Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 475-026
Date: Thursday, April 8, 1971 at 4:59 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Bull, Stephen B.; Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/475-026

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Alright, Marker, pick up another 1-1-9-0.
[0:14] Didn't drop off.
[0:19] Good.
[0:25] Well, the thing was that there didn't actually be any surprise or disappointment then.
[0:33] Because they had all discounted the speech.
[0:34] And 12 points.
[0:35] And that was based on their much wilder speculation than I ever gave them.
[0:40] And this was in 2017 and a half.
[0:41] So we got away with it.
[0:43] Because as far as the markers, it sounds like they have no discipline, right?
[1:02] So we're at 920, and at 20.39, it's a damn hard time to go on.
[1:03] I'm going to have to see Schultz another half hour tomorrow, and I don't want to see anything else.
[1:07] I told him about the order.
[1:07] I still have to try tomorrow.
[1:08] I can't tell you if I don't make it tomorrow or not.
[1:12] Thanks.
[1:14] I had a very, very interesting talk with this prime minister before he opened.
[1:34] Before he opened, yeah, he's a nice guy.
[1:37] They're working out there.
[1:38] Oh, he's studying law, isn't he?
[1:39] He said, sir, he said, I don't know.
[1:40] I don't know what he said.
[1:40] He said, I don't know.
[1:41] I don't know what he said.
[1:41] He said, I don't know.
[1:42] I don't know what he said.
[1:42] He said, I don't know.
[1:43] Not quite as much.
[2:06] They're like the British, they like guts.
[2:21] Americans don't seem to care for guts.
[2:22] Well, the middle America does, but not our establishment.
[2:25] The establishment doesn't.
[2:27] The middle America doesn't.
[2:27] The British establishment doesn't.
[2:28] They're in the middle of America.
[2:28] That's it.
[2:29] The British establishment.
[2:29] I mean, I follow that guy.
[2:30] He'll probably like that speech very much.
[2:31] But probably Harold Wilson didn't.
[2:32] Because they just like a gutsy performance.
[2:33] But the American establishment, Bob, is really, really, it is often to go to the, I just saw a few people,
[2:37] Both cells are very high, you know.
[2:56] Perfectly managed by the city government.
[2:58] That's one of the reasons I've been in the city for about eight years, a couple of times, since the 1960s.
[3:00] This, of course, is referring to the 1960 period.
[3:02] You know, I did everything without notes.
[3:02] I never read a thing.
[3:03] Now I'm reading, and it doesn't attract you.
[3:05] 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.
[3:19] In 59 and 60, you never talked to 60 million people all at once.
[3:22] I never did, John.
[3:23] I got to know that 60 million people all at once.
[3:24] Well, all the President of the United States.
[3:25] The President of the United States said we can't get up there.
[3:27] But I do know this, and if you'll make a note of it, you can talk to this television man again.
[3:44] 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.
[4:07] See, and that was a real road for Google on our part.
[4:09] I know that they didn't go on and it's happened, happened, happened.
[4:13] Yes, we've talked about that.
[4:15] 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.
[4:29] The networks were very, what the hell were they?
[4:33] But they're going to move to a much harder position, which is that they are representing the president.
[4:37] That means some things up.
[4:39] They've got to be the way we're going to do it.
[4:41] If they don't want to do it that way, then that's fine.
[4:44] They don't do it.
[4:44] We don't do it.
[4:46] 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.
[5:02] And it's going to be a editorial control and so forth and so on.
[5:05] I said, now, Christian, who's discussing this with you?
[5:06] She said, well, Connie.
[5:07] There's somebody over there who could help.
[5:09] I said, don't say yes or no until we get further on it.
[5:11] Bob, I want you to, I want you to take over.
[5:12] I want you to, you know, for my purposes,
[5:13] This attrition has been already in the journal, which is all right.
[5:18] But now if we're going to do luck, then we've got to do it.
[5:22] I think it's all right to do luck and push through life.
[5:25] But if we're going to do it, then let us read it.
[5:27] Maybe it isn't well for the two of us to be on the cover.
[5:30] I don't know.
[5:33] I don't get that.
[5:37] Or if you have that much confidence in her, will you negotiate a cover and all that sort of stuff?
[5:44] No.
[5:44] No.
[5:44] No.
[5:44] I think they're all being negotiated by somebody like... Who?
[5:48] Moore?
[5:48] Or you made the point that you wanted Ron to handle all of it.
[5:50] Ron's fine.
[5:50] Ron's great.
[5:50] Yeah.
[5:50] Yeah.
[5:50] Yeah.
[5:50] Yeah.
[5:51] But my point is, somebody has got to sit down.
[5:52] Now, Ron is the one...
[5:56] But what I want to do...
[5:57] I was just...
[5:58] I put a quote I put in together the other day that I could mention.
[6:00] Several people mentioned to me that Julia was really a smash on something she did for some second, a little metromedia or run thing.
[6:09] With this Claire Crawford, she was all too good.
[6:11] I don't even know about it.
[6:13] What was it?
[6:13] What was the interview?
[6:15] What was the interview?
[6:17] She was willing to do a lot of them.
[6:21] And I named it back and get around.
[6:22] He wrote it.
[6:23] Julie is very, very effective on television.
[6:29] You know, she's goddamn good.
[6:31] I think we should use her.
[6:31] 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?
[6:35] What do they want?
[6:36] What do they want?
[6:36] What about you?
[6:43] She's not about television.
[6:46] I got to take it to Max.
[6:47] She's going to be in the cover.
[6:50] We ought to go to the cover and look.
[6:52] Let's go.
[6:52] She's already been on live.
[6:54] Let's go to the cover.
[6:55] Look would be good.
[6:56] Look with me.
[6:57] It's fine.
[6:57] I think it's different from live.
[6:58] Now, I think it is good.
[6:58] Also, we've got... Look, it's very interesting.
[6:59] They were going to do...
[7:00] They've shifted.
[7:01] They went big.
[7:01] We'll see.
[7:02] What do you really expect?
[7:03] 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.
[7:21] And they're intrigued with all the stuff that, that we've been talking about that we're interested in trying to get across.
[7:24] You're going to do it without talking to me?
[7:25] Yeah, I think so.
[7:25] I, uh, our voice, I don't think that's the point.
[7:26] No, I don't think that's the point.
[7:27] That's the point we're going to make.
[7:29] This has got to come from other people.
[7:30] Some of them may need to come in and work on it with you.
[7:31] All right.
[7:32] But it's where we can get ones we really like, kind of stuff, used to print in a big circulation book.
[7:39] 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.
[7:52] I think, however, we've got, Trisha said they had invitations for a number of talk shows and everything.
[7:57] You can turn them all down.
[7:58] But she says, obviously, you want me to do it.
[8:00] Now, it may be that we want her to do this television.
[8:02] I don't know.
[8:02] You know, it's crazy.
[8:03] They all want her to do it after she's married.
[8:04] Maybe, maybe she did it when she still got that good at it, you know.
[8:08] But my view is, over prime time,
[8:09] 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.
[8:23] Don't you agree?
[8:24] Oh, yeah, I'm quite sure we're running with anything else.
[8:28] 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.
[8:33] Nobody else has that program.
[8:35] I'm trying to tell it now.
[8:36] I think if you just spend it.
[8:40] and also an old facility on the way.
[8:44] I think they've got to come up with a way to find this asshopper.
[8:47] I'm sure it's better fun than nothing else.