On February 28, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, White House operator, and Richard M. Helms met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 12:23 pm to 2:15 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 414-001 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
No, I don't think so.
They're really sticking to it.
They're letting everybody by.
Our guys can't go against the assembly.
They can't.
A couple of them did very well.
We've got a program that Lynn Holt, the chief of Muskegon, he got mad at Muskegon.
I'm not going to take all this, but if I got to Congress, it's going to start pounding here.
They started banging like this on the table.
And Holt, this very five or six-hundred-year-old kid heard.
And just got to invite old Ralph to the table.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
That doesn't come out of you.
They were trying to help.
For Christ's sake, I put a vision about the press.
Believe me.
I've never had any calls.
They know.
What about the meetings this afternoon?
Do you want them to be on or not?
I think so.
Steve has been checking them down.
Or are they meeting with the governor this afternoon?
I don't think so.
Well, you'll see.
He'll knock off one of his councilor meetings.
Yeah.
An hour into that.
An hour into that.
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How do you abolish that?
It's a part of the OST, and of course the Dr. David, which we're abolishing anyway.
Right.
And there's no need for the land panel anymore.
Have it report to Richardson.
Well, land and Baker are both on the FIAC, which is what it really, you know, whatever the land panel does on that area and stuff, the FIAC can do.
Well, they can do it.
Right.
Tell them, just fold it into FIAC.
Okay.
I'd be interested.
You've got to be honest with me.
I better look at it.
I want to take a look.
He's trying to put it in a pithy form.
He's getting into a sort of a pricey subject rather than, I made the news of the world.
I would like for him to indicate one, particularly the trials.
But I would particularly recommend this to you as a weekend reading.
Please, Richard Helms.
Richard Helms has been very cooperative.
It's hard setting stuff up over there.
Now we've given a hell of a job.
So if you look at it, you can see that we need a 10 change jury.
Obviously, this place is greedy state.
The state, we didn't want to do this, just drive the pressure.
And we need it because it's as good as green decor there.
And they can retire them without hurting.
And he says there's some good young people.
And they can get jobs.
Oh, God, yes.
We're going to turn to this.
That's what I meant.
What I meant was the overall, the overall plan.
Well, I think, looking at events and everything else, there are a couple things that I have in mind.
I think that because it takes, in the end, it takes more of my time when you don't have meetings that are regular.
The best thing to do is to have meetings that are regular and try them out.
And then, if it bores you to death, we'll skip it.
My point is that
What I would have is this.
I would have the regular meetings.
I think you might as well
I think what you could do, Bob, is to have a situation where you go Friday night, Saturday, or Friday night, Saturday night, because I've
I think basically your cabinet meeting and so forth would be Friday.
That's a pretty good idea.
Now, what I have in mind is this on the cabinet.
I thought it would be pretty well.
I want to be sure that I see every member of the cabinet every two weeks.
Now, the way we would do that is to have one NSC meeting per month.
And they must have one a month.
One domestic council meeting a month.
You can get the cabin together or the fourth would be for some sort of .
I know, but there are various other things.
That's another level.
But coming back to the cabinet, I don't know if that's not enough.
In other words, to have two cabinet meetings a month, and add, in other words, have two regular cabinet meetings every month, and in addition have both cabinet meetings, have one SC meeting, and one domestic council meeting.
Why not?
I want it spaced so that you have a...
The NSC, you get what I mean?
Yeah, we have a cabinet meeting in the NSC, and that's two weeks apart for those people.
And the cabinet meeting with the domestic council.
Schedule it that way with the domestic council.
I don't care what day it will be, Jordan.
One day it will be something else.
The cabinet meeting should be once a month, but that's the way it will be.
But space it so that you don't have it waiting too long before they have one.
Fair enough.
I guess you're right.
Now, the counselors, I should meet every two weeks.
Now, that's an hour meeting.
Like on the cabinet thing.
On the Friday morning.
In other words, say Friday is on Friday, we would have a cabinet meeting.
Or a domestic council meeting.
Or, where necessary, an extra council meeting or nothing.
Do you know what I mean?
I think early in the past we had every two weeks, so we were fine.
But seven every two weeks, right?
And what would you have then at the same time?
I think we should have a council meeting on
I'll tell you what you could do is do that the same day you do the NSC.
You only do the NSC once a month.
You need to do that Tuesday by Tuesday afternoon.
You've seen the press conference this Thursday.
That's why I'm going to go on a night.
But we have so few nights, so it's no problem.
Thursday afternoon is not a bad idea.
Or Tuesday, why not?
Should that be once a week?
Maybe every day.
And I swear to God, I'm excited to talk with the people in the family, too, and the children.
But what I will probably do, because when I'm there going, I'm not going to do this.
Well, yeah, I was trying to do the job this morning, and we're going to do it.
and others that serve purposefully.
Every day, I shouldn't sit down and haggle with them about, like, they've got a misfortune, or their religion is more important than else.
I'm not interested in their views on that.
They don't get into that anymore.
They get into, when are we going to do the tax program?
And what are we going to do about the impoundment battle?
All right, I'll tell you what we'll do.
I'll tell you what we'll do.
The canopy is actually a tent.
We'll be breeding all that.
We also have nine more planes.
Well, that's hard to get started in the night.
You really need the time, I think.
Well, no, no, no.
I was thinking, though, that that would be the time.
Let's try the, let's try doing the wife of the, uh,
every week, every Friday, every Friday morning.
Is that the end of the day?
Well, we've got to take it.
We've got other things to do.
We've got to prepare for the other meetings.
Why wouldn't that be a good idea?
It's the White House.
It's the White House's job.
And then with the possibility of also doing
It started on Thursday.
It started on Thursday right now.
Better still, it might all start when I have it tomorrow.
Let me get it done in the afternoon.
I'll wrap it up five o'clock.
Did they get sort of used to it?
Yeah.
I didn't know.
But the point is that it's a very thorough and insightful and very helpful analysis of what happened.
I hope the ladies will listen.
But I think that's on that side.
And then on the oil side, .
Yeah.
I was going to raise that because I read that through.
I think those ideas are going to need to be, I'm not going to put it out.
I know what I'm doing.
Don't worry.
That's just part of my private life already.
All right.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Now, if you think we should have another one, I really advise you to put it.
But if John thinks it's poor, or if he thinks it's good for me, I'm for it.
If he thinks it's too clean, then we should plan an agenda for it.
The problem is, that was what our money team was supposed to be.
And there just isn't an agenda.
We don't want to get involved in their daily problems.
They're going up to the hill today.
That's another reason for you to get them at the end of the day.
Five o'clock.
Five o'clock is the time for that.
happens at the end of the week and those disasters don't happen until that time.
Okay, well let's just say John are going to have one tomorrow at 5 o'clock.
Now, the difficulty of John's case is that he throws these things in like everybody else would do.
He said the President would be doing this and that.
And yet, he got in like an amaranth of material.
What in the hell is
I told you he didn't recommend it, but he said, he said, I think we've got to consider it.
That's what he said.
We better consider it.
And I won't.
I'm not going to come out of the city.
That went pretty well, as a matter of fact.
They come out fine.
It's individual that you run into problems.
At the same point, he said he was...
He had a proceeding line sort of thing.
That's what they did.
Anyway, we've been in this over a month.
They're all alarm chains and everything else.
And we've got a sort of department job.
Others have a feeling about what the hell we're doing.
Why we win the election.
Why we do all this work and can't pay them and so forth.
Right?
Yeah, but I think if you react to Scott's pitches, they'll always control.
Scott never controlled that.
They're not pitching yet.
They've got to have a reason.
But I think they need it regular.
I think the cabinet should be regular.
They should know it.
But I think the cabinet, the NSC, and so forth, and Friday, get my point together.
I've got to be very hard on Schultz and the NSC, because I know that he's going to want to come into those meetings, but they're going to be, because you understood that point.
It has to do with foreign aid.
First, as I told you, every two weeks, but that should also be, we've already put Thursday, not that I said we wouldn't do that, but we're going to do that.
White House staff, Thursday at 5.
Yeah, I'm a patient for that.
I think he feels that I need to sort of give guidance to him on some of these things.
Maybe he's running about with me.
There's some things, when my fellow comes up,
I'm delighted to do it.
I should have just brought the job, for example.
Yeah, and it's not for therapy.
It's for...
I understand.
They're out fighting your battle.
They're not the bureaucracy.
And it's sort of that they need to feel that they know...
They need to be able to speak with the conviction that what they're saying is what you want.
We've come to take in part of that from talking with other people.
Let's talk about the White House staff and the lawyers for a second.
I think I ought to do that once in a while.
The lawyers and the White House staff.
The problem is, what the hell do you do?
You can't walk into me and say, hi there, and what would anybody want you to say.
You want your staff.
Yeah.
That's what we've been trying to work out.
That's how you set up something.
Interest.
Interest staff.
Well, anyway, let me say that the Malarkey White House chapter
talk to them about when i go to community life just to demand space i can do it give them a little song and dance about age or something like that you know like when i brief the leaders like i said i'll i read viper chapel i'm going to talk to the leaders about age and so forth and think about them white house family you know what i mean i'm going to tell them think of the term remember likely doesn't be a
The larger White House staff cannot be afraid of what they would prefer, I understand this, where they contribute, right?
Where they say, well, I told the man.
The others there tell the man, but can we do that in the larger White House staff?
There aren't very many people who are in a position to be telling you.
As I said, I want you to have your meeting like a couple of days with the Harlow
I believe that we should have a leader's meeting every two weeks.
That's all the lieutenant says every month, but I don't think that's often enough.
I don't think it's often enough.
I don't think it's unique with the leadership we have.
And then you supplement that, the weeks that you don't have that,
In other words, on the off week, you have either a bipartisan meeting or a meeting with Scott Ford and that bunch.
Do you know what I mean?
So it isn't.
Just to do it so we don't get a monthly syndrome, I would compromise it this way.
I think we should do it on a three-week basis.
Every three weeks, get the leaders in.
That way, you're keeping them a little off balance.
Tuesday, you see.
And then the next week would be a Scott, and it'd be a small...
And the other one would be a bipartisan city.
There's a bipartisan coming about every three weeks for a while.
You've got to have a bipartisan in energy.
You've got to have one on trade.
Now there's two, which gets in our other people, too.
So then if you run about every three weeks, how's that sound?
The problem with setting those, don't set them.
They don't announce them, as long as we don't put it out that way.
Don't announce it.
But if we're a game plan.
So if you, Bob, when you sit down with the base schedule, you said, now we ought to have leaders meeting here.
And I think, well, my God, it would be nice if I met at the cancer society or something.
I know I'm going to have things like that.
I'd just like to have that sort of time, sort of blocked off, mentally, everybody's mind, plan for it, get it done, and try to have people standing one hour.
I mean, just one hour to, you know,
If you go over one hour, you get through an hour and a half.
If you go over an hour and a half, you get through two hours.
If you go over two hours, you get through three.
That's the way it works.
That's not true.
It's not official.
If you go over three, where am I going?
Where are we going?
Two hours.
If you go over one, two, three, like that, where are we?
Maybe the leaders want every four.
I mean, the Republican leaders.
Yeah.
They need to be charged.
And if you're meeting with the leaders of these, while other guys can complain that you're not meeting with them, they know you are meeting with them.
The fight is, too, that they go back and report the thing.
And every week, then, they've got something to report.
Every week.
They either have a bipartisan meeting to report, or they have a full leadership meeting.
That's what our principal leaders are in every week.
Yeah, they're in every week.
The principal leaders are in every week.
They have a bipartisan meeting.
And also, it's fine.
We'll just plan it every Tuesday.
So every Friday, we'll do the cattle and that sort of thing.
Right?
And at 5 o'clock, we'll come again.
We'll meet the counselors on Thursday and the mid-councils on Tuesday.
The counselors have to get on the staff on Thursday.
But let's get the counselors.
I mean, John isn't ready this week.
Oh, wait a minute.
This week, that's why we've got to get the staff in.
And we can't say that John's going to be gone.
That's right.
He is gone.
It's too late to do it over again.
But, you know, just to be the best advocate there is in the future.
The social things really aren't working.
That's where many people have wanted to come.
They've got the finance people, and they've got the, you know, friends and others that they're trying to handle.
On the social front, maybe.
Trying to get them into dinners and all that bullshit.
Right.
That's, the way, the reason I went overboard on that was because earlier when the deal came in, after your meeting, you said that was, I guess it was our, you know, knowledge.
That's what they wanted.
That's what they said.
Either way, they want more.
I think the end of the group got it.
Once more, they're coming to talk to you alone about the problem with the dam or whatever the matter was bothering them.
Of course, they're in a horse race.
That's what he wants to do.
He isn't going to find that very satisfactory.
The social thing doesn't take the place of either of those pressures, which is worse than the media.
I haven't been to the White House.
If you get, and that, there was the thought on the social thing of doing it all.
Once a year.
Of doing a round of it and getting it done.
I would do it once a year.
I would do it once a conference.
I would do it next year.
I'm not going to go through this.
What Christmas?
I have the man running along through some of the things.
The election time you went through.
Well, the Christmas thing, we'll have the Christmas party even put down as something that really takes care of the White House staff.
And those this year, I'll come by and bring them all that good shit if it's necessary.
Well, I don't think it's too necessary, is it?
If it is, though, let's do it.
Let's do it.
That's what we're here for.
I don't think that's the right way to do it with the staff.
We have a little problem there that we did.
I think they planned the other thing wrong.
Something got jammed up.
I don't know what it was, but you know, we knocked off two days before Christmas.
That was—it was no fault of mine.
Dale Yancey was trying to die.
And they knocked off two, and then had to push him back to Christmas, saying,
No, no, no.
No, they did.
No, they canceled both White House reception and the congressional reception, I see, because of Truman's death.
He died on the 22nd.
So they killed him for two days.
That's what that's all about.
Thanks, Derek.
They're not that much of a problem.
You don't need to do it.
No, man, you just need to do it.
But I agree.
Or if they feel they need to, they can go down and they can go for a bit.
Please try to keep them in there.
It's a big deal for the low-level staff people's wives to have the bad staff people and all that.
Even freshmen.
And they move around.
The social element of the conference, I would say that you wrote.
I would not say it was a waste of time.
I would say that you touched up a face that sure is a pain in the ass.
But I don't like that it's a minimal pain in the ass in the sense that we
The White House aren't that much of a problem for me.
I work for other people, but they're not a lot.
Now, you're going to a lot of work with Sandy Davis, but you're doing that for Sandy Davis.
You're doing different services.
You have to deal with spending money.
You don't have to have a ministry spending money.
You can get more credit, that's for sure.
But I sure as hell wouldn't say this is an annual thing.
I have a feeling now they've got to give it to everybody else, generally, because of
I think we've got to tell some of the people that we can't have too many congressional people because we've got a lot of political people around.
There's others that have to be coming in.
But you've got your answer to that on the basis that we have congressional people.
That's why we have this series.
The social thing is that it doesn't solve the other problem.
The other problem is that it's not soluble unless you want to set aside two days a week
for a half hour of series and a half hour of bonus.
The accomplishment for each quarter, he would then get through the entire conversation and start back around the cycle again.
Why are they never not scared?
I don't know.
They're always scared.
The guys were scared they didn't run through the candidates in 72, unfortunately.
I really think this thing, you've got to give it some time.
It isn't going to do any good instantly.
They're getting key congressional people, a lot of congressional people down here, hoping that the rapport between the White House and the Congress at levels other than the President
any bannery, if I may urge Bill, taking the ass out of the cabinet members so that they're doing exactly the same thing.
Now, the cabinet members have got to have pretty much on this.
Tell them that Richardson can do a beautiful job.
This legislative affairs thing, he's done a good job.
He's got good people in there.
He's got to entertain.
He's got to entertain.
Right.
I suggest this.
This is the whole answer.
Now, next week is the week that I'm going to do it, except Monday.
I'm going to try to
5 o'clock is a pretty good time for you to use for other things that need staffing.
And the counselor is at 3 o'clock instead of 1 o'clock.
5 o'clock is the time that I end the afternoon.
And they have congressmen in, and as stuff comes up during the day, it's something you can set up and have someone come by at 5 o'clock.
It's been a useful time for you to use it.
I need to see it get locked into a project period for my job.
Well, it's time to get Henry in if you've got something going on today that you need to catch up with.
I think it's got to get something on the telephone side of the conversation.
I think I'll get stuck with that very often.
Well, we can pick and choose.
I'll take it by the clock.
I don't mind that.
Why not take them?
The effect of our doing anything of this sort, I think, wears off after about 12 hours.
And Jesus Christ, after we had that meeting over there, you know, with the leaders, we had the five-part meeting, you know, in depth, so that we did not get out of Russia on January 2nd or 3rd.
We had the leadership meeting where I laid the budget on one of our best people.
They all got out here as a team.
And we told them about the meal not piece on the team.
The leaders all feel great and all got out as a team.
We had them over there at the wine house.
Gee, I've always never felt better.
And then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up and then you get up
You know, the one thing that we have done well in the first four years is to lead the thinking time.
I need thinking time.
I need them.
It's a pretty good thing.
These people fill my schedule.
I think it was Phil Eisenhower.
He used to have a very close member.
That was fine.
All he did was just went there and see that.
He seldom took time to think.
Johnson was the same way.
Well, that's on my schedule.
Yeah.
Okay, I see.
I'll look.
Yeah, that's open.
I never let anybody do that.
Why do I go to the campaign when I don't go there to go out and walk in the goddamn woods?
I don't like to walk in the woods.
But it's a good thing, right?
Stop taking 28 people.
You take five.
You get five, you get 100.
And then the five parties, you get all of them.
See what I'm saying?
I mean, think just of the Republicans.
on the basis of, you know, picking them off for innovation.
It's like, for example, that picture about the only Democrats we're going to have with us, Bob.
The Democrats that we have to that fee of non-perception.
If they have with us on that issue, they're also, in one sense, they tend to be with you on other issues because of their admiration for the presidency.
That, as you well know, is the vice in terms of having the ass of those
very important in terms of getting those folks, people, some of them, they had some of them.
You get my point?
I don't think my sitting there, listening to them say, early on, breathe a lot of energy, is going to be as satisfying as it is.
I'm just trying.
I'm not down to earth.
But what they do, they
The whole house.
The problem is that senators and congressmen don't support what you take here.
He's making a point of this.
He's making a point of how much the president has done.
He's made a point of contact.
He's made a point of leadership twice.
Bipartisan leadership four times.
Separating the man's field and separating the ballot.
He's held a reception for all freshmen and leaders.
He's held a support for all new state senators.
I also did bills in the other home along with the second one.
His plan, on a general basis, is to add in accommodations to people.
It would be helpful to find a way to get down people, frankly.
That's why they say it's something like energy, or something like trade.
I want to trade, for example.
Oil is the group only where it should.
A lot of them.
You know what I mean?
Because they're all protectionists.
On the other hand, here would be your chance, if you want, to get the likes of Chavis and Percy and, you know, the Eastern people.
You know what I mean?
You can deal with very long time.
Maybe we shouldn't be
Can I tell you this with you, and as I say, let's keep this thing open.
Let's don't rule out having meetings with the groups of Congressmen.
I think, for example, if one of them comes in for 15 minutes of a day and a half long, well, hell, I might as well have 20 instead of 10.
I'm inclined to think that an individual meeting, unless it's with a man like Mills, who needs an individual meeting, is a loser.
Any other work with what he started on in his new leadership group?
Which of the people that we're working with,
Let me say, if you've got a group like that,
And I hate that, Bowers.
Let me tell you what, if you get there, then that word will get around, you see.
And then, sure, some others are going to say, why aren't they down?
Well, these are a group of people that actually, you know, I don't know.
I sort of like it.
Now, the other thing is, though, I find it a reason to get some senators in.
You understand?
He's got senators.
He's got a group.
He mixed in with this group.
He has Domenici and Barba, Baker and Bell and Roth and Johnson.
What would we discuss with him?
I don't know.
This would be good.
They're put together as what he calls a new leadership.
This is an old one, too.
He's got a voice.
He's got Gary Brown, Jerry Pettis, Larry Lynn, Sonny Montgomery, Bill Stuckey.
Sure.
And the fifth term, Bob Willer, Lawrence, Stan, and Saturday.
We've got the system.
I want to help my folks.
Bob, I want to help my folks.
Oh, you've got to enlighten them.
Fit it around them.
uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
And the trade meeting.
I keep our leadership a god damn small.
And the leadership is very small.
And I give them an opportunity to spread it out.
That's maybe what I, I don't know, maybe that's what I'm going to get at.
I think leadership needs to work more on the outside.
I forgot to mention that.
I read it in that one.
I want to have a leadership meeting from now on.
I want to have, I think we should have seven.
Bipartisans have always, fill the table.
Put three or four.
You could have six.
What do you think?
Too many?
Six, why not?
Right.
Never the same.
You always get a guy who gets a chance to sit in and leave his job.
That's another way to go.
See, that's, you've got...
It's out of every three weeks.
Right.
So, by far, it's one time.
By far, it's one time, and then... Yeah, right.
In the process of that, you've covered all the good Democrats and all the Republicans.
The work is around.
Here's the thing.
I would
to the leadership group and pull them out of these things right away.
And all of a sudden, it's far less presumptive like it was in the day.
I think it's a mistake to give up on it.
The Hill reaction.
No frustration.
That is going to be solved by coming out and talking to the president.
It is going to be solved by coming out and talking to the president.
It is going to be solved by coming out and talking to the president.
But he's got a, well, he has one embassy pole, but this is 70% paper, so I'm going to punish him for a lot of this.
We're in real trouble on the federal budget for that story.
But part of it, part of the strong part is the way they ask the question.
But you've got a 40-40 on the count, 40%.
Ours is worse.
That's right.
At this point, if they've got that hammer in the bucket, it's as high as, you know, four or six feet.
They're quite about the fact that life is a rhythm of life.
You've got to go back to where people can't be held up there.
I mean, looking at the polls, though, I was studying the Kennedy thing.
We both have the entity of China.
Apparently, that's what it is.
So I have a new psychological note.
No.
I don't know why I like it so much.
In the new summary, I've read most of The Substance.
It's 13 great mistakes.
It's a book written in 1968, but I've never heard of it.
It isn't very well written, but it's exactly right.
You've heard this goddamn thing you ever saw.
Now, what the hell became of that book?
That's what I thought.
That's what I thought.
That's what I thought.
That's what I thought.
That's what I thought.
That's what I thought.
That's what I thought.
The whole thing was expectations, and I want to think about it.
We're with Kennedy.
He still would have made the same mistakes, because we had another on this POW thing the other day.
We dodged the bullet on the enemy.
on the bombing, you know, on December 5th, when I said, let's run a bomb, and I thanked God for that.
I said, God, you're going to redeem K-Man.
Those that were, were, uh, wanted me to go out, and when they heard the press conference, they went, they said, oh, you know, Mr. E.O.W.
directed that the mines not be removed, the troops withdraw, and I'll be stopped.
They're always going to do this.
And I said, well, I think we're going to have a conversation about that.
.
.
.
What I meant is, we do, that's why the thinking time is rather important
in this position.
I don't know.
It's hard to figure this out.
Whether to go to the business of the...
I realize that many men who don't do enough on the public side are not excited.
The moment you get too excited, the rhetoric can really... All the rhetoric in this can hurt you.
But even in our case, what little exciting rhetoric I use, they kick the shit out of us.
That's it.
Peace with honor.
What the hell is that?
It's really kind of interesting because a lot of it's up and down, except there are a couple of important ones.
There's jingling, the pole, and then there's movements.
You got the jingling, just look at the movements.
Is it a low around?
Well, 63.
It's a little above 60.
Give me the version here.
Yeah.
August, September, October was your first drop.
Right.
And why?
As far as I can figure, because of deterioration of Vietnam.
The hiatus in California, that's when we were gone for two months.
Three months, really.
Well, we aged the trip, and then we came back for a couple days and went right out to California.
We raised people up.
That's right.
So you dropped.
And you had a three-month drop where you lost eight points on the Gallup poll.
So all of a sudden, you're on television again trying to get good looks out.
And because there was no TV at that time.
You were on television a lot, but you had been on some other TV.
That was in spite of, which is kind of interesting, the Asian trip, which should have been a big plus, the Apollo dinner and the moon landing and all that, which was a plus at the moment.
The moon landing was a blip, but it just went zing.
So she brought out an officer to sit right there.
And you land appearance, things like that, the moon landing was important.
But anyway, you went down, August, September, October.
Then you had the November blip.
In December, he dropped nine points.
In December, when he lost, he jumped down to eight.
He went up seven points.
That was the state of the union.
Heavy television.
He went up to the state of the union, television, H-E-W-E-W, television, nighttime press conference.
All in one polling period.
That gave you a big rise.
In February, he had a huge drop.
And no reason.
In spite of, you went out, did your Midwest tour, and you did the state of the world report that Henry said was going to turn everything around.
And a very heavy state of the union follow-up operation.
And also a deep problem.
And in July, you had a blip up, a six-point blip up, and that was Cambodia.
Basically, if you look at that, the number in July and early May has been in distortion because it was 59 in May, 57 in May.
In other words, the Cambodians, despite all the acting about Cambodia, the Cambodians, because of the trauma of it, didn't hurt us.
And frankly, it was 56, 57, 59.
And then in July early, it dropped to 55 and 61 then.
But we want to remember that's when we had this.
nationwide and free television included at the end of the campaign.
But what I figure is that you were on a, in that period, in Cambodia, you were pretty much in a 55 point, right, in Cambodia.
After Cambodia, you dropped to 55 and 56.
In October of 59, election of 57, right, right.
You pulled it through a, but I was, they were holding pretty well.
We floated there through a 55-point period.
It was some ups and downs, but 55 was the level.
Then in the early part of the next year, we had a drop, which we think was Laos through February, March, and April, which Harris and Gallup both said was Gallup.
I mean, Laos, particularly.
And I think it was Laos, too.
In other words, we dropped to the 50% level there, and by a dozen, we could have cut off
And we held it through the whole year of 71.
You had only, in that whole period of time, you know, the thing that I was going to say, and that was on October, the thing that I was going to say was, you know, it did not help.
I have a whole area, the China house, didn't help a goddamn bit.
I mean, the August 15th announcement did not help.
What did not change the Gallup polls in the first term?
In 1969, what didn't change it was the European trip, the Korean incident.
The landing had a blip, but it didn't change anything.
The European trip, though, it helped to hold her up there.
It didn't raise anything.
It didn't change anything.
The Midwest trip, the state of the world, Carswell.
Now, Carswell did a blip that we know about tomorrow, but it went way down and it went right back.
Yeah, it wasn't here.
You were doing one night?
Yeah.
What was the day?
It was a good night.
The pole went on the champs.
It went from 56 to 57.
It was a Apollo 13 trip, you know.
We went all the way out and picked them up.
We did a Vietnam television thing at night, and we did the campaign.
And later in the month, up two points to 59.
And that was after Kent stated that he had the letter and the nine-time press conference.
Now, you could argue that the nine-time press conference counterbalanced the
Kentucky, Ohio, North Dakota, Utah, California, and all that, press conference, Denver trip, New Orleans, Mexico, they didn't change anything.
The POW raid didn't make any difference.
Firing Hickel didn't make any difference.
If there was a European trip, the Vietnam peace announcement, the Toto blip, the Vietnam peace announcement, the Vietnam peace report, all the withdrawals, I'm going to do a little bit of that.
I was in a TV conversation with the State of the Union on nighttime television, revenue sharing, all the big programs.
Did we do TV at night?
Yeah.
The Arvin Retreat, the huge protest, that was one of the monumental marches in Washington.
I never beat both of them.
Pentagon Papers, the China announcement.
The China announcement, that's the one that really blew me.
But also looking at August 27th, 1949.
in August 20th, 1951.
In other words, it was a great big thing that made everything a magazine.
August 3rd didn't help.
August 15th didn't do anything.
The Soviet announcement didn't do anything.
Kissinger going to be thinking of doing it.
Phase 2 later on in September.
The flip-up of 1954 went on in October, I don't remember when it was.
October of 71.
Yeah, that was the European trip and the Vietnam East trip both.
That's part of the European trip that I take now.
That was when you went to Romania.
Yugoslavia now.
Is that it?
Sorry.
Nevertheless, for the whole band here, we stayed at 50%.
Okay, 71.
Okay, 71.
You want to remember how it is.
71 runs you through at 50%.
Right?
That year, however, we must remember, was also a year of depression.
Right.
Okay, then 72, you had a big flip in the early part of the year, and that was
Yes, but up to 56.
So we got back up to the 55 part of 72.
Then IETT knocked us down to maybe 53.
In May, and IETT is still building.
But then in May, we go to 61.
And that was 98.
Well, that's 61.
And we stayed there.
But then after that, you see, we began to get the beginning of the campaign hammering and water beatings and the rest.
We dropped to 56, which isn't very much.
And after that, the election brought us on to 62, which we tried.
That's right.
But you still carried at about a 60-point level during the latter part of that year with the Senate faking out and then coming back up.
And they've dropped from the bottom of Vietnam down this continent and soaring to the northeast.
It's explaining the difference.
Foley is much more sensitive than Gallops.
I mean, they're not the same comparison against their own foals.
So basically, Gallops is enough for me for another reason.
Looking at your own foals is important.
How many people listen to these things, whether they get food or not.
It really is sort of a, there's a time lag in Gallup for a few weeks.
I'm not sure, but it was about the same time as, you know, about the ceasefire and the rest of the race, you know, but the deal got to be resolved.
Well, it's being taken pretty much in stride, right?
Because I don't think people care that much, but I mean, you're... Well, and even some of the commentators are separate.
They're on a very level-based system, and they can hear us.
It's just, again, they're really good.
And that's the important thing.
Back in L.A., what do you take home?
Is it just horrible, these things?
And the question is, like, tomorrow we'll see that.
There's not...
I'm not sure.
I read this new story in the papers, too, but I'm sure I saw this.
I was in the papers.
He said he had, I don't know what it was, another press conference or something, but he said there's no question in his mind that he's sure most of the prison history is not all of this.
here at home have kept them in jail a year or two longer than they were the other one in crime.
He said he didn't hear anybody giving thanks to James Fonda or, if I saw that, I mean, those people.
And he said, I think he got a new song.
The fact that once they all get out, I think they're going to have a lot of them.
So he said that.
He said the happiest day we had was December 18th.
He said December 18th, I think that's the day that he finished
It was the happiest day.
He said the people were celebrating all over the place.
And they found one or two with all the time.
And they found this.
And they were saying these guys that were programmed to thank the president, they found this.
You see that thing?
It's from a state or somewhere.
It said the card on the wall.
I saw the letter.
Thank God for Nixon or whatever.
Send me a wire.
Yeah.
got him in this handkerchief he had better act before they went out of animals before they picked him up which is good these guys have been through enough that they aren't going to take this kind of show that's what i think is wrong with these people
You'll think, for example, that if the guy, for example, would be like Jacksonville, that is TV.
It's helpful, but it isn't.
But that's the news.
That's TV.
They're the same as a news conference.
Just the news.
Other than anywhere near the audience.
Gosh.
Are you recommending R5, by any chance?
I'm not so sure.
No?
I think we just .
I'm not saying more.
Just first of all, I don't know.
But remember, we didn't write timers in there, and they didn't do .
Plus the fact that how far can you crank it up anyway?
You're not going to get much past 68.
Oh, shit.
I'm going to .
You've got to figure that you've got to just .
You're trying to stay above the second term .
He started at a much higher pace than .
But it is .
That's what you've got to do.
It's actually a long cycle.
That's right.
We're going to take a beating for six months on that.
They start going down.
Remember, people are doing
We know that because also their take home pay is more.
And that's got to have some impact on people.
I mean, the budget system, every man has got a problem.
And I mean, it's easy to, and I still mention that to the problems, but they can do more than they were ever able to do before.
And they have that feeling that it's very short, too.
And the reason is that it's a war time.
Definitely.
But it happens.
... ... ... ... ...
There are some good folks.
Yeah, they're able people.
The problem is getting them to come in and go.
They don't want to come in.
Let me say that I do think this.
I think that when Colson gets back, he can be helpful to Brent.
I think he can be helpful to Brent on that kind of a point.
He'll go in and say, look, you're the guy that's got to speak up for the others.
I think I'm talking about Brent.
He was just being, in a way, reversible.
would never have done that.
Never, never, never.
He was an uneducated, ungrammatical, unimpressive man.
He had the most of them.
You can talk to Wells, but George says he had... George knows that.
George has... What I meant is
I guess just can't emphasize too strongly.
Don't judge people by whether they eat garlic or whether their fingernails aren't clean or whether they're, you know, have sort of bad grammar or whether they're wise or little filth.
Just remember, we must not judge people by us.
That's what I'm getting at.
That's what I'm getting at.
... ...
Yeah.
Yeah.
... ... ... ...
On the other hand, Bob, you look at our little fat Jewish man, right?
People want to help.
They want to live a life as adult women.
They like to help.
I suppose that while we've done a lot of these things, it is the question of the channel's theory.
He said, how about all that stuff?
That's what he said.
It is very, I don't know, it's got to be worth it.
That is enough for the fact that
I think he did help, and I think the fact that he didn't show him flipping the boat is because the kid had the time and he had the time.
Once we would have gone down, that's the other thing you've got to figure here.
You can't judge a toll in terms of something they'd be pulling down.
Take, for example, the economy all through 75 with murders, just murders in 75.
Holy hell, it was a miracle.
The point is, if the boat's on the top of the hill,
We've been using it instead
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I don't
to get them out of the headlines if you look at your book, just to have the, if you don't need to look at the dates, I've got a brief draft for the 31st of March, right?
And there is, there is a lot of,
Yeah, I suppose you want to see.
I suppose you want to see how we're being.
I think you want to be sure you get the same oil over with the one step.
You know, the prisoner's back.
Well, that's my point.
If the prisoners are back, then it is.
If all that's done, then we still don't change the rules.
He divided it into spiritual, personal, and programmatic.
He said that programmatic
Personal was next most, and spiritual was most.
And the key thing is to try to get the balance.
FDR covered the whole board.
He was the spiritual leader.
He had the personal appeal, and the programmatic statute.
FDR was more personal with a little bit of spiritual, with a little bit of programmatic on spiritual.
Personal.
... ... ... ... ... ...
I don't know if that's true.
... ... ... ... ... ...
I wonder if when we have the Italian thing, if we put that in the process, if he's delighted, if he cares, if he's not there to be there, of course he would.
I think he'll just be the chef.
He'll bring Nelson Riddle and his arranger and orchestra.
Yeah, Nelson Riddle's artist, he has a studio orchestra.
He's done all the backup stuff for Sinatra.
I'm glad you're going to disagree.
Now I can't.
You ought to report me.
I said that you don't believe me.
When I had him there.
Sammy Davis spent the night with me.
I wouldn't ask that.
Sammy Davis is spending the night with me.
Next night I've got other people.
I don't have a family.
I don't have any family.
I can't get it.
I can't get it.
That's my point.
They've been at the White House.
What did he run at this time?
We got 73%.
What the hell did he get?
You know what I mean?
It wasn't our fault.
Not them.
That was what, did anybody ever talk to him about that?
No, I thought we should.
He said he got something enormously favorable response from his colleagues.
Bush?
Bush is going to.
That's the one to go.
No.
You say maybe 3.30 for one, 4.30 for the other?
If they want to add, or if they don't want to add either, it's all right.
You're going to need that.
Yeah, John.
Well, let's see.
You have time.
Make it four.
One, four.
I've got to get here at 530.
I've got advice.
I've got to go over and prepare for the market.