Nixon, Haldeman & Hardin on Public opinion polling and Television interviews

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got the gallop when it slipped the very sudden.

You squeezed your gallop and knocked it down one.

He probably will not release it someday.

He probably won't release it until a week from Thursday.

And at that time, he will also release his trial yeast, which he hasn't done for quite a while.

It's December.

What does the one drop mean?

You're holding the same one.

Well, his last call, he said he was going to use the 50, though.

Remember, he said he squeezed the oxygen out of the 50.

Remember?

He came in and told me that he said that after they computed it, they found out that it was 50 also.

You're right.

They released it at 51, but they said when it came out the next time, it's probably 50.

Yeah.

You're absolutely right.

But anyway, I don't care.

It's exactly the same.

Let that speak up again so that I won't say don't poll now.

Oh, Gallup doesn't poll, honey.

We won't vote for him, huh?

That'll be good.

We'll vote after your April speech, fella.

That's fine.

I think you should say that the speech isn't made in April.

That'll be good.

He's polling now.

He might take that time.

You never know.

How do you get into this whole negotiation thing, sir?

It's a natural .

This is the release thing.

As he's putting it down, it will work very much in our favor, because he will say the lead will be trial leads.

And then he'll just bury it in the story.

He'll also say people will recognize it.

It remains the same at 5037.

There's a lot of people who don't have any confidence in it.

The rest of the bowl finishes last, the latest bowl last weekend.

And that, he will be releasing

We will get some figures on Chuck in the next few days.

And he'll start releasing it over a period of time.

And Chuck's guess is that it won't.

It'll be a good measure of how much of a horror Harris is.

He thinks because we're banging on his face now that Harris will see things through to us that being nice enough works.

Well, if he cut it last week, he wouldn't be too bad, you see.

The Laotian back in Madrid where he'd come over the weekend, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

Now he was pulling Saturday and Sunday underground.

Some of that.

And all the weather he hit would impact on Monday.

Of course the thing about that is I could certainly picture this as Rogers was talking.

He has his hand on it.

And they use them over and over again on the helicopters trying to get out.

That kind of stuff.

It is what it does to them.

But uh...

Not immediately.

You know, as a matter of fact, I'm glad you said that.

I really nailed that hard.

You know, some tough questions.

If anybody could have listened to that, I was hitting all of those spots.

And in a hurry, maybe it was too goddamn nice.

You know, sometimes you just get to stay there a long time and listen to that.

But not really.

I think it's just best to be credible.

Did Chuck tell you about his conversation with Smith last night?

Yeah, I talked to him.

I asked him to call Smith, and I talked to him briefly.

Smith said he was, he told me a little, I could tell you some obvious things about him.

I think it was Smith who made the point that I may talk to him again, that they were criticizing him.

Somebody was, or maybe he's counting off percent, because you didn't say anything critical.

You didn't argue with the president.

the president's answers.

He said the bastards just, you know, he said, I asked tough questions.

He said, I asked tough questions and now these guys aren't satisfied because they won't be able to criticize his answers.

Well, let's talk about giving them the hard questions.

And Smith was pleased with the current challenge.

Very.

He must have been.

Very.

We haven't had any more.

No, they're doing

one round this morning and then do it.

Uh, people know about, they only have one network.

There's some advantage to that too, it doesn't have the massive impact, but you know, speeding it up over there, you know, my God.

I mean, so you get 10 million people probably saw that, what you mentioned.

Yeah, I don't know.

The CDC has 3 million.

We get, we get the time.

It's going to be 1 in 10 million.

Because you get, that should get, I would think, if, you never know how, what time side, I don't know.

I don't know.

Right, but that's supposed to be what it is.

That's a hell of a lot of people.

It's a big rattle.

The normal thing that ABC should get, if they got a third of the audience, which they don't always, they don't generally do,

And our one third would be incident at that time.

Incidentally, I was going to tell you, I am, I'm more of a fine surgeon for two reasons.

One, because I had a, I wanted a very light weight and light thing.

And of course, he's outfying the others.

And I asked my best critics, they like it better than the blue.

They don't like the blue.

They say, look, I got here as a president, and you don't have to be a gentleman.

And they just don't like the appearance of a blue shirt.

The argument, the important point is, yeah, I don't want to be it.

I agree with that.

The argument for the blue, because it's better for black and white, is that there is a, the problem is the problem with white.

And it cannot adjust to the light that it picks up.

The white shirt bounces more light.

And therefore it adjusts to that and doesn't give us, you don't give us good skin tones.

So how was the skin tone last night?

It looked good to me, but it's hard for me to tell on my side.

My wife thought it was the best thing I've ever seen, if you look at the picture.

That's the camera.

So it's too terrible.

It's too terrible, so it's the best.

But my point is that if my wife looks a little bit, you know, it's a curious thing.

You've got to listen to this person.

Not presidential.

I do.

And I don't wear white shirts, so why would I go out with a goddamn... That's like I don't like to be heavily made up.

That's not presidential either.

That's right.

So that's why I am, and that's why I say you need to be heavily made up.

The other thing that they said, and I think this is worthwhile, and I believe we ought to be tougher, I'll talk to Mark a bit about it, while they alter the life of today's show content,

They thought that it was very awkward sitting on the couch and so forth, that that was not the way I should have been.

And I hadn't thought of it, but they were right.

What happened there is that Barbara wanted it that way, you know, sitting on the couch, but that was a very uncomfortable couch.

And I was sitting there, you know, sort of in a half-assed way.

She didn't want to have two chairs.

I mean, they just put them in the new goddamn chairs anyways and forget whether it's in this or that or the other room.

I think the trouble with it

All television producers, whether it's like all the rest, is they want some new thing.

Now the best setting for that damn thing was that library.

We used it before, but use it again.

Put it over and over and put it right there with me.

I don't know.

I haven't heard from anybody else.

Billy Graham's wife thought it was great, but she needed to see it.

Now, I've mentioned that.

I'm very happy to hear that.

Would you ask Secretary Hart to come in first?

I don't think it was, I don't think it detracted that much.

Why don't you get into it?

It didn't at all.

But in looking at it just from the viewpoint of... You know, despite the fact that there were a lot of long answers, we covered a hell of a lot of ground last night.

You sure did.

I mean, I got through an awful lot of stuff.

An awful lot of stuff.

He had a black belt.

he doesn't feel you get hung up on this i'm just flatly saying where i'm going to do this on this uh on the parody thing he wants to he wants to talk to you and all of us and talk a little about it again and i'm perfectly welcome to that cause i mean i know that you're here you're game but uh the

So I just want you to know that the way you want to play it this morning, let's keep our powder dry.

I talked to Page and he's very upset.

They've got 150 days on the bill now to force our name.

And he says we'll pass it to the other folks in the House.

And he'll pass the sentence.

So that means it's on your desk.

What do you say then?

Well, I think we just try to give them an opportunity to tell their story.

I've done it before, and I'll turn the meeting over to you, shall I?

I'll go around and thank them all for their help.

Did you do them last year as well?

Yes.

That's the group that I didn't come to.

And that's how I come here to the meeting.

If I promise to do it this year, where do they meet me?

I don't know if they're going to stand out.

Uh, how about you, Conway, and Schultz, and I get together and talk about this?

Well, it's like, you know, we can't make it in that new house.

How do you like it?

Just what you said.

Why don't you go?

We're going to go back there now.

We'll have to go back tomorrow.

Uh, we've got a couple of days to come.

But, uh...

Nixon, Haldeman & Hardin on Public opinion polling and Television interviews

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 23, 1971

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