Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on Press relations and Domestic policy

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The president asked me way back on that conversation he had on the press conference.

He was concerned right here, feeling he shouldn't do one.

His thought is, in this one, it's just one of those in-office things, not on television.

And he felt he ought to do it to try and get some of the odds and ends cleared up, especially on the domestic side.

I was wondering, would it not be on television if you still had reservations about doing it?

If he does that, his preparation work on it will pay off for this Howard Smith interview too, you know?

Pretty much so, yeah.

We talked about doing it just limited to domestic, and we made you do that.

Yeah, right.

First we need to put some of the parts in the jail.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

Right.

Everybody get on up.

Okay.

Yeah, it was just great.

He did a fantastic job.

And he did the eulogy.

You'll see it on TV.

They covered it live today, so it was a lot of coverage out of that.

One of us, you know, where he used no notes and just stood there and gave it just a spectacularly good, very moving little talk on this thing.

It was really...

Very impressive.

He said if it wasn't for TV, he would suggest that it would be a good idea to...

if you could, to limit it to domestic affairs, because he thinks you've got more to gain from there for the moment.

He said his point is when you get into the Middle East, you get into an awful complex thing.

He said on the other hand that the way he wrapped it up, he was pretty satisfied with the way he came off of it yesterday, that maybe he could just turn it off with that.

And I wrote the old re-honoration on that.

I said, of course, you're going to get into foreign affairs anyway, so you're really preparing for the same.

But he says if it's an in-office thing and not televised, then that's a different thing.

He hadn't really thought about it, except in terms of television.

But I think it's worth considering doing it just on domestic affairs.

just to put this twist to them, it won't generate as much news, but we'll force them to write some stuff on some of that side of it instead of writing on Hoffs and the Middle East, which at the moment we don't have anything particularly

Telling a lot of story over and over doesn't do any harm.

Every time you say it, they run it again.

As if it were something new.

And every time we do it, it just gets our point over again.

We give up our big shot.

The other side of it is this.

The Howard Smith thing won't get a hell of a play.

It's just like, I don't know if it gets to do it anyway.

Maybe you see it running live and the papers will play the hell out of it.

You can call that a conference.

We don't really have to be making in terms of this press corps a very much vital variety in terms of the question present.

That's absolutely right.

There may be, you know, a little bit of it where, a little bit of it where it's much harder having just given up the damn weapon a week ago and having done that.

Which appeared to be a week ago actually was done also a week ago when I was here on Monday.

Right now, it might just be the thing that would kill me.

You know, that's, you know, that's a bit of it.

So it's kind of like a rash.

You know, public relations, blitz, type of thing.

The other thing, of course, if you do one in California, you know, and then you call the building back because there's a huge signal coming up.

In California, you just do it and it's kind of a thing there, too.

Yes, you should.

Our special television for this half a month.

And then, you know what I mean, that and the church, and then the troop announcement, and then the editors who have money on TV.

That's it for next month.

That'll be good.

That's funny.

We sure can't do it next week's office here.

You notice they're too damn busy.

But I could do it in California quite easily.

You know what I mean?

I could go out there and try in California again.

Another benefit, of course, California's two weeks later.

You could do it there anyway.

You did this one.

You could do one two weeks later in California.

Yeah.

Because it's still two weeks after that before the California...

before the editors.

In other words, if you did one this week in California, you'd do it in the latter part of California, you know?

Well, one next week, assuming it was not pre-polarized.

One next week in California, you would not polarize it either.

I would not because of the ABC thing and because of the ASNB coming up on the 13th or whatever.

And the troop.

I really think ABC, the ASNB, and the troop, doesn't.

Now the other thing that may come up here, you know, Garcello has been asking me to do sports.

Yeah.

I wonder if that really should be done.

Live.

Yeah.

On the morning of the opening game.

But if not,

You're going to make the news on the opening game.

Why not wait a little while?

All right.

Baseball, it is, he was going to talk about sports in general.

Baseball will be, you know, any country in the season, really.

Having done the Today Show so, so, I agree with you.

I think you ought to wait a while.

You know, I don't, you know.

It's like you've become a regular.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

I see how he feels, though, how he has a deal with all these young men who are in our play.

Will you do that?

Glenn Garner, please respond.

I will do more than anything.

I mean, both because it's a lawyer, an interviewer, you know, Webber, of course.

Garner probably appreciated that speech more than others.

We're going to do the press conference and leave open the option of whether you want to do one in California, which is, there'll be time for one anyway.

We're heading this two-week pattern, doing the press every two weeks.

Correct.

Did you do it with domestic only?

I heard the press conference takes a little long, Smith.

That's one thing I wondered about.

If domestic only, it wouldn't, because Smith is going to run heavily at foreign policy, you know.

Cover the whole range, but it would be... You'll have an awfully good chance on Smith to do your, make your points on the foreign policy thing, because you don't have to give fast answers.

We're meant to run a full half hour, you know, the one in the office.

We can do one in the office and... Well, I don't think it's ever worth going if I do the preparation.

I might as well go to 25 minutes.

I won't go over half an hour.

This time I'll run it right on because we see that with that other event coming.

We just let it go in about 28 minutes.

I'll have the guy cut it since we're on live radio.

Lots of stuff.

I don't think we were saturating too much, is that it?

Or just a lot?

We didn't have much work, or?

Probably we're doing enough right now.

Yeah, and his concern about whether he wanted to get into the Mid-East.

I'm not going to get into my question and the Bob's question.

I agree with that very quickly.

We are not close.

You heard my answer.

You can't get into the Mid-East anyway.

The Mid-East.

I'm going to just avoid it like a plague.

But you can avoid both by doing it just on domestic.

I'm going to really avoid it.

I'm going to just make this domestic come down the right water.

I must say that if it was Smith who had us a chance, I would have had a chance to hit the other.

Much better.

You'd be able to make it in a much better way because you do it on television in your words instead of through the press.

Now, you've got a perfect reason.

You, in effect, said your next movie would be domestic.

See, you don't have any explanation to make.

We made the last one for him, so you make this one domestic.

I think he'll just do domestic issues.

I think you're right.

Now, Ron doesn't like that, you know, because the press won't like it.

That's true.

We've limited the women.

We're limiting the last for this.

And then when we go on and tell our eyes about the coverage, they cover it up and the next time they can have the worst.

The Sweden message.

We're going to do it open.

One penny.

Open and challenging.

I'm not sure that I would do it on the street.

I wonder there if it wouldn't be better to

Even if we're going to be just to do it at, frankly, the best time, California time.

TV.

In other words, go on at 8, 8, 8.30, whatever it is.

8 o'clock.

Get to Eastern.

What?

You're asking California to just do it at 8 o'clock.

You ever said, I think you need the TV?

You'll be doing the truth coming out.

Give them the truth thing the following week.

In the SME the week after that.

I'm asking you.

Sure.

Go outside.

Sure.

Make them stand up.

Get you in the office here.

Bring him over to the patio of the house.

That's more, that's outside, but close in.

I don't think it's the right thing.

There's that kind of stuff, and I need to see you let your...

I let it be, I think you're right.

You can have it.

There's no place in the indoor you can have it there.

Don't bother.

I'm sure you could stand up at the conference room or in your office.

Aren't you too late?

I think your office can take it.

And I'm sure the conference room could.

And if you catalog it for us there.

We can do it.

We can do it on it.

It's awesome.

We've been talking about it out there.

I want all the other people to do it out there.

Just let the Washington press come here and do something just for the California press.

How do you like that?

With the Washington press, they cover it.

We're not questioning it.

Do you see my point?

Just to tell the press that you've got to do a very, very nice thing.

Does that answer your question?

No, we will have had the Washington Press all day.

That was two weeks before.

You said yourself, why don't you do that in Florida or Iowa?

We will.

That's what I was thinking of doing.

You know, even in that California one we did before, where you let them get a little, and they only got in a few.

The ones they got in were pretty bad.

Well, Greenberg isn't even going to ask a lot of questions.

They just really aren't up to the basics.

How will they change assessment?

Yeah.

One local press corps that's really...

comes closer to Chicago.

They're tough enough, they're sharp enough, but I think even New York has .

And L.A. sure has helped us, New York has.

You look at the stars of the L.A. press corps, or the California press corps, Squire Barron, Jack McDowell, and Carl Greenberg, and Dick Berkowitz,

I kind of think there is.

It puts the focus on your domestic program stuff that we've talked about.

The only way to get any questions in that area is to make it all back to this, because otherwise it's, even though we know it's a loser, I'm convinced, the focus of the message doesn't help us.

If we didn't have the ABC thing coming up Monday, then I'm pretty sure we'd be crying for it, but having it, and because it'll have much more impact in the sense that it'll be on TV.

Before you get ready.

You've only got one day now to get ready to work on it and all this other stuff that means you don't have to spend the time working on your foreign policy answers yet.

You can do that over the weekend.

You've done the domestic for Friday, so that takes care of you for Sunday.

You don't want to have to waste time.

I'm not going to bring my back to these things.

I'm not going to count them.

I didn't say we could.

I've tried too hard.

You know, I make every word fit precisely.

I know it.

I understand.

Oh well.

I think I'll write it anyway.

Or is this the straw that breaks the camel's back?

You should do it for another reason.

He's not going to give it to you.

I'm listening to the general argument.

He's not going to give it to us.

It's not an argument.

I don't know what you're giving him or something.

It's not something we have to give him.

And AS&E isn't going to give the Washington Press a chance.

They're not going to like that, of course.

That's right.

They don't care.

They say, it seems to me, instead of a two-week pattern, and then we get the mileage out of it.

That's right.

I've seen how they're bitching the one way and it gives them a chance to bitch the other way.

But if you don't have it, they're going to say you won't meet with the press on it.

Couldn't agree more.

That you hide behind ABC TV interviews instead or something.

Couldn't get better.

Couldn't agree more.

Bastards bitch and keep moving your way.

Good, you're ready to pop.

Yo, what's the story?

I have some party work, sir.

So the A.P.I.

relations, A.P.I.

story, I really got scared the way they did.

They let us in and gave us a chance at what has to be done.

parties in White House history.

It's all a promise, I suppose, probably.

It isn't a byline to me, but it's, and it goes on about Frederick Murray playing the saxophone and the dentist singing, singing the songs, and the crowd, you know, the Trisha and Eddie, Edward, doing the rock dance numbers together, and his friends were cutting in, you know, it goes, it makes it sound like a hell of a bash.

That's good.

It does knock down the idea of .

It is, of course.

No, but it's no dumber than the other some of them are dumber.

That's right.

By standards of this place, yours are a hell of a lot less so than the general run of things.

Except that you don't make an ass of yourself out there.

That's how it has to be.

That's the point.

What makes a party is where you get out there and ask yourself.

Kennedy, of course, there, there is one place where a friend of the press made his, he didn't have to, he did very little in terms of part of everything.

So I had a lot, a lot of political answers.

Notice no more than I agree with.

He was bubbling around town.

He was over at, you know, he was over at the Georgetown finish and stuff here too.

There was no need and the thought of you going out to a dinner just doesn't occur to anybody anymore.

But it was, you know, we had to make a rule

From what I heard on the car trade, it sounded as if Bob were picking him up.

Put him on the plane.

So I think he did.

I don't think he did.

I didn't get a chance to check, sorry.

Betty Chiefs.

Oh, yeah, I know.

Yeah.

He was awesome back in the day.

Russell.

That's him.

Johnson did it all.

He really did.

He did that, and he did it because he wanted to.

He had that.

I don't think he ever did that a lot of thinking.

I think he liked to run around doing things.

I mean, he loved being the star of the show.

A lot of those things he was.

That's why I couldn't see how he could deteriorate very fast.

And I don't think he has much...

He's very much a public man, not as much of a private man to him.

As he basked in the glory of the Lord.

And therefore, he must not have much.

And the glory meant too much to him.

Now, the sense of glory certainly in itself means something to you.

You've had it.

That's all these obsessions with the TV sets and the ticker tapes and all that.

It must have been crazy.

The crazy error he made in Eisenhower made a similar error in every way.

It was allowing themselves to be used on TV back when they were present.

I think that's true.

I really thought it was a convention of common sense.

It's a very tough thing that the president of this country doesn't have it worked out right.

Adams thing, going back to the house and looking on these days there, might have been a pretty good thing in that time.

It would be impossible now.

Hold on.

The president couldn't be in the house for the second.

The president's too far removed from the, from that house.

In those days, it was probably not a bad thing.

It was better to look at some of the other guys that went out and just, you know, either deteriorated or got into

I should have the right, yes.

Well, you, uh, up in the, uh, midst of the day, all of an hour, just, uh, going over the end of the work.

Anything further on your, uh, your extravagance?

And I called handsets.

I mean, thank you for putting that on.

Yeah, yeah.

Good.

Pull the pressure out.

That's good, that's good.

in the summary, but I was glad to see Eddie Avery.

He's a tough one for them to handle.

That guy's a farmer, his favorite guy.

He's really rough and much smarter than Mendel.

I think they took the wrong guy there, don't you?

Well, you may have stirred some things up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyway, they, uh, they, uh, and you'll follow up with your friend Harris, uh, in terms of a very intriguing idea that you have there.

and then see what kind of depth folding he would suggest.

See what I mean?

And what kind of a contract he would suggest, you know.

Because he's for sale, in my opinion.

He also is, you know, his main honor.

That's right.

Oh, right, right.

He is a doctor of science.

Well, well, he sure does fight.

Anytime you want, anytime you want to bring him, he needs to come in.

I have great regard for him.

I like his guts.

He drags people along a couple of those things.

That's right.

They'll only do it because of the

So they were on the right track with their labor friends and continued to try to work on them.

I thought they were good people.

Then we did say, we changed the rule to say that any place where a voluntary agreement is enforced in the state will be graded center.

Just like that.

Okay, we'll see you, bye.

He's a valuable man, you know, he's a .

And he's going right after them, and they're in trouble.

And that's the CBS woman that loves that kind of stuff.

He cuts them to pieces.

So that's what they're talking about.

That's the game.

So we heard it in the credit front.

That's right.

And when they all squealed and all that, the dirty ass guy.

We've heard it enough.

You know what I mean?

All those articles about that shit.

I believe in sitting by other guys.

Poor old Dole, the suicide scene about his beach.

You can see that.

He probably died.

Yeah, I guess he was.

He was probably that bad.

But nevertheless, we are always trying to figure out who's here.

And it's done now.

Yeah.

We got just some, some half of them.

So I'll see you in the next one.

Here we go.

All right.

I think he's, he's doing fine.

He's getting good, you know, on that public side.

He's getting a lot of good money from the back.

Okay.

Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on Press relations and Domestic policy

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on March 17, 1971

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Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on Press relations and Domestic policy

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on March 17, 1971

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Cite this conversation