Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on 1972 Presidential Campaign and SALT Treaty

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Yeah.

So, Ray, how are you?

Fine, fine.

I hope you're getting a little dog then.

That's about to be nice in Minnesota right now.

But I'd like you to be interested to know that I have had a very cold water to recover me from time to time because he was a former candidate.

Whoever we have by far as a need for in politics, I want him, I'd like to invite him.

I want him to know that he can be a president.

Because he not only is a former candidate for president, he was a former vice president for the Senate.

And I think his influence is important.

So I think that he would say that my plan, just so he knows that.

Because we've tried to sort of keep him close, but he's probably not Henry Kissinger.

I just kind of tell Mike, but I'll have to do that myself at the proper time.

But I think the idea is excellent.

If you're new to it, I would appreciate it if you could tell him that I could do that.

Yeah.

Right.

And I think particularly, particularly in the life of a foreign policy situation, the other thing is...

I realize he's got to be on the other side of my mind, but I'm going to have Henry, including him now, out on the campus, including him on the briefing thing.

For example, Henry, the police chief, he said he can't do that to Johnson.

He doesn't have Johnson's degree.

And whenever he refused, he didn't mean by it.

He will get it correctly.

And because I know exactly how it must feel, I remember when I was out of office and I told the doctor,

Yeah, I know, it's a lot different.

Well, what you've been talking about, that's another good thing to say, and particularly if you have salt, we need a good, strong advocate on that.

You'll be hearing from Henry, and you'll be hearing from Henry, but as far as the meeting is concerned, he should not mention that, because I don't have

I actually will not have a bipartisan thing at this time.

Probably won't have one until maybe next month, as a result, when it comes to a conclusion.

When I have that, I'll invite him.

And also, we'll have him on others, too, at the event.

I'll invite him to head it down on my own.

You asked about the Wilkes-Barre possibility, and there is a good thing if you want to do it.

Well, we did.

There's plenty to do, and the people there think it's good.

They think you should do it, though, on a different basis than you did.

There should be a formal, in a sense, a formal visit.

You should take some congressmen along and stick it to them that the reason you're doing this is to point out to them the need for passing this legislation that you've got up there.

Which they haven't moved on yet, but they think it would be helpful, yes.

And the thought is you could do both Wilkes-Barre

Elmira in New York, if you wanted to do two states.

Yes.

It's tied into the same, same.

You can go all the way, all the way.

We use a big plane.

No, you use a big plane.

Okay, let's go.

You use a big plane even for those kinds of things.

Well, that's definitely not a campaign.

Those are still fairways up.

That's a good idea.

Well, then you'll think maybe you'll agree on Monday, won't you?

It'd be pretty hard to slap it together, though.

Because you'd have to have the governor on.

You don't have to have Chapp.

But that's going through a shift.

Well, he writes the story.

Yeah.

And you can visit that college that you signed a special will for.

It's our kind of college.

It's a little...

I'm not sure I'd go to the college.

I don't pass the college.

Let's see folks.

Make sure that's a few radicals, but I don't think it hurts too much.

Sorry, the recommendation would be a Myra.

Is the Myra that bad?

I'll check to be sure because that does, going to New York complicates it a lot because that means you've got to have sharp congressional types.

Although it's not bad to hit the champions.

It's not bad to be in New York State.

You're the co-champion of New York.

And we can put them on the basis of the monarch.

It's important.

Congressional action, that's what you've got to do.

What would you take

Just take their supplementary development.

Now, if you take the list of federal senators and congressmen and appropriations, whatever committee it is, give me a chance to talk to them and all of that.

Great.

Monday.

I wonder why they did that.

Not really.

They need something to say.

We're here.

They'll be here and they'll have their rules.

They'll make a story.

That's what some guys like.

You're already worrying about floods.

Well, they're kind of worried about what to do about it.

All right, good.

Why don't you give the word?

And so they start making the calls.

I'll just go ahead and set up the plan for the close parents on my road visit to Montana.

And to, as far as the professional people get, get the straightening water.

The one part of the bill, have Earlman go over the basic point, because he's got a concept on it, which is it's important for our bill, not just to go over the place.

And then to take the part of the agreement that he got us to go over the center.

Yeah.

Okay.

Tell some stories of what was happening in school.

Spanish.

Did you tell them to get a hold of the father?

Three about the right time?

Yeah.

Three, that's right.

That's ample.

What's the day in here?

I know.

No, that's not true.

He has some other ideas.

Senator Lee just arrived in Washington.

It's a Saturday afternoon.

We'll have the senator off on Monday.

He got told.

He got to do it.

She thought it was a great idea.

Except he had it up.

He's got a pretty good rationale for it, which is that they've got an election.

He wanted to appoint somebody about whom there would be no possibility of staying on or running.

So that there would be a good election.

He didn't want the interim senator to be a factor in the election.

So I mean, a permanent senator to the city.

And there's a certain amount of liability for that.

So it's just a matter of building a seat for a couple of months.

And well, he probably has no idea.

There's a central salary for about six months.

January 4th.

She resigned.

So if you box this, you box a lot of fun parties and rides.

On the thing on the boat tonight, two other possibilities.

And I want to state that we've been working on that whole political stuff and stuff and all that.

It coordinates the idea of what's going to be solved.

And we just have having Ziegler and some of the other guys.

Let's say you're having Ziegler, Bench, Folsom, Clark, and I'm not.

I mean, I'd like to do it, but I just feel that we've just got to be lexical.

I think that's right.

Why not tenants?

I thought of Winder.

Great thing for John.

What he just did, he does.

That's a very nice thing.

I said, I said, I said, I said,

The second thing I said, Henry, we'll give the senator a call and read as he does Johnson.

I promised to pass it in, but I called it for the senator.

Maybe, maybe tomorrow .

I think you just ought to call it, as a matter of fact, the way that you say it.

If you want to do the right thing, call it up and say, Senator, the President, you know, he says that you can say that you read President Johnson.

He wants to be sure that Vice President Johnson is also reading it.

He says that if he'll let you know, you know, in law,

I don't think he's going to take it.

This was in the paper.

I think what we should get out of it is the destruction of these entities.

I think

OK. We've got the out call as soon as the vice president is announced.

The vice president has been announced.

I'll call .

Good.

What is your view about ?

Well, he's got the role, and I think it's pertinent to our understanding, of ballot security.

And he's been moving without a new publicity.

moving around on that, setting up regional balance security programs, and that sort of thing.

I think he makes the point, he went through a whole list of things that are wrong, things that aren't being done.

Most of them are invalid, and he had to sit and wallow through 10 minutes of quite a water-beating thing that was not well conducted.

And I kept saying, Larry, Jesus, don't even waste time talking about it.

You're not going to find me defending that.

He said, well, but you shouldn't have.

I said,

You shouldn't have young guys making decisions about these things.

They don't know how to do this.

You know, I was thinking .

And about half of what Murray comes up with is totally wrong.

I mean, really totally wrong.

He just misses the point.

But the area that I think he's interested in, it seems to me, is built in and has to be

not public, and where we do have a flaw, and where this kind of skill is useful is in the intelligence.

We really don't, I think, have an adequate intelligence

Murray is sophisticated enough not to do the stupid things that he would get caught up in.

For instance, he operated that chap, his friend, and he did make those discounts.

The guy did get some useful information, as well as a lot of useful information.

But that's what you get in intelligence.

Most of what you get is useless.

It's worth wading through if you get one little glimmer or something that you can do something about it.

Or he said, well, I don't want any money.

He said, I'd be perfectly fine.

I'm doing very well financially.

Thanks to you, you set me up, and I'm in good shape, and you owe me nothing.

And I want nothing financially, but I would like to repay the thing.

He said, the one thing I hope you understand, and I know that your candidate will, is that I care very much to see him reelected.

You really can't do, you can't, you can't do that.

He's right, the young guys really don't know that area.

They just are a little naive.

For instance, they told him to have Chapman's friend get a little microphone.

so he could record stuff when he was talking to people.

Murray said, Jesus, he's got to be reading detective stories.

The reason you got this old pack recorder is so he can sit and listen and write it up afterwards.

And they wanted to turn it to vouchers.

But it's expensive.

And Murray said, I hate the vouchers.

Anybody wants to audit where the money's gone, I can spend an audit where the money's gone.

But the bill was spent.

Murray could develop a few more like that.

He might have a lot.

All right, I'll shoot you.

I think he could be helpful.

Or he has a great mind.

He said, yes.

He said, well, he's following the same problem that I've been in.

He said, but I've got to give him credit.

He's got a sense of humor.

I saw him the other day.

He said to me, I wish you'd quit using my name when you're doing one of these things.

But to be perfectly fine, he's got better judgment, which I've got to be good at sometimes.

or he does no good on the size and that kind of stuff.

PR is terrible.

He doesn't understand.

He's not really that much good on organization anymore because they're organized differently.

Incidentally, I think we should have a Hawaii couple

I think Pat should go.

I think she should go because I think keeping the depths of whether that's all right or not, that's all right.

We don't want them there watching.

We don't want those.

Pat should go because when we're there, I do think I would like to do McCain's retirement ceremony.

And Clary was talking to him, right?

I think she has a question.

Might as well while we're there.

She said that by far the perception

the leading republicans and sometimes democrats as well and Hawaii could be decided as the state now could be won.

Anyway, it's a lot of effort for Hawaii, but it's worth at least trying.

In other words, why not just keep, and also it may force the enemy to go there someday.

This reception, do you think it would be good?

Oh yes, yeah, it's one of the two of us would go to, and maybe Claire can give us

But I just want you to know that I will consider these things.

On the retirement ceremony, one way you might have that is if you didn't have that as an event the day before.

It's September 1st.

I don't know how it's changed.

It might be changed.

But Henry said a question about changing.

But he may be wrong.

Have it?

Yeah.

On the 30th.

Then go out and do it after the surgery.

Then I met the night originally being a Y. I had my own arrival.

And I'm like, oh boy.

Arrival is a hell of a move.

After the retirement, that sinks back.

That's Pearl and wherever they have the ceremony.

And that gives you that.

Then go over to the other island and have the japa arrive a helo.

Do that and have your meeting then up on the cab.

Which gives you two islands.

Two arrivals.

A good ceremony and a good Nixon arrival on, you know, on, on, on, yeah, Wednesday.

Yeah.

That'd be great.

Now we've got to figure the possibility of an asshole was there, but I, I think we've just got to fight the bullet on that thought.

There's going to be assholes in these various places.

This is going to be after us, which, you know, it'll be, it'll be,

We've got to be careful about controlling crowds.

There's a constitutional or legal question as to whether you're, when you have a public meeting, you aren't entitled to keep people out.

And there is a problem there.

And we can get into trouble.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Good.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, that's fine with us.

I'd like to see them try to go south.

I'd rather, I'd rather have to go south.

Yeah, yeah.

That's for crying out loud.

I'd rather have to go south.

But then he will arrange for a briefing right away.

He incidentally had called Cooper from California after the convention.

But hey, he will not follow up again.

But this is a very good idea.

It's a good for the country.

And we'll follow up on what's done.

And that's the response.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

There we go.

Let's try it.

Well, I don't know.

I could see quite a while.

Quite a while.

And another thing, too,

I think people know that that kind of thing goes on.

They say, why was it such a stupid thing?

A triad.

Right.

Vibration.

Right.

Yeah.

I don't think it was.

I don't think it was involved.

Okay.

All right.

Let's talk about water.

All right.

Other than, with regard to the bench, I understand there are

demonstrators down there.

I would think this could be a ring with some description.

And we've got some covered signs about the demonstrators around here.

All right.

Well, that's part of what we're going to do.

These guys are going to do that.

They should get some other people.

I'll tell you what I have in mind.

I'll mention one that I don't want to post if you're done.

Mario, do you remember Poulsen?

Nars Poulsen in character?

Nars Poulsen was out of the conference and came back again in 1946 with me.

It was a vicious race.

And he was?

He was a study.

Oh, did he?

Yeah.

And in that race,

is that the day before the election, the day before the election, there were 50,000 flyers that were shoved under the door

And only in the cases where we told him that was true.

I would put a Governing Mac in there.

A good follow-up on this.

If you have anybody smart enough to do this, it's just something to give to the Governing Mac.

A shell out of here.

We go up.

Good, right at the left.

You can appreciate we can afford to use that on the basis of use.

Yes.

Our site owns it back.

I know.

They're going to be pushing hard on that anyway.

Yeah.

Well, the candidates are trying to be pushed.

You see, the other guys are trying to get off.

Right.

Like if a MacIntyre tries to get off, he's going to be tested.

Right.

Screw it.

Just throw it right to him.

Yeah.

Right there.

No, I've heard a lot.

I built the Spahn.

I screw Spahn.

McGovern and Spahn.

You have to do it in the McGovern type, primitive McGovern style.

Yeah.

And I don't know how that would have done.

I think it practically would have to be done.

It might not even, you might have to do it just the night before the election.

Right at the last second, yeah.

Getting our people out, getting our people out.

You've got to hurt us.

The candidate, what's he going to say?

He's going to say, I'm not running for governor.

He's going to say, get the governor to do what he wants.

My child is perfectly capable of handling that kind of thing.

I think you are.

I want to say I am a little bit certain.

I don't know.

I'm always very careful.

You know, they've got a bunch of drugs and all these different things.

But they sometimes aren't very well.

They're not right.

They're judging someone not very good.

Everything they say is going to go in the water.

You've got to be able to do what you want to do.

And I use my children to do that.

To enthusiasm.

Yeah.

Because, you know, push hard and you can't drill in this form.

The bluegrass working over here, it's not taking over and it gets itself down back into the field.

Oh, 71.

You know, the reason I had turned, I hadn't thought that the golf was not a good idea.

It occurred to me that that might be water on the wheel.

You're probably right.

Symbolically, Agnew plays golf and parks around.

He is so confident, he plays golf again.

After working hard for two years,

The ocean is no problem.

That's it.

If you don't change your pattern, you've got no problem at all.

And if you've done plenty golf once a week, I think you'd go right on.

Although Adam Hagen should knock it off on my golf.

There's no problem in blocking it.

I mean golfing.

You could do another one.

Yeah, but you'd go there once a week.

I could do what, as a matter of fact, I could do whatever I did to bother you to lose your souls.

Like that, I don't have any comments about it.

It's just very awful.

How did you find out about the election?

Well, I always put my name on the program.

After the election?

After the election.

After the nomination, I mean.

Yes.

especially in a working session and get some time out and go.

I think he's a great guy to play with.

I was in a big sale in Waterville.

He is a great guy.

I'm just used to being in this.

I think he's a great guy to play with.

Really?

He was fun to get away with.

I always said, all right, she's not doing that anymore.

I don't know how bad and how much she really is.

I just feel like she's got to come back.

She just can't spend a goddamn.

And I told him, and I said, what do you want?

I gave you the credit, and I'm enjoying it.

But as I said, it's 2.9 percent, almost 3 percent.

So it's 2.7 percent.

And overall, that's not good.

That's 7 percent, not just 8 percent.

It's an old solution.

It's like an old CGI.

It's supposed to be impressive.

I agree.

But what this says back, you're goddamn right.

What this says is the copyright of the bus and other things.

The person who's in the food area, the wholesaler, just in the July distance.

That's it.

I wonder if there are people outside the shelter.

Bless you.

The food issue is a very difficult one, because the year over year, in 1971 and 1972, on almost all ideas, we really kind of held it together.

The food industry, the farm products, the process used to be, it's at 9%, so it's a hell of a time.

Well, part of the reason for that is the fact that times are better.

And we get those goddamn bootstrap stocks in real life.

On the other hand, on the other hand, we may have jobs like slapping it on.

It's a lot of sense.

It's a lot of departments.

I don't see no department in these indices.

Well, they aren't going up at all.

People are going to feel better.

Just stop it.

I haven't checked these reserves.

The other side of the line is that we did say that we couldn't do it earlier, but I'm kind of just worried because now it's the last four weeks, 12%, 9%, 10%, 9% that we're going to have to do.

The expansion, that's really much appreciated.

I'm really, really happy with this.

Can't wait for the election.

Yeah, because this is what this will reflect.

So obviously, last year's.

Thank you to the faces for that.

You can't argue about the election.

They can't, but they will.

You've got a rationale for it, at least the officials did last year.

Well, in particular, .

Maybe you can pick a couple of those areas.

Why?

Why do the farmers care?

You see, there are areas like pulp and paper.

That's what we're doing.

People don't mind.

I know that.

Thank you, William.

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on 1972 Presidential Campaign and SALT Treaty

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on August 3, 1972

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