Nixon, Haldeman & Ehrlichman on Public Relations and Presidential Travel

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What is the situation on New York?

He's going over as the county county center.

No.

He's going over to state as a deputy.

Good.

Inspector General type thing or something.

Travel around.

Uh-huh.

Great.

Give me a road sign.

I'm not sure.

Yeah.

On the centennial, right?

No, yeah, this is the bicentennial.

Uh, travel to the nations, but I'm not sure what the, uh, status is with it.

Paul Miller asked me about the AP there.

I think, I think there's a, I know I don't want to do publishers, but whether we want to do the AP or the ASM, you know, we've turned down the AP and Henry's fine, too.

It was a very, it was a good, good mouth spray.

And I could, I could probably do the SMA one more time.

Which was great, you know, I did, I did some medical.

I did, within the time, of course, I could do it.

It was the first thing that happened to me.

You know, Q&A.

Oh, I'm not gonna make a speech.

The other thing I was going to say is that it may be that we ought to consider the possibility of

the last American trip this spring.

And probably over Easter.

Because after, right, I mean, but after, after we go from the ship on Easter.

That's where you can't go during the last of that thing.

Probably right after Easter.

You could.

just before or something.

Well, anyway, think in terms of that.

You can't go before because you've got to drive here just before.

Or take a hard look at what do you do fitting into our vacation plan and everything.

So I've got to get bigger in the trip.

Number one, we've all got to go back and forth.

It would have to be our only trips I'm planning, except for Europe, I'm only planning

In Africa, there would be one day under all conditions.

So I figured Brazil would find a way out.

And they, with that, are controlling.

You can't go to Argentina.

Why can't you go to Central America?

How are you coming off the meeting for tomorrow, John?

And I just don't want to hear what they can't do.

They know that.

And I told them.

Yeah.

He told them that I already made an actual security decision.

I'm stuck with it.

Yeah.

Right.

Good.

We've made it three o'clock.

We're good.

Fine.

What is the situation incidentally with regard to, uh, to Marvel's meeting?

I've got to talk later about it, but I understand Clancy showed me he couldn't come and... No, he's got to make a speech about it.

You said that you could send, uh, send that fucker to one of his other people.

Well, thanks.

So, why, why can't, maybe you could go and, you could let the, let the Justice Department back up, like us?

He must be totally important on this.

Well, he was thinking this Sunday.

Yeah, that is bad.

He's damn impressive.

Okay.

Right, right, right.

Third thing, about the veteran's speech, uh, we've got somebody working on one in front of us.

I'm just positive your veteran's speech is okay.

We'll look at it.

Okay.

But he mentioned that as a wrap-up.

It doesn't appeal to me for the same reason we didn't go on the first place.

I'm even more so now.

He's got two different problems.

As a public relations candidate, his work is shit.

You've just got to realize that.

There are better ways to get across the story than to go up there.

And everybody, make sure it's very positive.

Everybody that writes about congressional reaction, that's what I said.

Correct?

Yeah.

All right.

So make sure he gets on with that hit with the public relations candidate.

Because that's what's going on all the rest of his life.

We'll go with the conference.

Getting up there fast.

Well, on the basis of the, it's symbolically the way to wrap up the case.

Not because of the appearance itself.

That's why, if you did it, you ought to do it.

You sure don't want a big television all the time.

Well, I don't know.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe he didn't.

Maybe he wanted to come and sit there with the lines you're drawing, sitting there not applauding when you say, we're going to keep taxes down.

He doesn't applaud.

But he might actually do it if he did want to be the subject of that for the National Postal

For me to go up and just talk about domestic issues is talking about, again, the wrong issue.

I can't tell you how strongly I feel, and I'd like to have seen that thing this morning, because I've seen it on the floor, and I have the same feeling, and I'm trying to put my finger on what it is that's wrong.

It isn't the fact that he points up a problem.

We should have found a solution.

But it's the fact that virtually everybody

Understandably, because they care so much, and that's what they did before the campaign, come in with the negative record, because she was so well-analyzed, saying, the negative.

Everything's in a hell of a shape.

What can I do about it?

Everything is in a hell of a shape.

Again, not that you're in a hell of a shape, but things are opportunities.

Or is this ever crossed the minds of people, as they said to me, when they go down to the

That's certainly true.

That's what you try to do.

Should I really discuss repressing the press?

I have a really defensive process.

I don't think we shouldn't be repressing.

We're not repressing the press.

They're repressing us, right?

Like we have to keep it.

Have you ever completed your study of the analysis of, you know, of trying to, trying to, trying to, what effect presidential appearance in the speeches and press conferences have on presidential standing?

I did a rough thing on it.

I thought it doesn't make the point.

I'm trying to go back at it.

The problem is you can't isolate it.

What I want to do now is do it on the basis of just the polls.

that we did, that we related to him, and see if we can figure it out from that.

I can probably give you the one on the gal if I could at this point.

Now, don't do it to me.

You have something that should make this, that should lead us to some conclusion.

We can go the, what you call, the present.

I think it's both a good question.

The primary reason is just a lucky break.

That's all it was.

That's a very foolish thing to call out.

That's a lucky break, but that's in terms of how much money you got.

That's a payoff.

That's a payoff for what you did in the same way that right now we're suffering economically as a payoff for the fact that what we are doing

get up here to be working.

The other one, if you get the same positive bounce on the economy, the full price will go down for a couple of months.

And the next bounce off, you'll get the plus bounce off of that, but when you're getting the plus bounce off the O.W., it's not really emotional at all, because it will never be.

You know, it's the old story about domestic issues and everything.

But you're still getting an awful lot of that.

That's why they're saying, why aren't you getting approval of them?

All of the things are pretty damn good.

Yeah.

Yes.

The high prices, sure, there are problems.

But the high wages are counterbalancing.

People are better off.

We know that from our figures.

But if people have been led to believe in the media, then it should be perfect.

Yeah.

But if it isn't perfect, then somebody should pull a Trump barrel.

Yeah.

And do it in particular to follow the administration like ours is in power.

All right.

Do you want someone else to blame?

Yeah.

Sure.

We're a man for you.

I think this is going to take some of your time, but I think it's going to be worth it, because it's so valuable to all of us.

Trump needs people to talk to.

It is very important for me to talk to him in the campaign period, in order to keep up with the what-the-hell reactions to the remarks and so forth.

And I did.

I did a lot of that.

It is, however, not productive for me to spend my time on it now.

Because I used to be making more and more constantly parenting with my parents.

I would make our issues and so forth and so on.

So I work it out.

And that's basically what I'm up to.

I need a little bit of care.

I need a little bit of school.

That's okay.

It's a whole thing.

It's a whole lot of work.

But I need to give you a little balance.

I don't think we're getting plenty of credit for coming through on the legal.

I don't think we're getting any credit for it backed off on the legal.

Well, I made no indication of that at all.

On that, I don't think anything is backed off.

No, I think that's an inside thing.

I think Chuck has said that we can probably be able to say that Phillip's rhetoric was good and that he should have picked up on his attack, which we have.

I understand that we have some good data on that.

Sure.

I don't think anybody thinks we back off and look at everybody thinks we're trying to destroy a great society, but in fact we do deeply regret it.

And it's not necessarily harmful.

It makes the issue go with the kind of people that we can predict very well.

It does not necessarily make the issue with the second, not necessarily.

Not that they want to take too much care of it.

It's a very subtle point in there where you go over the line, where you just say, well, you've got to have money.

You've got to care.

You've got to also be worried about your money taxes.

Absolutely.

And also worry about programs that don't work.

I want you to take care of the poor people that I want.

I don't want you to charge me for doing it.

That's right.

It seems to me that this is a pretty good time to do that kind of thing.

Rather than just rocking around down here.

Basically, the way to dominate the dialogue, Bob, is to do it as far as this country is concerned for Washington.

I'm not regrettably screwed up.

Yeah, but not so much for the reason of dominating the dialogue.

There's going to be a little bit of a sense of, hey, yeah, what's going on?

First, it makes you feel it.

You know, by moving around the tribune anyway, we go to Key Biscayne, we go to California, we love doing that.

We're in the south and the west.

And now that you can do what I did, it's gone like, it's gone to South Carolina.

It's got that massive effect for that part of the country.

It's fucked over.

I think it would be useful now...

overall response.

To me, I went quite a few times publicly, having in mind we've got all these water gauges and so forth coming out so that if we do things fast, it doesn't appear that we're doing the right thing.

Also, I think there's another reason.

As the water, when it comes to an end, it's a risk.

You shouldn't be out and wondering what to do.

That's why I drink a lot of this.

That's why, uh...

I don't...

You can do a block in Venezuela without question.

That might be pretty easy.

What do you think?

What do you think you might do right now?

Because I'm curious to know.

That is the way to look.

Do you make them?

John says it's going to be better for the trade.

John's comment is what you call an inflation issue.

You have to keep that in somewhat perspective, too.

You have to remember just a month ago, shortly before the 7th, Vietnam was the number one issue of 35.

Inflation was about 31.

Vietnam was over the 7th.

So inflation is 65.

There's nothing else to be needed to bring.

And that doesn't pay your intensity.

That's the way I'm saying.

What is the biggest problem?

Well, the U.S. is going to give you an answer, but the U.S. still doesn't have a piece on how to do it.

Yeah, but...

Well, yeah, there have been people who've read all about it.

I think you, by the time we're saying this, I'm sorry.

Including the wealthier people.

They're going to complain about prices, and they're going to complain about the quality of the goods, and about the war, and about service, with the English and the lines and strips.

There's a grain that I think we don't have a good point for today.

Because what I had is, now I think we should hammer the shit out of him.

Great.

That's what we can do.

Now, through to the 4th of July, I've seen this schedule.

I don't want to get away with it.

I don't want to respond.

I recognize that a lot of things are off.

I think that the owner is pretty good.

My God, I can't believe you let this take off.

But what you said, it was taking off three weeks back.

I'm just going to show you what to do.

Yeah, we had the 30th, but it'll be here when the Congress comes on.

I'd be here for the first part.

Yeah, three weeks.

I didn't want that.

There's two weeks.

For a couple weeks, you've got the DFW convention, which you have to do anyway, here in Orleans, on the 20th of August.

Congress leaves on the 3rd.

You stay here generally for the two weeks after they left.

Make some hay while they're gone.

Then on the 20th, which is a Monday, go to New Orleans, open the VFW, and then go on to California from there.

Stay there for the rest of that week, and the following week, which you're leaving in to Labor Day, would give them a call out.

And it would give you two full weeks out of there.

Don't plan a Labor Day occurrence.

Right.

Do you agree?

I don't think I need such a position.

I don't literally agree to a position, right?

Okay, you need to go out for the last couple weeks and hours if you've got to do it.

I'd ask you to save yourself whether or not you need to go out there.

No.

But you need to get it this time.

Okay.

I'd like to draw your attention to get that scheduled through July.

I'm in pretty firm shape right now.

Those people don't pick away at one hell of a lot of other things they're going to have to be doing.

See my client?

You know what they are, everybody?

It's like running at another stadium.

Running at a stadium for the fourth time.

This is one hell of an exercise.

And we should know that the furries shall predict that we might move by 8 or by the 27th.

We're going to align, sir.

This is the west wind.

We're going to move in here.

I'll do it.

All right.

Forces, surface, you are high.

And there is a way not to do an extended service.

I've always been through that.

It's very important to do it in the long run.

Everybody believes that it's almost indispensable to have faith in God.

It's the main critique of the first congregation.

It's the main critique of asking the following.

It's the number of names in the succession group.

How long do we need to do this?

I don't know.

I don't know where he got the whole idea from, but I would think that he was a really kind of person.

Sure.

Yeah, sure.

Sure.

Walk back over.

On your left.

I don't, I think we, I think we should stay curious.

Send me something else.

I didn't know who I was.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ehrlichman on Public Relations and Presidential Travel

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 12, 1973

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