Nixon, Colson & Clawson on Foreign Policy and Press Relations

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It's hard to keep you waiting.

Supposedly, supposedly, in order to focus on focusing on restarting the .

The only purpose of .

And all of these judges, I can't say.

And it's managed by .

So who would like to start ?

Well, I .

You had some contact with recent.

I had some contact with very recent.

But anything you like.

I was talking with Frank and also Howard Smith.

He had this view of all three of these people when he told them he's dead.

But Reisner said that his impression was that McGovern was still in the state of shock.

McGovern?

Yeah.

Let me ask you this, John.

I had a feeling.

He said, well, he threw it out in Miami to please the POWs that we're going to maintain a residual force.

And then, of course, what are you going to maintain a residual force for?

He said, well, I don't think it's important, because I think I'd get the prisoners out in any event.

Well, then why do you need a residual force?

And so he's advocating a meaningless residual force.

He said what it was.

winds up, you wind up nowhere.

Did you see what the Thais did today?

Now, the most fascinating thing.

The Thais said, the Senator McGovern is elected.

He said, we're not a colony of the United States.

There will be no Americans.

And they go, wow.

the Japanese, with whom we also have a treaty.

And certainly the Israelis, with whom we don't have a treaty, but at least a commitment.

And that's why the residual worsening is weak in that point, too, of the treaty.

But the Ute men have gotten to an armature.

That's right.

Oh, they've given them a very hard time.

You know, another very vulnerable

I don't know why he loved it.

uh-huh they knew they were pro-Israel and they're petrified because they know for example such a sophisticated thing that we use Greece as a staging area for both Lebanon and for Jordan we haven't got Cyprus we haven't got anything else

did I understand the issue before the test?

Oh, it was after this thing occurred that we helped him right at that time.

He took me off the court and said, I want you to know that I am not embarrassed.

And I also want you to know that Prime Minister Maillard hasn't raised your voice to me at all.

I had to have talked to the police.

I'm also glad you made that go on.

No, she's a great gal.

I agree with John when it comes to the second administration.

I think in the second administration, if we win, we think what will happen.

I think that some of those reporters may turn sympathetically toward you in a way that has never occurred to me.

I think that's right, that only among those reporters who are pretty objective right at this minute, I think that that logical effect gets through to this group, but it does not get through to the group that is our target group.

Well, I think it's a little more likely that it can't.

But the target group is what?

The target group are the government protective society reporters who just traditionally

In terms of the foreign policy areas, these events are so enormous in their impact that any responsible foreign policy guy is just going to say, God damn it, I'm glad you're alive.

Now he's never going to change.

He's always going to be safe.

We're having a hell of a time in Russia now because of this Sadat.

Hell of a time.

But on the other hand, the world is never going to be the same, and reporters have got to like that.

I mean, these are the guys that covered what I mentioned today.

You remember that hellish fight that split the Democratic Party, the free Turkish aid program, which, you know, split all Henry Wallace and all the rest.

All right.

Now, again, 25 years later,

Well, I think that's at the basis of John's comments, because he's dealing mainly with foreign policy reporters who realize that they do feel that way about the government.

And I think that when you combine this, all of the things that we have going for us, the contrast with the government and the absence of day-to-day or felt-fire criticism

There isn't going to be, and if you follow us for watching, there isn't going to be this great system.

There isn't going to be the Kronmeier, the Kressen, the...

Yes, I think so.

I would still leave room to...

I said a little strong.

I think the example of where we took on the New York Times and beat them, there's still room for that exception.

But that wasn't where we had to nail them.

We could nail them.

That's right.

I know what he wants me to do.

I don't say a word about my father.

I don't say a word.

John has a fairly of the opinion that he's been on the air a whole long time.

And that if he's got to nail him on a couple of shots, why, you should take into account the fact that he's on the air for 43 hours and a lot of the other things that he's done during the remainder of the 43-year program.

So I didn't expect him to listen to everything.

And you can't get over the sense that you can only look at the account

If I know what happened, I'm probably going to read it.

It goes through all of that.

That's why I think sometimes you've just got to say, gee, we know you can't do much about it.

We should ask this question.

It's the old thing that I don't know.

Look at history.

That's the thing.

Have you ever read the Lincoln story?

Abraham Lincoln, in his 30s, had melancholy, which they called a very serious depression.

That was before the war.

This has to do with the imbalance of power that we have now.

It's the presidency.

It's the buck.

That's the big thing, really, that they killed a lot of people.

Well, they worried.

They talked to Johnson.

Oh, yes, at the time he was at the bottom.

He wasn't heavy.

I remember.

But I never worried about him.

I remember the night of the 19th.

Johnson, basically, was and is a super cautious man.

All of this

Men that really are the ones that have the strength and the quietness.

They call it a song.

And an artist's song.

Which I'll bend a little bit.

Not in the present time.

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

Right.

But I had one rule, which was also .

I had a smart rule.

Eisenhower, I'll remember, he had always been amazed when he was doing the church .

He never drank too much.

He'd always stop at two.

We know what's happening.

In my society, in public life, I have never even taken a sip of anything before going, oh, I can't do it.

Because booze relieves me.

The reporters can break them right, and I've seen them do it.

Anybody who's going to make a tough decision, or when you have to be terribly articulate, you can't do it.

The only time I will take it is when I'm toast,

I don't have that much to reflect, but hey.

If you fellows could both take it upon yourselves to watch very closely the relation to the press and be sure to hear it.

The other thing is that particularly, and do it very discreetly on the Vice President.

He's going to do it best.

The thing that he does is not something I didn't realize.

And I didn't show that to him.

He doesn't realize how something about him that he may not have come to make him look like a jackass.

He, I told him, I said, now, I said, look, let me tell you about the jokes.

I said, they're wonderful.

Now, don't make any of them unless they're on your cell.

Don't make a joke about them.

Don't you agree?

He looked very good.

Nothing soft about this guy.

Then they started covering him federal, so now they get the idea that's a new item, and then they start paying attention.

As a matter of fact, our Western debating standards were saying that.

So they started.

And part of it was because he violated his language at home.

He wasn't passing.

That's their issue.

Nixon, Colson & Clawson on Foreign Policy and Press Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on July 27, 1972

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