Nixon, Colson & Haldeman on 1972 Presidential Campaign and George McGovern

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He said, I don't know what he did, but after Saturday night, he said it was just a feeling of incredible anger.

He found this since Saturday night, but he's been awful rough.

He's now a liar and a murderer.

Murderer, liar, liar.

I don't remember a presidential campaign in which the House of Candidates

And so we searched the president and I think people think it's like two men running for president, that's one thing.

Where?

Like Clayton was lying.

Yeah.

That was a dirty campaign.

It was somebody running against the president.

It's a mistake on his part, Mr. President.

They were pretty rough on the Russians, though.

They were.

Oh, it was an isolated thing, but they got away with it.

Power man was attacking.

But not...

Not vicious, not, not female, not the person you're talking about.

Not vicious.

I think, uh, an interesting note that's on the press is he seems uncomfortable doing anything.

I don't think he's uncomfortable doing anything.

He loves to do anything.

I think he's a green man.

I don't know what he... Yeah, no, I, I said that.

I don't even know what he said when they went, the Ku Klux Klan went to, uh, call it the Republican Ku Klux Klan.

Not that, that is rough.

He ought to be taken to the campaign today.

He did.

He did?

Yes, sir.

It's interesting to me how they take it to that son of a bitch up there, Archimonde Paul.

But look, you realize what happened.

And he said, well, how is that different from McCarthy?

He said, well, this is true.

And I don't think you know a hell of a lot of McCarthy's.

But his case, for example, when they were after me, for Christ's sake, it was all true.

That's what you have to say to me.

The interesting thing is that their campaign practices can be incredibly inappropriate.

They say this will be the dirtiest campaign in recent years with 21 complaints by 18 of the local three nationals, of all three nationals in the United States of America.

And this report is going to start to be, we're trying to get the full text of it, but it will start to drop.

The reason I marked the news so many days, we have to get out of it.

Dirtiness.

It will prepare the public for harder campaigns.

The last-minute smears.

Chubb's is terribly important.

I know that Bill has tried.

But McGregor has got to say, dirty better tactics.

Well, he's McGregor.

Dirty better tactics.

He's got a piece of media in New York Times about him.

He's got a carousel.

I wish a liberal could stand up.

Percy ought to stand up on this.

Percy ought to stand up on the basis of something very good.

If he could make news, Percy would help himself.

He's going to win big anyway, but he's going to help himself.

If he wants to win in 76, he better say something nice about it in 13.

That one does hurt me a little bit.

That doesn't get very interesting because everybody squeals behind them.

I expect to get to anybody in the first and they may lead to the top of this one.

They charge us with maybe something worse, basically.

Bashes.

You know, which burners?

You killed her.

I read it.

Shit, nobody cares.

Well, they think they're media.

They care.

What's happening?

I think that's what someone's been getting.

He said they were angry.

And he said that Saturday night, you know, Saturday night, he may have said the trick he did.

But it also didn't equal.

It may have reverted some of the evil in the service.

Or it may have been the trick he did.

Or it may have been the communist propaganda.

of the candidates going to war.

And I just want to say, just with fury in my face, we all know we shouldn't have, we shouldn't have, you know, we shouldn't have.

Some of you shouldn't have.

No, listen, it's real.

I still have a few years to go.

Once again, he's using the business for that.

He'll never get the right thing.

If you can cheer him up for service, and they're spreading our field of interest, they really, they are using it

I don't want to make him an underdog.

I don't want to attack him.

But what I meant is, I do think that all of us should say this.

We do not question his beliefs.

Stop.

We do question his tactics and his suggestions.

We do not question his pictures.

Why is he attacking?

What is his character?

So what is attacking him?

The president actually told me he had plenty of questions for me.

The president carried that in on the press conference.

Yeah, yeah, they did.

Yeah, the New York Times, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's good on that.

I don't quite agree with him.

We, you, you made a lot of points at the press conference.

Yeah.

What are you telling me?

Well, you know, I said, we, the one time you said you were going to call me.

Yes, sir.

Uh, and, and, and that crop doesn't sound amazing today, I think.

The one thing that the governor does when he does this is to get on our clothing.

They show up on it.

Calls the Republican Party, they'll go to us and find it.

Calls you and we'll bring it around.

You just guarantee that the Republicans are going to register it.

And if all the men that went and became Osceola and got $500,000 and so on and used our cash, which is zero or one, or we're sending out an email to one of us just to say,

Actually, of all the extreme statements I've ever heard, I asked my people over here, I said, let's get it down to a page or a page and a half.

There's seven pages.

And I got a cut, but it's incredible.

Because they're all so bad, you don't know which one's like that.

I tried to call President Nixon and say, you have a case.

I tried to say, President's power is dead.

I'm going to go in here with a 13-day sentence.

The most immoral, the most corrupt administration has been this country.

The government is the next to the first model of this 56-month bill.

He is the most immoral in this campaign, sir.

He did a great thing in his career.

You put it all together in one piece.

Okay.

Put it all out.

Put a sheet on top of the vest.

Any young person or man or woman who works with a hand that's supposed to reduce is too confused to know which way it's going.

Scammer's thesis is like oral medicine.

whether they're running extreme left or extreme right, they are so convinced that they are right, that anyone who challenges them is M.R., M.R.

And he quotes, he had this last time, before he died, the German people in the reserve, and he said, this man is the same one.

He thinks the American people are wrong.

And if they don't consent to him, they're second.

They don't deserve him.

I know the wording doesn't

I don't really think he's hurting himself.

that's a very

It refreshes the screen.

I think economically we should go and stick around a couple of good persons.

And the brunch bell should have gone on our calendar.

And you know, that's, and you've got the radio first, and I've got the radio first.

Now you, that's just, there are 25 days worth of activities without showing the overshadowing of the COVID-19, which I think is what nobody might do, but I think you might.

I find that this is definitely just the way we want it to be.

Are you free to come over and talk a little bit about the schedule?

Sure.

I don't understand it.

I mean, it's terrible.

I mean, I don't understand it.

What is the situation with Obama?

So I'm trying to crack away at the things that they had on the cameras and pulled it all the way up to the ceiling.

Who made the charge?

National.

Right.

And then they pulled the ball out of the city of Louisville and put it in some of the counties in Louisville.

Or some of the counties in Louisville.

Not that I'm concerned about the general security of some of the trees,

and naturally, naturally, I sort of think that I can get all the information I could.

But they were just denied it.

They were denied it.

So they ran it.

They didn't know how to control it.

saying it's his family, and why should he post it?

You know what I mean?

And it's funny, but it's been terrible.

This is corrupt saying it.

This is a terrible point.

This is somebody who can't hear it.

You know, I had a really good time this weekend.

I had a really good time.

I mean, it takes years to try to, when you've got a brain, you try to be simplistic, you have to understand the universe and make it, make it sell.

I think it bothers you when they throw that kind of stuff because they know the way it's gonna fly.

It gets a little embarrassing, I think, to bring somebody who might be a part of that, let us know.

See, the interesting thing about this, or actually I understand, whatever we, whatever we want to say, we have to have some truth.

Not as much as it's meant to be.

to go to that conference.

But basically, he doesn't know who that guy was.

And the question is, did he pay?

And the White House said, not that they're all getting lost.

It's not us being stolen.

Nobody is going to get away with it.

That's a damn thing.

And my sister's wife, who was a corruption lawyer, said, oh, we've got to have a man who breaks the law.

We're all going to go to the White House.

And that's just what we're going to have to do.

We're going to have to do it all.

There was no fraud.

There was no fraud in that.

And frankly, there was no fraud in the grain deal.

The grain deal was all the same.

Let's take Palm Beach.

You realize that that grain deal was not final until July 8th.

We didn't know until July 8th.

The Russians might have backed off and forgotten.

They never knew what the Russians were going to be doing.

Until we knew, nobody could have done Palm Beach.

It was hard to go over there and talk to them.

All he had done, everybody he had done, he had made the deal.

You know who made the deal?

I made the goddamn deal.

I made the deal.

Believe me, it went fresh up the last day.

And we didn't tell, we didn't tell Fox.

We didn't tell Peterson because they both laughed, you know, with the best of intentions.

Then on July the 8th, we announced it to the C.O.A.

And finally they began to leave anyway.

and the charity just pissed off and they're gonna get the job.

But what I had is the corruption thing is really funny as hell.

Because if you look at this, that's what I just get.

When the Bible, when the history is written with the administration, they cannot prove corruption.

It's not a corruption.

It's not as bad as I just put it.

We could, at this point, know what the history is.

And that's a campaign.

That was a campaign for a good thing.

Thank you.

Nixon, Colson & Haldeman on 1972 Presidential Campaign and George McGovern

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 9, 1972

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