Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on John B. Connally and Bohemian Grove

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I talked to Connolly about something that I could do

the idea is

and he would go in for a sort of a forum, and I told him to do the best schedule and so forth, and he said he's gotten several requests and so forth that way.

I don't know when this should be done.

I don't know whether it's wasted now or not.

I don't know whether he should, whether he'd want to make any talks in August.

What do you think?

I think he wants it.

Well, then maybe he does it in September.

I mean, the fall season, you know, the fall, he starts hitting, all right?

Fine, but...

But I think, I think actually, what I'm getting at Bob is that I want him on an actual campaign and it's a very simple matter.

One, he makes a speech.

Two, he does a major TV thing and I mean that it should be a, it should be a prime time of some sort.

The Secretary of the Trade will build it up by going

And three, a mover and shaker, uh, man.

I know where he, uh, gives them a little, like, a shot.

It, uh...

I told him to...

I wanted to be scared of this, and she was scared of me, and I was the same kind of...

And frankly, I want him to be scheduled with an advance man, too.

Can we do that?

Sure.

An advance man.

So the next time that you do hear your check, I think you're telling him to do it, and we'll put our advance man on him.

And when he does have an engagement, let us know.

We'll advance him and see that it's properly done so he gets the proper treatment.

Okay.

So we'll really go out of our hands when I'm all out on him.

All right.

Let me know.

I don't know.

She just thinks it's a great idea.

So, uh, probably answer exactly right.

Oh, I understand.

I understand.

Also, there's two I want to see in the way of an island.

The arm ambassador to Pakistan.

While he's here.

Also, I want to see the Pakistani ambassador to Benin.

Now, uh, I think the, uh, back to the ambassador one.

You see if Kosen is available, don't take him out of the lunch or anything, because, uh, he's better than going to the urinal.

He's, he's in the secretary.

He's a, he's a tenant.

He is.

And, uh, it is, I wouldn't mind doing those even, you can say, tomorrow or Thursday, but, although I guess I do have to keep some time.

Well, we're all right tomorrow.

We'll work on that.

Uh,

All right.

What's that?

We're doing that together.

That's what we're doing.

That's good.

Oh, yeah.

That's just a real problem, man.

It's a real problem.

It's a problem.

I wonder if they did call.

The other one which I think probably I could do...

Did we do that last year?

Yeah, they're the ones, remember, you had them out on the road, start with your hands with the whole bunch, it's a good size group.

We've got Boys Nation, 120 of them.

Boys Nation is one of the other, there's a problem tied to that, which is the Girls Nation is in next week.

And last year we got a lot of boxes that did Boys Nation and didn't do Girls Nation.

It could be both.

It could be both, yeah.

What the hell harm is it doing to be doing these young, these kids?

If they're doing a tour, my, my view would be to go over and catch them.

Just let them take their regular tour and have them pile them up in the safe zone.

In the early morning, you just go down and greet them.

Direct, uh, at 8.30 or 9.00, drive to a stop, and then come to the safe zone and go and greet them.

I won't think that it's necessary, I guess, on this to go for the TV shot, do you?

Or would you?

No, I think not.

I think it's too much of a burden for me.

I think it's what I would.

You let a pool cover it, do you?

You let the pool cover it, and you get people to come along and get pictures.

So if you love taking silent footage, you just don't have, have, uh, well, I wouldn't have silent footage.

What's, uh, I mean, silent footage, you mean just having to have cameras in there and lights and all that sort of thing.

They just, they get the hand-held cameras.

I, I think you just go in, breathe, and go in and thought of, uh,

So basically, we're doing it for the organization.

We're doing it for the kids that are there, and they represent their state and all that.

I talked about this the other day.

It was mostly just one of those with black and black repression.

Throw it away.

The boys, the girls, I shouldn't say.

And you get an over-response from them.

It may be worth letting them, letting some of them get into that big city.

You got to do it like you did that night, apparently, you know, with the lighting set up and, you know, while they're still goddamn formal and they say they're president of the United States and you walk in and they have to respond and some of them say, they're lying in here to help you and then getting out is a problem, shaking hands and...

You can do it like you did the future harvest where it took like a couple of minutes.

Give the credit, you get the local balance.

Let the skilled photographer get a shot.

If you have a good reception, just talk about stuff that needs to be talked about a little bit more time rather than having to go, okay?

Alright.

The McNamara thing gave the signal on just a low key way for them to just see McNamara and say, well, we don't have another candidate.

And he said something about him.

He said, go watch it by yourself.

I'll just take this one.

But I'll just say this.

You just have the votes.

You've got it.

That's right, it's better.

He probably heard it and he'd rather that he take you out to talk with him.

No.

But I really didn't blame him.

I didn't push him at all.

I said that I thought you, he had many minutes left.

That was you.

So I didn't have any.

No, I...

But frankly, I think that we had to vote.

That's right.

And it was, you know, Martel Rogers was saying the same thing.

I think history is going to take us very closely back there.

So let's leave it to the cops and I'm going to fight it out.

Good.

Martel Rogers, we're not going to take any public, I'm not going to take any public position with him.

The high end of the economy is basically the representative of what we have.

Now really, the thing we were mentioning earlier, this follow-up from the class A guy, his presence in the command, he's been so much more in class than Johnson.

Johnson.

Oh, yeah.

And, uh, well, it's much, I mean, it's much more advanced than just native, so it proves it's a little better, and it's got a little bit more effective reptile.

Part of it, indeed, is, like you said, wise, and I think it's probably so much more, uh, much more feminine.

They're just very different kind of guys, basically, too.

They've got a lot of similarity.

I mean, they're all sort of different.

I mean, they are.

But they both love talking to each other.

I hope you love to play right up to the hills.

I, too, thought that I attributed it to you that I said,

If we did this, if we did something like that, it's probably maybe not good.

But, thought about it a little bit.

According to our plan, you know, we just gotta get it more and more exposure.

I find so many people take it like a Mary Brooks.

She's a fanatic for Conway now.

Is she?

Well, she works over there.

I don't know what you want to do about the size of our dollars.

They cost $10.

in a nice box, and it says first strike.

Yeah.

I don't think they're worth something.

Those are worth a hell of a lot more than the $3.

They're worth it.

The $3 for $10 is worth more than the $3 for $3.

I think the $3 is not worth much, but I advise them to give it $10 as much as they could.

I think we get so many things out here, and one of those $9 is in the box or something.

The older people, the people who knew Eisenhower, that's right, you're right.

They would be beautiful.

They aren't going to mean a hell of a lot.

I think you've got to do a little paperclip to show them, you know, that you have your own.

They mean more to people.

I know.

We forget that.

We don't.

We mean something to people, too.

Eisenhower doesn't.

I don't even have to speak for that.

That's right.

I don't have to do it.

They're, in fact, it's better for me not to speak that thing now, because they're, they're, uh, you know, they're, uh, giving a briefing.

They'll have heard him speaking.

And he, he's got to deal with them.

We're, we're supposed to use them, can use the pictures, because they're, they're, they're, identify you with an interest in the association, in that association's publications.

No, nothing good out of this, out of the group itself.

The group, per se, is decent.

Individual guys with their association.

Now, it's a good thing for them to show they can get into the lineup and give them the $10,000 a year.

Good.

Stock and trade intent.

On the Ohio thing, because of the timing and a lot of other reasons we're setting up,

It will be very simple to do.

You take about a 15-minute stop at the football hall of fame to tour it.

It won't be closed to the public.

The chairman will do it, but the problem is this banquet.

It's a general banquet.

And it does tie you personally to the Hall of Fame, and they feel very fortunate to have helped us.

And the heads of Hall of Fame, when you make your remarks at the dinner, well, that's when you say it.

If you visited the Hall of Fame, there's some great pictures and some good statues.

But when you have a brand of good statues,

Uh, he wrote a letter from China.

I think, uh, Ray Price prepared my reply.

Dear friend, I, I don't want to personally be involved in that.

Ray, Ray, no, Ray Gallagher, I had a, I had a short race.

I think that's not what I was going to do here.

Ray Price, wow.

I don't think he worked out that discussion.

Maybe we can throw something into this.

Oh, no, I have to survive all the time.

Of course, of course.

And, uh, what's your, uh, getting back to Bohemia?

We, uh, we all said now and then, because you know you've got to decide that fairly soon.

Basically, I'm getting all of it.

I'm kind of going to talk to you later.

Details, though, on the, uh, it's better for you to do it in our own way at this time.

I feel that we can do something low-key, because we can.

And I think we'll do a, you know,

The way you do it in the Air Force, you let them have a crowd there at the Air Force base.

Yeah.

They should be doing that.

Which is, with regard to the text, let's not give out a text.

I think that's my feeling.

I don't want to have to speak that voice precisely, but we need to know, oh, you know, I was saying, we give them the text.

It can be happening.

My view is that the...

I guess I'm going to repeat something.

I said it before.

I just don't want to go through that.

I don't want that to be... Maybe it's one of those circumstances that Neuron works it out so that

It'd be just two wires.

It'd be two wires coming out.

And that ain't all.

But that's what he has to do.

If you do that, he can do it with one cooler and no wires, or with two wires and a cooler.

But if the coming of the wires don't cool,

They won't tell anybody else what happened because they file on their own.

Now, let me talk to them.

There's a way to work it out.

And that's three people.

That's okay.

Keep it to three.

I don't mind.

There's a way to work it out.

And, of course, there's no photographers for that.

I don't want any photographs.

That I do not want.

Not at all.

Not any photographs.

I don't think they'll allow me.

Well, I hope not.

Well, I don't know.

I don't care if they do or not.

I will not have a photograph.

So, as you know, that, I don't think, is a hell of a poor picture.

a bunch of men sprawling in the grass, in the big trees, rich men listening to the president speak to them.

There'll be pictures around there, and they've probably done it on camera.

They've had one of these before.

I didn't realize they had one.

Yes, it's standing at the roster.

Some guy probably took it to the camera.

But I don't want to, let me put it this way, I don't want photographs, and I just don't want, I don't want to hear about it.

I don't care whether it's in Goldwater, Hannon,

Halloween and all around.

I don't care if we have them.

I'm not going to have them when I'm there.

But I think Bronson has it.

If he has that, then they just go away with it.

Now, needless to say, one of the wires is having Thomas.

He doesn't get to go.

That's it.

Now, it's just the way it's going to be.

I mean, maybe if you have just one cooler that reports the whole thing to everybody.

I kind of like that better, rather than having two wires.

Why not just have a cooler recording the whole thing?

We can also do it if they can... We can do it if you want to, but the remarks are off the record.

And they can't report them.

They can only report a little bit, say, covers, you know, or a box chart.

Or that they can't report anything.

They just go to cover and see if something happens.

And there's all kinds of ways of laying down the rules for something like that, I think.

And, uh...

I would prefer to have it all correct.

I really would.

I would like to do it completely off the record.

I'm not going to say anything bombshell.

I mean, I'm just going to get basically the canvas in your name.

Then afterwards, if you and Ron feel that there's something in it that's worth reporting, we'll get you to do that.

Okay?

Well, you talk to him.

Okay?

You know what I mean about that?

Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on John B. Connally and Bohemian Grove

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on July 27, 1971

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Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on John B. Connally and Bohemian Grove

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on July 27, 1971

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Cite this conversation