinks it's true.

Sure.

Well, you know, you shipped that to Mrs. Mayer this morning.

We were only on for three, no, four minutes with her when she was there.

We had a dollar house and she said, I said, she was so honored.

She said, I'm talking to you from this Oval Office where we've met so often.

And she said, well, Mr. Mayer, it's a very good time to meet back.

I've had lots of questions and I've come in with my word and I've always come out with the right answer.

So it's all really cool when you learn this.

Is it?

Yes, it is.

I don't know, go talk to her about coming.

I hope you're, I had a good little start.

I said, this is a very, this program is definitely called Around the World.

It's called Around the World in 60 Minutes.

That's what it is.

Oh, yeah.

That got along for a nice time.

Right.

Okay.

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

130 million dollar contract to purchase F4s because of the government statement, because they're concerned that if they continue with the contract and the government should be elected, they would be canceled if you don't vote for that.

If they pick the F4, it's a little mirage.

The F4s are, of course, for his defense, and they're just canceling the contract.

because of their fear of the government.

Do we, if they say so, do we know that?

I don't know, it's what's on the water.

We've called, our people have called and said, we're going to try to save them because of the economic disaster in St. Louis immediately.

It's all the government's fault.

Why does that call on people?

I don't know.

That's right.

That's a hell of a point.

They're smart.

And that's what they ought to do.

They said they were deferring it to you in the middle of the city because they were afraid that we would need the credit extended unnecessarily.

Well that in effect tells the voters that it was that area.

Nixon's elected, we'll give you the contract.

And Nixon is, if Montgomery is, we're going to cancel it.

That's correct.

It's a goddamn blackmail, but that's Missouri.

That's a comfortable economy.

It's so good around here.

You have been aware

that the president had been aware of beforehand.

And why?

Well, he's a goddamn liar.

No, no, no, no.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Chairman, I'm correct.

That was to instruct me when to do it.

Greer points out that he has one.

In fact, Greer said that the president was aware of this beforehand, and that he had a mandate from the president not to say anything about this.

What his name stated on the wire, it's not where he called from, he shouldn't have done this, he shouldn't do it again.

He said that he, McGregor, became aware of stories about Democratic presidential candidates, so about four years ago, there was a Senator in New Hampshire, he replied, he said, well, the reason he said it is because he's not supposed to say it.

He was told to say nothing.

We don't look for it.

I had a letter from Sam Crockett, I'm sure a week or two ago about it.

I called Clark and said, Jesus Christ, Clark, don't.

People don't say anything.

I thanked him, I said, you know, you've got to.

And he said, well, the reason I did it was that I thought it was a good point to let it be known that everybody knew about this, but it wasn't going to raise it.

Well, the only problem with that, you see, is the implication of the pain.

We sent my newspaper to him.

Yeah, that's the problem there.

And let me call Clark and make sure that this is exactly what he says, that he's in, he's in line.

Yes, he's in line.

Also, yeah, he also looked at him on tape.

God damn it, that's a very stupid thing probably, and I fired him on the stand.

He didn't know.

And that's what they're going to fall into.

The moment he says that he knew about it, Clark didn't think of it.

He didn't think of it.

Why do we want to make any points about the fact that he would be a good guy?

And he agreed completely with me yesterday.

There may be some distortion.

Did he say that he knew about it and told me?

Is that it?

He didn't tell me a goddamn thing.

I didn't know anything about it.

I don't know.

Absolutely not, I didn't.

First time I knew about it.

Ordered?

The moment I called up the staff and I said, get the word.

After the various people, after the vice presidents, I put them all.

We've always said, it applies, of course, here, that we never have any comment on a personal matter.

And all we're called, the thing is, is Rod.

If Clark says that Clark knows he didn't talk to me, he knows he didn't say it.

So, I do nothing.

I think he talked to Hall.

There was something to the effect that he was a manic depressive.

But there was nothing.

Nobody told me before that yesterday that he'd ever been in a hospital.

Nobody.

I'd never heard of him in a hospital.

So I didn't know a goddamn thing.

You can say with absolute certainty

Mr. McGregor.

In fact, I didn't discuss it with him after the event either, or before.

I have never discussed the event with McGregor, ever.

Not word one.

So that's, I want you to know that you should be confident in saying this.

Now, McGregor did say this.

If he did, I don't think we should back off of it.

You said the president knew about it?

He said the president knew and the president didn't.

You have to say.

No, I didn't say.

The question was, did it come up in the House?

Go ahead.

In other words, if the greater said that you knew about it beforehand and issued a mandate to the chair of the campaign.

Oh, shit.

That is totally untrue.

You've got to back off on that.

I think Clark misunderstood.

He misunderstood.

The President did not know anything about it when the President learned about it.

That's when I issued the mandate.

He issued instructions to all the staff that, as he has always done in any campaign, there is to be no comment on a personal matter.

On a personal matter.

I did not know anything.

It's the God's truth, and Clark knows it.

And no mandate was issued in advance.

Did you tell Clark not to use this?

No, sir.

You see, Clark is, he makes a month of it.

You're making something up.

In fairness to Clark here, I may have distorted first by a peer point.

I'll check that out.

That's not what's going on.

Okay.

Good luck.

You don't know what to do with a peer point.

You know, they make up things.

But you could have a better person here.

You're so presumptive.

Clark made a mistake.

He should have followed Jordan.

He should have not said word one.

That's our problem.

Figure it again.

Well, it's going to help us.

That's what he does.

He doesn't know what's going to help us.

Well, anyway, Dr. Pollard did some great things.

He did a good job.

And we're not going to let Clark field a gunshot.

Well, except we keep doing it.

He must not.

The main thing is he must never involve me.

I don't want anybody ever to speak to me or say that I know a goddamn thing about anything.

I've got to make those decisions.

The moment you get leaked out, that's what... We don't take a long time to get client off of that.

I'm pretty much off.

Finch, too.

The Greek wire is even better than I described it.

Presidential candidate George McGovern's announcement that the Boa Coa Electric in Greece was jeopardizing the sale of the parking benefit, but it was a good diplomatic source of important data.

And I could not say that they decided not to delay the purchase of 130,000 because everybody was scheduled to get something out next year.

But I mean,

source of the government's anti-greek regime policy, making it difficult for Greece to proceed with the narrative that this message that we have heard from the government reserve is mayhem over our abilities.

The same goes for Postal Special and everything.

They've got the low Democrats.

The low Democrats.

Well, and of course, that union, the head of the plant, the union leader of the plant, as you saw in the news earlier, that came out and said he could be made to support the government.

He was a stand-in for the long-awaited peace.

That whole thing is very much of the...

Interesting point.

Deserves it.

For other reasons than this.

Other reasons.

Why did he come up with the Greek aid thing?

That's one.

Totally escapes me.

Because it's a... No, no, no, no, no.

Well, yes, but it's basically this.

The memory workers...

although for this reason it's the movement you go to if you go to harvard you won't find one percent against green light i understand why he's against it and so it's the movement you've got to get against a and three you've got to be against a to shah iran you've got to be against a to shanghai understand that but why did he say it why in the beginning for no reason at all did he walk that way why does he run with it the grocery store

I don't think he did it before, but I don't know if he actually did this.

You know, you can't tell at all the time.

This was after he was gone.

All of a sudden, he's not coming through.

I don't know if I can judge him.

You could weave that clip into, which is correct,

We have a pretty interesting thing on that.

The future farmers are on that tour.

There's a bill that we would not pay much attention to that has to be signed.

that is extends the federal crop insurance act to persons between the ages of 18 and 20 before young farmers weren't entitled to insurance because they couldn't enter into a legal contract bob dole put this bill in as a relief bill for a 19 year old kansas farmer so you get crop insurance it passed and is to be signed it happened the future farmers are 18 to 21 so it happens to be precisely

covering them, so it's a chance to have a little gimmick to do something.

When they're in, you can sign the bill, and then we'll give them all presidential pens, and it'll be a hell of a mess.

They're all getting a tour on the cruise on the Sequoia.

So I think, you know, we'll do it.

There's 125 of them.

We'll do it over the State 91.

You can just walk in and sign up.

Could there be another 22 batches?

One group goes on Wednesday and the other on Friday.

They do lots or something.

Okay.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Thomas Eagleton

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

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Also recorded on July 26, 1972

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Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Thomas Eagleton

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on July 26, 1972

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Cite this conversation