Nixon & Haldeman on Congressional relations and Vietnam policy

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Alright.

It's going to happen tomorrow.

Jerry Ford feels that it's vital that he, Les, and John Anderson meet with you for about 15 minutes on, and then hopefully today, because they only do it before the leadership meeting tomorrow, on the whole question of the House posture on Nancy Whelan and the associated amendments that are

coming up, because to lock up unanimous Republican leadership support for the president, I think they're concerned that they're going to get some falling away from normal, strong people who are going to move to, well, Park's going to move to amendments.

And what is the line?

What is my line?

to repeat exactly what you said to Cooper, which was if I thought there was no reasonable chance of negotiating a settlement with the other side, I wouldn't care about setting a terminal date.

I'd set the date myself.

All we want is the time to run the chance out.

I don't say the chances are good, but they're better than minimal.

Congress could snuff out a reasonable chance by setting a termination date now.

At any point.

What Clark's working against is a statement, a restatement of your

October 7th proposal as a substitute amendment.

I told Henry to get that out.

And they're going to have their vote.

They probably will by the 7th.

And Henry will be here then.

According to Park, it's very strong in the thinking.

It's just whether they have their vote.

They don't know when their vote is.

Wouldn't it be better if we meet tomorrow?

I'm just thinking, all you need is leaders tomorrow.

They're here.

Go, Jess.

They have a conference meeting, a House Republican conference at 10 o'clock tomorrow.

So that's the reason, I guess, for that.

You've changed your meetings here.

Yes, because...

Rush.

Yeah, rush.

Henry won't be here at 3.30.

Won't be here before.

Inquiry at 3.30.

The ship rushed at 6 o'clock.

5.30.

One of the leaders of the command, they want to support something.

They want to

to build a unanimous support position.

But I think the alternative is to think about this.

The other pressure of the territory, I guess, is that all our guys are saying that we've got to be for something.

We need something we're for instead of just voting down everything that comes up.

My answer to that was why don't they say that before the president?

And that's what they want to do.

They want to find a way to do it.

I don't know if it's not bait.

Yeah, bait.

They're supposed to work something out.

See, Bob, they all got tied up in all this New York Times crap.

I think probably that's the problem.

I mean, I don't know if they don't have it.

Well, because they started working on it last week.

And we discussed it.

I think it was in here.

I think it was.

He's the one that's really got us around.

They've got it in there.

I mean, we examine their books.

They have this old stuff, so they must know.

That's the thing about them.

They're writing books.

Books, yeah.

I think what this...

Eastern media agreed or not.

I'm gonna dignify this thing.

They'll get on to it.

I don't know.

Goddamn New York Times are good enough to get rid of the brief.

I was asked that you do write it.

He didn't want to be in the mayor's office.

We laid that off.

He does have his steering committee, board of revenue sharing group or something like that.

He wants you to just shake hands with them and say they've done a great job.

Of course, you know, drop by.

He doesn't want you to spend time with them.

It's not, of course, not a meeting.

They're just a

laying on her hands, so we're doing that.

That's a good move to go to the bar and sit and go after her.

I really do.

I think, first of all, Pat will be a lot more comfortable down there.

And see, for me, frankly, if I were alone, I'd go to mine.

Because I, yeah, it's no problem for me to have to be in a room and a house and strange and the rest of it.

But God, you know, with her, it is a problem, you know what I mean?

She doesn't have her things there and all that.

It's got to take more of a bang.

Well, this is really a super comfortable place where you can just settle right down.

But I think we'll just flip right.

It's a little bit sparse.

We can go down the floor.

It wasn't time.

We'll move in today.

Your deadhead who we thought you'd be.

But she moved yesterday.

I'll just stay out of the place tonight.

I've got a dinner tomorrow.

I'm going to order as much as I can because I think it's the only way we can get across.

I didn't get the message with you about when she was in California the last time.

I didn't come over.

Why not?

I'll reach you.

It's April 30th.

Yesterday was all static about not wanting her to come.

Thank God he got through the wedding and stuff, so it didn't ruin Pierce's contract.

time at the house and all that.

Now Julie's gone, so you really don't have a... You see, she, Elaine, has now gotten to the point in my, you know, to the personal time, and it's never going to be really good.

She is so irritating that I just can't stand to be around her at all.

I mean, I'm telling you, I heard at dinner, there's a party over there the other night, and I said, how is Elaine?

And she's just, she's gotten worse and worse.

Who said it?

Bench.

Bob?

Yeah.

I called her.

She didn't mention it.

Carol changed her.

Carol wouldn't anyway.

What did mom say?

What did she do?

She just, she, bitching about everything.

Not about the wedding ring.

She was, she was, but she finds other, you know, she's bucket of administration.

People, she just is, is, and when it comes up, you know, you give her a drink and she says, it's too weed and the door's too strong or too hot or the configurations are wrong or why did you do this?

And they should have had Jack Brown in here helping and advising you.

You know, she's an awful, she's an error that never quits.

She's no grace, you know.

That's her problem.

There's no grace in the life.

Check it out.

But, uh, hopefully it's not a bad time for her, because it is in Philadelphia.

She isn't going to hurt you much, and she isn't going to disrupt the family in a meaningful time or anything like that.

She said, Bob, I swear to Christ, we've got to get her handled in California.

And, uh...

And that's no money.

Because we have got to keep her the hell out of that residence while I'm there.

So it's really impossible.

You can tolerate the house because you've got other places to go here.

You can go up, run in and hide in the room upstairs.

That's true.

I slept in a cheaper house.

I lived in that house in San Juan.

She can get herself centrally located.

She can't mess around.

She really does, too.

You know, she looks down at you in the middle of the patio or at the living room or wherever you are.

And, Christ, you know, it is true.

You usually don't want somebody in your house, Bob.

Nobody wants them in their house.

That's right.

And, well, I'll tell you, Jack makes a double trouble.

He's just like a big tub of lard.

He just sits there, and he doesn't, you know, he's, in another way, he's utterly insensitive, but he just has no goddamn brains.

Well, he doesn't realize it.

He doesn't know much about what he's talking about.

You know, he thinks he's, you know, being wise and helpful and all that.

Like, for example, he must drive robot pitch nuts because he talks about politics all the time.

He talks about this and that.

He always starts by saying, well, I don't pretend to know much about this, and then proves that he doesn't know anything about it.

But he just, it just goes on.

He's the same way, you know.

You know, they just talk, talk, talk.

It's an incredible situation.

Well, yeah, yeah.

Work hard and all that kind of thing.

The other ones, well, yeah, all they do is bitch about it.

They bitch about everybody we have.

The way I take a leg, basically, is to take her all over the crowd.

Those fellas can hit it by 30.

Let me fit our schedule.

He wants to see me, of course, but we can get it over with.

I told him I'd see and act with what I had.

You can point out that because Ambassador Rush is here, I'd better see him.

Would you do that?

get our head in some trouble.

A guy heard him go out there, and he pressed matches on them, and he, either he or, I don't know, somebody, he had sent for a copy of it.

Yeah.

Now, none of it said, you just don't say it, just don't, I'm not gonna constantly answer that.

Why is it that we feel that we have to answer everything about it?

You know, I would not have, I wouldn't have answered it.

I remember that morning, actually, he was totally saying that to us.

But it is, that's the kind of thing that is very good at that kind of question.

I don't know where Skelly is, but Skelly should be, and that's when you can use Skelly for advice.

And Rob, too.

Rob and Skelly could be very good.

It's not like much difference at all, but it just, it would have been better to have just done that

There's no reason to tell them whether we had a copy or not.

Sure.

If we did, they're copies of the domestic violence.

Sure.

I just want to make sure we have access to all of it.

That is a good time to be down there.

Well, it's better to go this week than next week.

Okay.

Nixon & Haldeman on Congressional relations and Vietnam policy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on June 14, 1971

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