Nixon, Haldeman & Dent on 1972 Campaign and Public Relations

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That's the first time I've heard your pitch on the program.

It's a whole like that, but in an outside group, it's different.

It's not a big thing.

But it's a point in the discussion.

And so, I mean, it's a big office.

It's secure as we call it.

And I'm saying what he wanted me to say.

I couldn't see my quality then.

The main thing about that kind of thing, that's the reason I didn't want to go before television.

Do you mean it or not?

It's like a man-to-man conversation.

Don't you agree that was...

I said that, yeah.

If you wanted to get the governors, we didn't give a shit about the governors.

Like, we didn't care about the Congress then.

We were talking to the governors.

And you do care about the governors.

So we made up.

Because I have.

What you made is exactly right.

We either get the gunners or we aren't gonna get them.

And two bothers if they are.

They're like any group of politicians, notoriously poor.

farm to play off of, you know, you sit and talk to them and they sit there with their gun and they entertain you, you know, and they never talk to you and they distract you, you know, and talk at their age, you know.

So you don't do it.

I'm a great believer in not using farms.

You see, don't ever use farms unless it's going to be an enthusiasm.

I'm not exactly going to state anything.

I just don't believe we should.

We've made a mistake on that on occasion, you know, recently or so.

I've just been speaking to a bunch of people.

I'd never speak to a goddamn farm unless it's going to be usable for us.

That's what I need to get to the answer.

Okay, great.

And this kind of thing, especially in a small group like that, there's no way you can come up very well.

And even their enthusiasm is, you know, I think they work.

And you have Oprah, which got a show, sustained applause afterwards, and sustained applause during the introduction.

And I think also the fact that so many of them are negative, which is, yes, it's quite a thing to look around at.

I think it was the best thing to do.

I didn't want you to consider another combination I thought about.

How could you be eating too much in the main time?

The other side, I said, talk to the other guy.

Yeah.

Also, if you make a note, the former governor's committee, whatever became of that, remember I said, let's get every former governor in the house.

Is that a deal?

That would mean a hell of a good deal.

You've got Dewey to head it up.

Or I can crash it in the evening for you.

Might be.

It's just that, look, if they could have a pissy-ass argument about this, like I have a schism called Sapphire, you know, a little queer section of Larry's, where you sound more optimistic.

You know, Sapphire says, well, you tell me what you want, and then brings it back to the right place.

Now, I don't have to have any queer everyday word I say, you know what I mean?

I can change some things in there.

It's a clear situation.

or something we can do here to get some kind of respect.

I realize, I know that there's fault on both sides, but let me say that I think a lot of this is brought on.

Henry did say, he did say that, I didn't see the article, I didn't realize it, but he did say it.

He came up and based me on it, so I felt it.

He said, what did Roger say?

And I told him, I said, this is what it was, which is absolutely true.

He agreed that this was a bad story, that somebody in there had a line in this, especially the two of the paragraphs.

But he said it would have never happened.

If there hadn't been a story to begin with, saying that there was going to be a big thing, I saw it.

Well, then I just, of course, blew out the first and said, I never believed it.

He said, you said it on the air, it went to the reporters.

He said, well, I never expected the reporters to quote me on it.

That's the way it is, isn't it?

Yeah.

He said, he didn't deny, he never denied that they did quote him.

He said, I never expected them to quote me.

So anyway, when you talk to a press person, the only reason you talk is because you want to write it.

And so that's what they're there for.

He suggested I talk to him lots of times, and they know about it.

And the impression, as far as Google is concerned, and his establishment of it, is that this is the power of Google as far as it comes.

before it was decided.

And he said, well, it wasn't decided anyway because we, you know, we hadn't really changed anything.

Now they're building solitons.

So, you know, he used to bring in more painting pens to my letter.

He said that, yeah.

Don't let him in here before that starts.

Now, that actually is not true.

I have no way of knowing.

It's true or not.

But if it is, if it is, it's a weak reason.

He said, what would we take if Romico and Brezhnev were arguing about something you could send over to us?

Pay no attention to his letter.

That's what I mean.

He doesn't have much problem.

Twice as many words to then pick if you have about 20,000.

This is something we didn't pick.

He doesn't have 60% possible solutions.

Well, we all are, really.

It can't be broken, I'm afraid.

No, no, no, I'm afraid not.

It's a certain contemporaries on it.

Of course, that's another one of his problems.

He makes his breath so dire and then he doesn't follow up on it.

He has to get worse the next minute.

It's serious enough that you don't realize, you know, that you can go.

It's not that bad.

I think Henry has been distressed by these new briefings of the Reckless Alliance, and I doubt he should have any idea, though, that it destroys the salt box.

Certainly, you're going to get away with it.

Oh, wait.

The fact is, what's in his world of Florida, whether or not we put the salt thing in the will of Florida or not, destroys the salt box for the ocean, and of course it doesn't.

It's about this thing, you know, our own people that we're in, serenity and poise in this position, you know.

For a couple of years, he never comes down.

He just can't hold it.

He comes in with predictions.

Shades his head.

This one and that one and the other.

He cries a lot, too, and I'm right on what he did.

And he doesn't, he doesn't realize it.

He has first priority on time, you know.

He can always come in and he knows that they don't want him.

Whether he'd be better off if he didn't get him by his life.

Well, I just don't know.

I tried that for a while and then he got, you know, really worried.

I don't know.

— 4 min 1 s with no transcribed speech —

Would you now agree with me that we make a board policy on it?

Yeah, I would.

I think it would be good.

We'll just sing it and just concentrate like hell on it.

And then I think the next policy on it.

And so that we can, so that we can sort of get these things.

What I'm getting, Bob, is that this preparation time, I can spend a little less time, a little more time on it.

Well, a little less time preparing, actually.

A little less total time.

A little more time on it.

Well, yeah, but I need a lot more.

I want to set the TVs.

TV week.

Yeah, TV week.

But you didn't get to go over there in these things, do you?

Well, if you do them every two weeks, you get to, if you get it to basically, you know, on some of these TV, if it's too quilted.

It gets a little too quick, you know what I mean?

It's a, we don't think so, everybody's expecting it now.

But now, now and then, even on TV, it's supposed to be a little bit, a little bit thoughtful.

First, they've got to see the individual.

You just don't go up there and snap off, smart out of the gas, you see everything.

But I think, especially with the force on the street, God love the idea of doing, you know, one foreign policy.

Good thing I won here.

It's whether or not we're denouncing a life on drugs or something.

No, I wouldn't get tried into it.

You've got to announce it sometime.

I think Monday.

And it's a new story.

It's just the announcement of it.

It's a story.

I think you ought to announce it about Monday or whatever.

It's the Tuesday.

It's $48.

It's tied to the State of the World.

I'd say following last week's release of the State of the World, the President will address Congress this week.

Why don't you do it 40 minutes this time?

because there's not an hour.

I think that's too long.

40 minutes and that gives you 20 minutes to think about it.

Just let it go, man.

Maybe just let it go, man.

And I'm going to talk about it later that you find the honor.

I don't think you know.

The more I think about it, maybe 30 minutes is better.

I think 30 minutes is.

Maybe 30 minutes, yes.

I cut it off at 28 minutes.

If the hell you can't come to that.

Just let the folks sit there and say, by God, he did another hell of a job.

I don't press anybody.

I don't make 1% more if I go on an hour.

You'll bore a lot of people.

We've been through that before, haven't we?

Uh, it's, you remember we did, we overdid that in the 62 campaign.

We tried to prove we could do the law of telepods.

It's a fine interview to make a comment, but it didn't, it couldn't have been.

Remember Brown did an hour and a quarter, 15 minutes a week to say press, we were doing three hours.

He was right.

He, he, we could have done it.

He'd have done it all.

An hour and 15 was good.

He went past an hour.

And that's all.

I think it was in our case.

Now the conversation type of thing, something like that, I think you need the hour because the basses, you won't get it otherwise, you just can't, that's it, you can't build it up.

But he isn't ready, he just isn't ready.

What are we going to be doing now?

Friday.

Buffalo.

Buffalo and then back here.

Not Friday night.

We're going to go up to Camp David.

No, but you've got a church on Sunday.

But then I don't go to Camp David.

Excuse that.

We're going to get Buffalo Friday night.

No, no.

Friday day.

You're not Friday afternoon.

Friday evening.

I want to just go right here.

We're on Friday night.

Yeah, yeah.

Since I won't be up Sunday, I agree.

I agree.

That's not how it's going to be.

I know.

You can stay Saturday night.

You don't have to come down Sunday morning from Cherokee.

Yeah, well, we'll talk about that.

I'm just trying to get a copy of your letter.

I may just find something that agrees with you, but I want to call the big shots.

I'm not in a seat.

I've been brought in later for, um, literacy.

This is the best I can do.

This week, I'm not in a seat.

Thursday is, uh, the point of policy, 9-11.

Yeah, but what's in the action?

Nothing.

You get an NSC then?

They were ready.

He's not ready.

No, but I may call one.

I just may call an NSC.

Henry wants to... Henry's got a...

I just want to get him out of the habit of thinking that the only time you can have an NSC is when he's got some paper to read, you know, 50%.

It's too damn important.

I think we'll just have him on instruction.

Because he just hates those.

Why?

Because then they bring up stuff that isn't sad.

You know, he's into this sort of creative decision-making.

So those people, they look at me in awkwardness.

You sit down with the rockers and lighters and get their views about things.

You know, they're smart people, Bob.

And that's, I think that's, I like that.

Because what he says, what he says waters.

Don't worry about it.

Got an F4A that must be currently in place.

It's only because it's a fader.

It's an energy.

Substantly, the energy's right.

Yeah, I know.

At least they came up with that theory.

Okay.

Three percent of the time they're in green.

It isn't a matter of Henry and Sadie being on the opposite end of everything.

In every way.

It's a fantastic program.

It's a hell of a program.

I don't believe much in it, but it's fine.

It's a fine program.

But when you think back, you know, the old Arthur Burns was supposed to be bringing up the domestic program.

Do you remember what we went through?

Of course he did.

Never came up with it.

They had a thing.

It's a real mystery.

That was his.

And they all came back.

We were trying to develop a program, and he never did come up on Monday.

And one of them, one of them came up with the only real thing.

Just for B-SAC, I guess they were happy today.

It was good for David to have one of them, right?

Well, B-SAC, you can do one.

You know, I'll tell you why I had a bunch of people.

You know why I like to do them?

They're interesting people.

They're like to be a nice man.

Almost the same as the big things.

But it was worth my time.

Because basically they have something to talk about and they're interesting people.

And they'll go back and they can have some good effect for us.

I don't think it went anybody, but they're interesting people.

You know, it's an important thing you've got to talk to people who've got something to contribute.

I don't know how to talk to a bunch of congressmen, frankly, you know.

It's going to be because, Bob, they don't have the time to think.

They really don't.

They don't read, they don't think.

I'm going to ask you to be willing to sit there and take some passion, try to be elected.

That's about what it is, sir.

You're going to sell them that accommodation, sell them that boat, get them to come and get them.

Let all of them break it.

I mean, about doing this this way, if we do get any television out of authority in this piece of coverage, by God, cause it a little, and John might get a little, but if every time I go on, I'm the only one against it, and I've said it, you know, the goddamn thing, and I've said it about 18 other times before, see, well, as I was saying, it was to them, not to the people, and you could have talked like that in front of people, but...

But we're all politicians, solvents, and I understand your problem.

We're all part of the establishment.

We're small chiefs, executives, you know, that was a good operation.

Heard we were a good introduction, that's why you're here.

That's it.

That's all right.

We've got to have a real conference in Niagara.

We'll see.

We've got to do some very powerful things.

to be as honest as he is, as I've said, but it's the smallness of his attitudes.

Would you agree with that?

I would appeal, as they all tell us, and all that is true,

We do the job.

We do the, like, everything that we want to have over there.

We watch.

We build it all.

We have a job.

We've got our stuff on hand now.

We went out over the weekend.

We wouldn't get anything.

It wasn't this strange.

The next thing, the bear's out here.

The bear's out here once.

These little legislators, you know, they're sort of a, you know, but they were nice folks.

California, I wish you had heard it there.

Any of these guys are on the same thing.

One of the folks said, I just want to say, it's almost an easy motion.

He said, it works.

I never had any doubt about it.

Why is that?

Because it's an impressive airplane.

I told you this.

I remember when we came into Washington, I saw it when we went into Texas or someplace before.

You know, after you were president, a lot of people before you were president, you saw Air Force One.

You got to trust that airplane.

And it comes in.

It's just a...

Beautiful.

People read about it on Air Force One.

There's a lot of the secrets of the United States of America.

Yeah, the flag and what we have it lighted is, and Albert has done a spectacular job on that.

The Grand Forks was especially effective because that's the place where we parked it.

right behind the speaker's platform so that the TV shot out was you standing in front of Air Force One.

Or I think if I would come into Air Force One and speak briefly to get it out.

How do you get the message?

You.

I don't know whether you put that much in there, but I'll take what I can do.

I'm just going to start watching them and I'm going to prove it.

I guess that's it.

You tell them, let me watch this.

You send those guys that message in next time.

You be the neighbor this way.

Don't let a message come in here again.

For now, let me take a look at it.

I'll just start saying I don't think we should have one.

So we'll stop some of this crime.

yesterday and uh is uh a report on those 52 fsos that that signed the yeah thank my god

have been permitted to resign in effecting courage and one of them is being separated for unsatisfactory service.

Alex has been watching very carefully.

Five of them have been transferred to non-responsible positions since the last report.

There's six of them now in Vietnam.

We've got specific reports from Bunker on each one of them.

And all but one is serving undercourts in the provinces.

They're doing well and some of them are doing outstanding.

None of them has done anything other than the three, has done anything to win any repeat of this thing at all.

But there's three of them.

Three have and they've gotten rid of them.

There are 49 of the 52 remaining in the service and they're now up for promotion zone.

And Alex is recommending that 36 of them be maintained in their present class and not promoted.

But the 13 that he is recommending for a one-class promotion is normal.

He sent the stuff in.

Both he and Bill feel very strongly that we should go ahead and improve those promotions with the understanding between you and Alex.

And Alex will be happy to come in and talk to you about it.

But you need to watch and tell Alex that I have confidence in him.

I think that's a good follow-up.

That's all I want to know.

I think he's not.

Well, he's very concerned about these guys.

I've made the point again that if one of these guys steps out of line somewhere, you're on the docket with the president that you're going to take immediate action on him.

That's, you know, if you do that, then he's going to be... You asked who the red-headed guy with the swillings was.

The Philippines.

It might have.

I know who lives out in Virginia.

Ed Lansdale.

No, that's not Lansdale.

I know Lansdale.

Lansdale was a colonel out there with Spruance.

Spruance had another call.

Charles Wilkinson.

No, no, no, no.

There's a redhead out there, right?

Everybody knows him.

He lives out in Virginia.

Bullocks?

William?

He was a friend of Bill Bullocks.

He's from Virginia.

He lives in Virginia.

He lives in this town about 50 miles out.

Okay.

Sure.

They all got away together and so forth.

William?

Sure.

I'll take it.

We asked for Tony, my buddy.

My staff seemed to think it was equally as Virginia.

It was not the other way around.

Sit down.

In the same poll, they asked about POWs.

They went on a raid to release them.

You know, do you approve or disapprove of this raid to try and get these prisoners out?

And would you favor or oppose other raids?

And the approval was 76-16.

And the favor of other raids was 73-80.

On the surface, it might appear that overwhelming majorities rather impatiently want to take sizable risks, yet I'm further probing, evident a major element is that one of the stumbling blocks to the settlement of war is the P.O.W.

issue.

If you favor or oppose a permanent standstill, cease fire.

72 favor, 18 oppose.

Is it unfair or unfair in the way they react to U.S. proposals to exchange P.O.W.s?

Fair 5%, 84% unfair.

He bangs it away.

Crap.

U.S. guys are steak dinners.

Now, I've got to run that one, because they've got the references.

He had a lot of, as you know, a lot of steak luncheons, too, which he had put down here, but he ran it.

On the 6th segment, Joe's the most.

22, 56, he only had one.

Before, he had 26.

26 dinners and 19 luncheons.

5, he only had 22 dinners and 8 luncheons.

Then 56, 1 dinner and 8 luncheons.

And then after 56, he already had 57.

Well, 57, he had 16 dinners and 7 luncheons.

58 yet 7 and 9 and 9 and 4 and 2 and 8 and 6 and 7.

58 years, he had 93 dinners in 76.

Going back to the 54 period, it was what, 20?

26.

Now does that mean the regal, spag dinners, the full ones?

It's hard to tell.

I've done the odds, and I used to have people up to dinner, Bob, almost every night.

I hope that I didn't want to mention it.

I read the laws of that one.

Like it said, he used to have, he used to have that, he owns that bunch of dinners.

He had 16 to dinner, and the 21st he had 18.

February 4th, he had four.

Well, actually, four doesn't count.

February 7th, he had 17.

Then 18, 18, 18, 16, 15, 15.

12, 17, 14, 17, 18, 22.

He used to do them about every two weeks.

Alright, he didn't do it that way though.

He did it with the matches like he had on April 4th for 17, April 8th for 14, April 12th for 17.

And he did have another one until May 10th.

May 10th and another on May 19th.

And the next one was for June 16th.

And it was June 16th and June 24th.

Well, of course the difference is that

He did not have his money.

He didn't have the, he didn't have the church services, you see.

He didn't have the, we're doing tax and service different jobs, are we not?

Well, some of these people, he was sending them our select group, but he didn't have any bullshit in his office either.

For things like the, I mean, he had a lot of things to say.

State veterans, he had the veterans organizations and the Prime Minister of Turkey and General Cannon and the American Heritage Foundation and

I had lunch.

So did the councilor of Australia.

So we had no consumption throughout.

He used to have lunches for his government.

That's a state thing, which is the real thing.

You're supposed to do what I do.

I was prime minister, prime minister, prime minister, prime minister.

We were all on stage.

So basically, that was his way to do what we were doing.

I think our people have this.

They keep kicking this Irish into a city because it's equivalent to a Jew.

He was nice to us, very nice to him.

He had a lot of work to have there.

Most of his lessons were PMs.

And you see, he's free at night.

See my partner?

Yeah, he got dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner.

These are all sag luncheons.

These are not... Oh, we're the lady.

Yeah, these are only the sag events.

That's not what I'm saying.

Let's see if there's maybe a sag event.

All right, I'm done.

Chris, you missed the point.

You don't have the luncheon, and that's a waste of time for you.

Also, you missed the plus that you get from the...

I have a wife there.

What other things?

Good.

I ain't got to talk to this man.

I ain't got to talk to the man about it.

I don't know why he did it.

You don't have to have one hell of a time hanging out with us.

We'll talk to these people about it.

I'm not mad at the state we just have.

The state's sitting down here.

You see that?

Oh, yeah.

I can see that.

You're right in front of us, buddy.

Right here.

It was this morning.

I'm not sure if it may be.

It's a car.

Got a little light.

They're all arguing that we're going to take the rural development group for the press.

Discussion between the views of the state representatives, editors, publishers, and .

to the Rural Development Group, which gives a report on rural development.

It's just very brief, you know, in 15 minutes.

And then Hart goes out to greet the press.

And he holds a press conference on our foreign message report, which is going up.

While he's out, Ed Harper, you go out and introduce Hart to the press.

And Ed Harper gives a quick world-development, revenue-sharing presentation.

And they have a 45-minute discussion of the representatives and their attendance.

That whole thing then runs from 1 o'clock to 2.30.

And then at 2.45, you go right over and open this back up with editors and publishers.

Editors and publishers have far periodicals, 50 of them.

So they've called in all of the five publications.

And what do I do there?

Just open up and ask questions or answers.

What they have here, the whole crew are working on.

I think you're better off open and get out.

One of those other backgrounds, if you talk a little bit, you'll have heard these other people in the morning and report briefly that we've been listening and we've got the farm cutting and the park is going to be able to be here.

And the idea would be that the cabinet members who would participate go out ahead of time and do some listening folks type stuff out there before the meeting.

And after you leave the media briefing, the members of the cabinet would stay through it.

Once it's over, they'd fan out to key cities in the park.

That's true.

I'll just do a TV interview show in the other cities and then return to Washington that day.

What do I do for a living?

The press there is not super, it's just a podcast.

I'll get back on it, but it's not a group.

We'll be tolerating the rest.

If you arrive and they're talking about some kind of a color stop on the way from the airport in or something, or even some sort of opportunity that they're just meeting with, invite the four governors of that area, which is Ray, Oglebay, Ernst, and Lucy.

They've got a whole bunch of... Don't put them on the plane with me.

So, Human Resources and Department of Agriculture and Extension Service, I should say this.

The main thing that we have to work on is to see if it's all right.

Do you think...

It's worth enough to not hit the center of the people on that goddamn Air Force One.

It is.

I'll kill you.

No, I don't think you should.

I have a few minutes.

And it's best not to.

You can avoid it.

You can't do that.

What do you think?

Yes, it is.

I'm not sure you should even take the congressional delegation.

I don't know.

What do you mean?

If you take the Iowa delegation, you're screwing the other government.

That's right.

I will not take them.

I want to know if you're ever saying that it's the executive branch of one of the people.

I don't think so.

You're welcome.

I'll just keep off of that for a moment.

You're just playing your own game.

You're going to take care of stuff for the people.

But we sure ain't going to take them on the plane, is it?

Rockefeller and Heschel both deal on the northeast region, and Rochester would be better than Rochester.

They're on both sides of the labor and minority and school problems.

They're on both sides of the

All right.

Maybe you've got to use some Kodaks if you want to do some drop-by type things too.

You might be able to do a drop-by all the time sometimes.

It's a huge plan, and a lot of men are working down the line and talking to some workers.

A huge hand.

I'm not doing that with a luncheon with the mayor or city council or something like that.

Would you rather just not have a luncheon?

Oh, I should know that.

I'm not a mayor.

No, sir.

Never, never, never.

I'm going to always remember that.

Skip the luncheon altogether.

And we're going to send our special urban revenue sharing message that day.

And I've got a site project that will be affected by it.

There are several in Rochester that they can do.

Just tell him I just can't get there for the lunch, you know.

You know, when you get there, just take a drink.

Or yeah, get there right after.

If you'd be willing to take five minutes out of your normal service, you can.

I can hold it inside.

I mean, that's good.

It's difficult.

I'm going to be fine.

I'm going to make it.

The SBA is suggesting, because of the...

I'm thinking around it, maybe we could do the club instead of swearing in at the White House.

I'll swear in the office, and I'm not going to go out and do a hell of a make a little talk about it.

I can't go out to the SBA.

I'll do it that way.

You can swear in this room, except if they want to tear my club to bits.

We'll just sit there and go ahead and do that.

You can come in and swear in the office.

But I'm not going to make a statement.

I don't want them to be happy to come into Roosevelt and play with the policy and what they want to do.

So we're right speakers?

No.

It's Wilkins, Ennis, Whitney, Dorothy, Cincinnati, Bonneville.

It's a mixed bag, and it's a good thing for them to be, because they're all over the place.

It's not a good thing for them.

I'm worried about that.

I mean, I'm not going to walk into that much.

I'll see any of them individually.

I'm just curious if it would be, uh, like, being used by a lot of groups in China.

I wouldn't know if Trump had ever said it, because I understand that they were just warning us, you know, you had a thing you wanted to do, and it was one of your reasons to take it there.

What I mean?

I think you're appealing on that.

He's got to shave up some.

That's all.

It's just up to him.

It's a high risk.

There's a risk of him in that because if he doesn't shave up then

And then you may ship out.

So the baby room is what?

The baby room is called agonizing.

Caught in each panic.

Right?

People get worse and worse as they do these babies.

Don't you think they do?

Yeah.

They get worse.

And it's all different from what's going on for them.

So there is a jab done in the brain.

Excellent.

How did you get it ideally to be that way?

I didn't know.

So that's the other one.

I think the brother in it is a negotiator.

Oh, he's important.

This is negotiating skills.

No, it is on my wrist, but it's on the other hand.

It would work.

I don't think it would.

It's like we're cracking now.

You'll say, he's tired.

Oh yeah, I'm working hard at rest.

I let him wash out for a week, but I think you, let's go this way, I think you get over the, I have a hammer problem.

I think that's what they're talking about.

Well, that's not a problem, it's a problem here.

I must have done you a hell of a lot of good, though.

I thought I'd know Pete coming in.

The way he likes food, he really gets addicted to it.

He likes it better when he's having problems.

You know, it's a terrible loss if the tree was cut down.

Now, what in the hell is that?

What in the name of good God hell does that prove?

I heard that it's a terrible loss, you know, if the tree is cut down.

And this beating cop is dead.

It's not good.

That's one of the reasons.

I mean, he's lost a new function in the EU, on the Hill and others, and so on and so forth.

He does lead, as I said, he's much better the first time.

And when he's very repetitious, he builds the case, which is a professorial event.

Professors do.

He can figure the same luxury every year.

I mean, he's doing it again.

Well, that's what the person is.

What I mean is that he likes to be mobilized and agonized about these problems, and he's not happy about it unless he's agonized about something.

Why does he have to quit doing it around here, or at least cut it down some?

I guess it is the relationship that drives our interest in each other.

I don't think it's such a problem with Larry.

And nobody has a problem with Mel, really, with anybody.

He just, he just, he just goes around.

But Bill, Bill's right, there's some pain, some, you know, he's kind of emotional about it.

left everything else, all of that just Ross built.

And so he was, yeah, he was young and all this.

So he was reporting everything and he, because I just know, I know that it's not going to pass.

But if Henry made some crack at a party, of course everything Henry says gets reported.

And after the state of the world report, it's going to be 60,000 words this year and he gets a dollar to work.

Senate, where he said it, was probably a funny crack, but it cranked a little bit.

And he always arrives late at parties.

It doesn't have to be on purpose, but maybe just because he slated everything else.

He's just always late.

And as late as the president, he'd take it.

Just, you know, frostbite.

Well, you don't do that at all.

And that's because, frankly, it's Jewish.

Jewish.

and also the other one that is, well, I know, I mean, it plays that way, you know, except for our play that was game two, you know.

Our play, it really is a choice that was, Garland doesn't, you know, Garland's a superb, you know, Lenny just, that's our, Lenny's just a different kind of guy, you know.

Garland wouldn't think about it, you know, he's too genteel.

Look for it.

He's just trying to grab it now.

He's got it in the middle.

You know that Bob Hope's coming tonight.

Sorry?

Yeah.

You may not be here now.

There's no need for you to see him.

I'm not sure you remember that he was going to be here.

They said they could put Lynch and Gleason there together, but I don't think they can do that.

Gleason's kind of a weird guy.

See if he can come down and see the President in about a quarter of a second.

See if he can see around the house and hear someone.

Did you work out the office thing with Bob Runyon?

I worked out with Bob, he's all set to go, and he's working on his stuff with Runyon.

He's an enthusiastic advocate of Runyon, and I just know it's the right thing to do.

Not like the idea of moving out of the White House until he moves out and moves into the home a lot better off.

Make a light interception.

You've got to be delighted once he gets out of it.

Well, I go there every time I can.

It will be as much better close to work.

It's quieter.

I was, you know, I went over to Bill's for lunch yesterday, to Roger's, and it just...

This really is a lousy set up.

It's just, his reception set up, we've got this about as good as you have hope for in the West.

But if you go through his, he's got acres of space and he's beautifully furnished rooms with all the antiques and all that stuff and hushed hallways and very open spaces.

and this beautiful big office, and a beautiful little office off of it, and his private dining room right there, and his private elevator just for him.

I don't think that he runs up and down.

Here you are, you plod down these halls, man.

No facilities.

That's all right.

This is just, put on the other hand, the way this house is set up now, this office is very nice.

We're getting inside, you come in there, that thing.

And then if you come down into that, I think in the other room, we use that for most of them.

Or they just sit out there.

The lobby is great.

It's beautiful, though.

And for those of you who don't know, it's nice in this area down here.

It's nice all together.

The whole thing, it looks great.

And it's perfectly at a thousand percent improvement.

I can't imagine.

I remember the horror it was to press on there before.

And coming down there to the garbage, it was just unbelievable.

It was so bad it really wasn't in until you go over and see one.

I thought of bringing Henry up, but I was sure of a couple of these things.

All the monoliths, mainly the screw rubbers.

You can't do that, you know.

You just can't do that.

You're not doing what you want.

It's almost shocking.

Yeah, I think the worst thing he could do is the first time they re-suggested again to go running over and do it, but he can't even do that.

The main thing is he can't do it because it's, uh, he just can't run and regress the first time.

Yeah.

It's impossible.

It's terrible.

Well, how are you going to get along?

I'm sorry, I guess I have to...

I'm fine.

Oh, how are you?

Fine, baby.

Joe Dunham.

His disease was, that Sunday night, he was doing his Parkinson's disease.

He's in Wyoming.

He's got a thousand.

I have no, nothing particularly here.

Oh, what is the case, the situation?

I didn't, I forgot to know.

What's the situation with Casey?

Is that on or off her sidelines?

Sidelines.

At this point, what I understand the state of the file is

Do you know what the status is on Casey?

Okay.

The thing is, the thing I said is that there is a question of hiring people on the block, plus Casey, because Casey's got lots of friends and so forth and so on.

The technicality of this is that you cannot push a friend and get better than a child who did that.

Well, that's the point, Mr. President.

We, when we, another thing we haven't had credit for is that this administration has been singularly free from any... We're not correct.

And, uh...

There's no question.

Why?

Why walk into it?

Bill knows Sam well.

He didn't reveal it.

He wasn't trying to hide anything.

He just forgot the thought that he should have when he didn't know it was the Attorney General right now.

we can divert that to any committee's place to divert that anyway.

I don't think there should be any severe departure in your program as it's going now.

I mean, as far as your day-to-day schedule and whatnot, I... No, I'm saying I don't want to change the format.

I'm not asking for a board.

I'm about the right time.

There are so many loose ends in this cross-currents that are working right now.

This is not the time to come down and seize different kinds of grounds.

Your overall position, you've got momentum with the goddamn Congress and I think the American people as well.

They don't know yet.

They also don't know.

They set up a filter.

The other hand, the Congress...

the Congress is having one hell of a time to find a viable alternative.

The other thing that we keep forgetting, and Bryce keeps saying, and I think he's right, he hit me yesterday, whenever it was he was in here, and he said, you know, you guys always forget Harlow's principle rule.

You keep expecting something to happen right away.

He said, this country, it's always been true, and it's still true.

When a president does something, it takes six weeks before that has an effect.

And he said, don't even...

Worry about stuff you do for six weeks.

That's when you should measure back with what you've accomplished.

He said, you aren't even six weeks off the city in Indiana.

He said, you're hammering away.

You're doing just the right thing.

But don't be looking for them to penetrate.

People don't get the message.

It takes them six weeks for it to filter down in this country.

He's always said that.

Way back.

He'd argue about what you had to do on the ATM or something like that.

He always went on six weeks ahead of time, not at the time.

Of course, I think we always need television machines, though, don't we?

I'm not sure it does that.

It'll crystallize.

It probably doesn't.

Television may not be the greatest.

It takes a little while to boil something through.

They've got to hear it over and over again.

The one-shot TV does.

How's that going to do it?

Doing what he should do right now.

He's out pushing the health wing.

He's so excited about that.

The resources.

Huh?

He's got the resources.

He just doesn't have the staff.

That's what I'm saying.

Quality.

Capability.

Keep working on it.

I just told him that's what the president wanted.

for both of us.

It's that way.

It'll be a hell of a good setup.

Well, my office is in the middle.

Yours is on one side, his is on the other.

I use that office as much as I use this one.

Well, I might, of course, I could get something done for James.

I've been camping for six months.

This is a hobby setup.

We've got your setup.

We've got it over there now.

Fantastic setup.

And also, when I'm over here, they've got the reception room with the little kitchen and the bar where you can invite people into the president's office for booze.

It's great.

It's the ideal place for Bob and me to be in this box.

It's a success.

What I want to do is get you out there.

I want somebody out there that you could meet, that you could use, that you could have as a guest in my place.

Is that what we were planning to do, get a good... Yeah.

And, of course, if I was your own secretary, we would have a good charioteer out there that could join you, sir.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what we did.

Because he is secretary.

Must be receptionist.

He's very good at receptionist practice.

You don't want to be secretary.

I'm not your secretary, but you need to go start down there.

Sir, that would be a damn good complex for all of us.

Those offices are beautiful.

They're nice offices here.

You're horrible.

You're probably doing well, aren't you?

Yes, sir.

All right.

Thank you.

The way it was, all right.

Slow him down.

I think you ought to tell him to slow down.

All right.

He's, how can you tell?

He asked Alex today, when he said he was getting kind of run down, he wondered if he should be at the dinner tonight.

Alex said, yes, he should.

And this is when he should.

This is more important than having a mother than Alex.

But his wife has been saying the same thing to other wives.

But as a former governor and as your only Democrat in the cabinet, this is exactly where you ought to be.

It is important.

But, especially if I'm here, you've got to pass the others.

You've got to slow down on the Hill stuff.

You were admiring in town, banging away at the Hillary, but that is Bob Mills.

That's the worst.

I thought you'd get more than anything else.

I thought that every one of our cabin guys, when they respect their son, they know that he's always there for them.

Well, how are you feeling about that?

Well, even if you are, I'm going to go.

I'm happy to be here to see you.

Beautiful cabin.

Yeah, I think that's what it's like to take the weekend off and go up to camp.

You know, I'd love to see her.

I'd love to see her on this.

I'd love to see her here.

This week we have a church.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

Does he, uh, does he have a... Well, I think he's good so far.

And his bulldozers are just amazing.

I haven't realized he was as good a target as he is.

He gives a lot.

All right, let's see if we can go to the camp stage for the weekend if we can do it.

It really will, but I think if you want to suggest we go to Camp David, I think it's a great question.

I'm sure you know about the curve.

All right.

I'm just saying, you know, one night you could have a curve here.

My own feeling is that you shouldn't do it until April.

Because, frankly, you're not cool enough to go when it's 30.

Not the last time.

Oh, really?

I said, well, if I go when it's 30, you haven't seen it for the first time in a long time.

Not April.

Well, it's a little together this year, so it's a little different this year.

Nixon, Haldeman & Dent on 1972 Campaign and Public Relations

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Nixon, Haldeman & Dent on 1972 Campaign and Public Relations

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on February 23, 1971

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