Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Media relations and Public image

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Alright, Marker, pick up another 1-1-9-0.

Didn't drop off.

Good.

Well, the thing was that there didn't actually be any surprise or disappointment then.

Because they had all discounted the speech.

And 12 points.

And that was based on their much wilder speculation than I ever gave them.

And this was in 2017 and a half.

So we got away with it.

Because as far as the markers, it sounds like they have no discipline, right?

So we're at 920, and at 20.39, it's a damn hard time to go on.

I'm going to have to see Schultz another half hour tomorrow, and I don't want to see anything else.

I told him about the order.

I still have to try tomorrow.

I can't tell you if I don't make it tomorrow or not.

Thanks.

I had a very, very interesting talk with this prime minister before he opened.

Before he opened, yeah, he's a nice guy.

They're working out there.

Oh, he's studying law, isn't he?

He said, sir, he said, I don't know.

I don't know what he said.

He said, I don't know.

Not quite as much.

They're like the British, they like guts.

Americans don't seem to care for guts.

Well, the middle America does, but not our establishment.

The establishment doesn't.

The middle America doesn't.

The British establishment doesn't.

They're in the middle of America.

That's it.

The British establishment.

I mean, I follow that guy.

He'll probably like that speech very much.

But probably Harold Wilson didn't.

Because they just like a gutsy performance.

But the American establishment, Bob, is really, really, it is often to go to the, I just saw a few people,

Both cells are very high, you know.

Perfectly managed by the city government.

That's one of the reasons I've been in the city for about eight years, a couple of times, since the 1960s.

This, of course, is referring to the 1960 period.

You know, I did everything without notes.

I never read a thing.

Now I'm reading, and it doesn't attract you.

Of course, the other side of the coin is that I am simply about to try to sit down and work my way up and work very verbally.

In 59 and 60, you never talked to 60 million people all at once.

I never did, John.

I got to know that 60 million people all at once.

Well, all the President of the United States.

The President of the United States said we can't get up there.

But I do know this, and if you'll make a note of it, you can talk to this television man again.

I do know that I've got to be able to do another conversation with that camera, so I look at it and go, oh yeah, that was a major failure, that, because the remote, you know, they, the thing we liked about this last, the black on that, but how it's meant, I was always talking just like I talked last night in a meeting, but nobody saw it except for the two times that I started trying to direct the camera.

See, and that was a real road for Google on our part.

I know that they didn't go on and it's happened, happened, happened.

Yes, we've talked about that.

Well, they've got a pretty good analysis of their own position on it, which is that as new men coming in here, they were trying to work with the networks and everything.

The networks were very, what the hell were they?

But they're going to move to a much harder position, which is that they are representing the president.

That means some things up.

They've got to be the way we're going to do it.

If they don't want to do it that way, then that's fine.

They don't do it.

We don't do it.

Now, Christian called me a few minutes ago and said, asked me, he said, look, I want you to do a cover of her with a picture of me and her on it.

And it's going to be a editorial control and so forth and so on.

I said, now, Christian, who's discussing this with you?

She said, well, Connie.

There's somebody over there who could help.

I said, don't say yes or no until we get further on it.

Bob, I want you to, I want you to take over.

I want you to, you know, for my purposes,

This attrition has been already in the journal, which is all right.

But now if we're going to do luck, then we've got to do it.

I think it's all right to do luck and push through life.

But if we're going to do it, then let us read it.

Maybe it isn't well for the two of us to be on the cover.

I don't know.

I don't get that.

Or if you have that much confidence in her, will you negotiate a cover and all that sort of stuff?

No.

I think they're all being negotiated by somebody like... Who?

Moore?

Or you made the point that you wanted Ron to handle all of it.

Ron's fine.

Ron's great.

Yeah.

But my point is, somebody has got to sit down.

Now, Ron is the one...

But what I want to do...

I was just...

I put a quote I put in together the other day that I could mention.

Several people mentioned to me that Julia was really a smash on something she did for some second, a little metromedia or run thing.

With this Claire Crawford, she was all too good.

I don't even know about it.

What was it?

What was the interview?

She was willing to do a lot of them.

And I named it back and get around.

He wrote it.

Julie is very, very effective on television.

You know, she's goddamn good.

I think we should use her.

And I think we could, I don't know how quite to do it, but in Christian's case, I said, well, what about Christian?

What do they want?

What about you?

She's not about television.

I got to take it to Max.

She's going to be in the cover.

We ought to go to the cover and look.

Let's go.

She's already been on live.

Let's go to the cover.

Look would be good.

Look with me.

It's fine.

I think it's different from live.

Now, I think it is good.

Also, we've got... Look, it's very interesting.

They were going to do...

They've shifted.

They went big.

We'll see.

What do you really expect?

Uh, in doing a, down the road a little ways, I don't want to take some time, I want to make a, uh, major piece on an insight into the President's demand.

And they're intrigued with all the stuff that, that we've been talking about that we're interested in trying to get across.

You're going to do it without talking to me?

Yeah, I think so.

I, uh, our voice, I don't think that's the point.

No, I don't think that's the point.

That's the point we're going to make.

This has got to come from other people.

Some of them may need to come in and work on it with you.

All right.

But it's where we can get ones we really like, kind of stuff, used to print in a big circulation book.

all sort of collected together in one place, and the next time I think of it, I said, well, now that we're talking about it, it seems to me we might play it again.

I think, however, we've got, Trisha said they had invitations for a number of talk shows and everything.

You can turn them all down.

But she says, obviously, you want me to do it.

Now, it may be that we want her to do this television.

I don't know.

You know, it's crazy.

They all want her to do it after she's married.

Maybe, maybe she did it when she still got that good at it, you know.

But my view is, over prime time,

I would think that if you had, you know, like me, go back on 60 Minutes, you know, and put it out, and they can try a time, and they'll have 15 minutes, rather than 10.

Don't you agree?

Oh, yeah, I'm quite sure we're running with anything else.

Now, see, if you have Eastie, basically, if he gets to the Pentagon, and before them or something, you know, nobody else can go to the front.

Nobody else has that program.

I'm trying to tell it now.

I think if you just spend it.

and also an old facility on the way.

I think they've got to come up with a way to find this asshopper.

I'm sure it's better fun than nothing else.

Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Media relations and Public image

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 8, 1971

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