On August 16, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, White House operator, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:55 am to 10:10 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 564-003 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
It's just really kind of exciting because the whole thing today, all of what's been said has been so much more positive than anybody had even hoped.
And I'll give you the news summary.
It was quite good.
Of course, it was quite an accident.
McGovern and Galbraith were missing out.
She was better off.
to have all your responsible Democrats, Wilbur in, Wilbur in, that was the next one.
I don't know if he kicked him on one side, but he still, he could have said it was a good thing.
Oh, I understand.
You know, your role as a tenant had one guy who was considered an asshole anyway.
Of course, we expect Milton to admit to it, because Milton is an honest man, Mr. Reese.
Yes, I agree.
Milton didn't sound bad, though, because he thought some good things through.
Like, much of his first week was bad, then he got stuck.
Right.
So he had a mixed bag.
He was just deeply distressed by the way he started screaming.
So am I.
And there you are.
How the hell is everybody feeling?
Just great.
Because they're not all here.
George Helms is over on the Today Show.
Great.
We talked about that a little because he wasn't there.
We're going to make sure that he doesn't get pissed on.
And that's...
You know, you've got to help a group of people here, because we've all been kicked in the ass at one point or another.
And we all recognize that we're all going to get kicked again.
And the natural tendency here is not the scavenger tendency.
It's the equal defense.
And as soon as you see one guy getting kicked, everybody, they all walk in here saying, you know, we've got to make sure that George doesn't get screwed on that.
And it was good to get him on the Today Show this morning.
And so...
Are you going to put on any of those pictures you can, Dave?
Well, we've got to send them.
First thing, what I thought was is we're going to look for trying to do a picture-text story.
Would that mean anything, Bob?
Yep.
Then we'll run the picture plot on that.
And light would be the best.
But only if they'll give us four pages.
So we get enough pictures and enough text.
If not life, then the other place where I'm sure we could get it is U.S. News, which would at least get it to the business community, which might be the best name of a life of U.S. TV people.
I think we should.
We're just going through them quickly.
There's some marvelous stories out of Camp David, and I think we should tell a story of you standing up all night doing this speech.
For this reason.
that what that says is that you didn't have to have the economist write the speech for you.
You didn't have to have a speechwriter.
You sat down and wrote the speech, and you did it at the beginning of that meeting, which you knew where you were going.
You had one session in the afternoon.
for four hours, where you went around the table and pulled it all together.
Then you sat down and wrote the speech.
Then they spent the rest of the weekend filling in the, flushing out the specifics of your speech.
That shows that you didn't pick it up at Camp David.
You've been working on it for months.
You knew what you were gonna end up with.
Your job was one of bringing them together and putting the final touches on it.
And I think it's a good story.
You've got the pillows, you've got the sharp pictures there.
He's got some, I think he takes some over at the other house too.
He sure did.
He got them at breakfast.
He got them sitting there with their shirts open, you know, working at the table, sitting out on the porch, talking, and different combinations of people.
Hopefully, we want to, for instance, find one with Burns and Schultz talking together with smiles.
I bet we'll have one.
And, you know, that kind of thing.
And some of those pictures can tell some pretty strong stories.
Anyway, they're working on some ideas on that.
Uh, the quad cam picture might be put up.
I mean, understand, just putting it out in light, there's nothing you might just, even wire service, you might just give the quad cam to the wire service, the man that made the decision.
We can do that before the weekend.
See, the lightning won't come out the next week.
We can do this thing, but that glint's been a good decision.
That didn't get us Schultz in.
Yep.
Schultz, and Cranham, and the rest.
Remember, I set that up that we're all dressed properly and we're sitting there.
Yep.
And David.
Otherwise, I would, the others, I would all put out.
Make sure the lights are somebody's thing on.
Uh, the other point, also, you put it Monday.
The other point that we talked about was investment, making the point of the long range thing here.
Because the only way they're really going to hit at us, it looks like, is the, and there's the inevitable, 72, that Nixon has now defused the economic issue.
Just like after China, they said he's now defused the other issues.
But we got turned pretty quickly to looking at the long haul perspective.
This one can be turned that way, too.
And also, it's hard to imagine, as Peterson pointed out, Peterson noted that I put in, I asked the Secretary of the Treasury to find the death of Peterson, right?
but also to look beyond the political point of the day-to-day statistics and say you're not doing these things in relation to 1972 or in relation to next month's statistical reports.
You're doing this in the context of putting this country on a footing where it has the ability to compete economically,
And spiritually, and physically, and everything else in the world of it.
It may be that I need now to make another speech.
The one you made for the business council, sir?
Well, but I've got to get somebody that can write that kind of thing.
The other point they make is that whatever you say in your speeches this week, you should sure, as you did after China, you should weave this into it and play off of it and keep developing the way out of it.
So we've got to compete.
I don't want to get into wage prices.
Oh, no.
They don't keep that.
But like in China, you didn't get into specifics on China.
Originally, you always talked about, I'm going to be leaving on a long journey.
And if you get into the investment in our economic future, the ability to compete, the long range look in the next year after Vietnam.
Sure.
It's a good idea, but I think maybe if Ray Price could get going and start the radio speeches now, too.
They're at a very high level, you know, in America.
Yeah.
I think he could get going.
Yeah.
Naturally, but let's don't try to tell the speechwriters you put something in on them.
Well, I don't think they can.
I think they ought to be working on it, you know, this week's, yes?
I'm just, just engaging.
Well, they may be able to weave it into some of the other points that you're making, too, that they've got.
Oh, I haven't got much time on the work of the constitutional speeches.
I don't know.
Well, if they can get something, let's give them some.
Since we have this on, could we say...
They've got some now.
They already, I'll just look at those.
If they need it anymore, you better have it by 7 o'clock tonight.
But I'm not going to make an enormous effort to try to
I can't do it because, you see, I take a lot out of myself going over the weekend.
I just run out of battery too much.
It's awful hard to recharge it.
And I don't think people should call me too much.
I've had other people, they've checked up on me.
All right, that's good.
I think so.
Yep.
And we're going to say that we're hurting Tommy at both ends now, and I think that's good.
We ought to for a little while now.
And he wants to.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
But he's just smart enough to give the audience a trip right over and ask the most political questions.
Why didn't you do it earlier?
Good of you to do.
My president's been thinking about this, you know, a while.
You know, he didn't look at it and said, okay, it won't work out.
This young guy, I don't know what he's going to get.
He says, this is a good mission.
It's a plan.
It's a plan.
It's a failure.
It's a plan.
Well, that's not true.
As I pointed that out, so specifically in mind, we have cut unemployment to lower than that.
Again, we have cut inflation from 6% to 4%, and that's .
That's all right.
These new set of crackers, we agreed to use those fasters for a while, don't you think so?
Sure.
I mean, the figures, when they come out now, they all come out like, oh, this is before, this is coming likely.
You see, you've got the price thing, this would be easy.
Next month, you've got the unemployment thing.
And it doesn't make a whole lot of difference what they are, because it's not at all.
And also, we speak in the Congress, and he has every bit of the time.
I think it's very important to try.
The Mills thing was good, I mean, where he, because that makes it easier.
I think you've got a sound program in terms of getting it through Congress.
Apparently, I think, where he always said, this is me.
Congressman Mills, what is it?
I said, not at all.
It's just a matter of accelerating.
The power of this office.
And sometimes I think you've got to use it with others.
You've got to make it a very strong chip.
Yeah.
One of the situations on that thing I saw, I think,
report with regard to these prisoners coming to Moscow.
Is that another one of those sweet stories or is this for real?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ah.
Another post.
Good.
That's all, huh?
into the room our friends brought.
Got it.
Okay.
I talked to several, I talked to so many.
Arthur Burns called his voice and I called it, oh boy, I put my stuff
Exchange markets are closed today.
Japan, however, was open when we made the announcement, and they continued trading throughout the day.
They did not change the exchange rate.
As a result, they took in between $600 and $800 million.
Their market fell sharply.
The only quotation we had was that Sony was down 10%.
The Canadians are opening their market today for trading, as we are, so we'll have a reading on this later today.
That's it.
You know, one of the good things about Archer, they got Archer crashed off at Jesus.
Well, Archer wants us to win.
Of course.
He really does.
He knows we're right, you know what I mean?
Archer also wants himself to win, and he also loves publicity and all that, and he doesn't like people that cross him like George Shultz and John Conlon.
But on the other hand, now that we're all together, he loves it.
Now, he took that gold thing like a man, as I was saying.
I still haven't kicked him in the ass.
It was a damn good thing to have done that.
At the time, he couldn't have been better, as it turns out.
He's just a liar now.
He's backing the family.
You know, he could have been inseparable if he hadn't had that kick.
I kicked a kick, but I think you're right.
You're right.
I'll tell you, it's a funny thing, I mean, this was, this was not much, you know, like, there isn't as much of an evidence in press conference.
There's a concentration in the press conference, which is great.
Well, it's such a decision-making time.
The decisions were enormously important, and maybe that makes something happen.
People in Washington, I'm not sure.
It's kind of like China.
Well, you have to, you get right up to a point.
You close the doors when they're done yet.
And one guy very soundly says do it, the other guy very soundly says don't.
And you gotta be sound.
I reckon we all have a good decision.
Pretty, pretty hard to talk about.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
I'll be out in California.
That's all the stuff we already have.
Good.
Oh, here it is.
Good.
Britain, Switzerland, Japan, and other key financial nations stepped in today to keep the dollar from plunging on foreign exchange markets.
The Japan currency market opened 300 million sold during the morning trade.
Back to Japan stepped in to support the price.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry statement says Japan will maintain its eight-point policy and head out foreign pressure for up to the value of re-evaluation of the yen, despite your measures to defend the dollar.
Yeah, good.
Governor, the U.S. is in your favor.
Your measures to heal the U.S. economy.
The foreigners have got this.
No, they know it's a tight end.
They've got it just like we do.
Easy for the government.
We've got a virus that's doing this.
It's not working.
No.
Now, by that I mean, I don't mean some of the things are not right or repeated, not many of them are, but what I'm getting at is that
None of them really, really were so important.
You wouldn't have to run the dollar or anything, the pessimism that had been created by this, like you did us around here.
Now, but apparently people are just sort of sitting on things.
The President's gonna do.
They've become juvenile in their head starts.
They're juvenile about the war.
They're juvenile about this.
At some point, you gotta shake them out of this and that they stand up strong.
People go free, but it's not juvenile.
He's strong, and I think maybe
Maybe 50% of the people are not 50% off.
That's not what it is.
And among the decision-makers, about 80% are.
That is the problem today.
The problem today is this whining and bitching and the rest.
That's why they said we need leadership.
We need charisma and all that sort of thing.
Well, Christ.
I mean, we've given them leadership.
We've provided programs.
We've done everything else.
But what they really want is the appearance.
They really want the appearance.
And that's the thing.
But.
He had personal characteristics that made him fail.
I wouldn't do that.
I think that there, but I do think that our problem is that we have, without a question, the best in general White House staff in history, and he's handled by a billion men, and probably the poorest, I'm not speaking now of my personal names, but in terms of the domestic council and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, the currents of getting credit in the works.
And the reason is that we are so god damn responsible
Isn't that really what we're getting down to?
Don't you realize this is a plight when you come out this way?
Basically, yeah, and it's worked that way.
The genius of it is that it is essentially the same thing as China in the sense that it goes way beyond what anybody...
It's a leapfrog.
It's a leapfrog.
It does what Johnson failed to do in the war.
In the water, he always escalated it a little bit or a little will, and never jumped ahead and escalated it too much.
If at any point he had jumped ahead and done a little bit more than he should have, he would have ended it.
And on this one, you waited, and instead of tossing one baby to the wolves and then another baby until you ran out of babies, you kept all your babies, and then all of a sudden you threw them all out and completely inundated the wolves.
And that's really where you are now.
He just returned a call.
Yeah, well, you couldn't get anybody at all.
All right.
Well, why don't you try it?
I'll try to get around to it.
I was going to say that the...
As a chair, it occurred to you, reminding people, if you happen to be in China, you know, this guy, all his help.
Sure.
People with health surgery have a chance.
It's like China, see?
So let's keep throwing that in.
But, you know, the thing you were mentioning about Camp David, and I couldn't have expressed it too strongly, that this program, more than anything else, it is leadership.
Leadership.
Let me summarize what I was going to say.
We're down about four things.
One, leadership above everything else.
Leadership, boldness, courage.
Boldness and courage.
And you can use these two things to prove it, right?
Yeah.
And that's all that matters here.
Second, world leader.
World leader for peace.
World leader for peace.
And really build up the biggest leader in the world.
Yeah.
Third, the, uh... And then third,
The idea of the personal man, I mean, the personal, the man, the man, the character, you know, and so forth and so on, all that sort of thing, which is a decency of treating people nice.
So that's the lower level, but it's very important
You've got it, and you need to hang on.
Well, it's a strong point that you have to get at it suddenly now.
You don't hear much said about it.
I'll tell you something personal.
The idea that a man can get respect in the White House, and they used to be advised, you've got to find a family you can respect, a family you can be proud of.
I think you ought to get out and have about a month, one year, about a family, a first family to be proud of, and get a picture of the six of us.
That's sort of a first advantage that all Americans could be proud of.
I think the leadership made the leadership world leader for peace.
Oh, and then the other one is prosperity, of course, without war.
Prosperity without war, which makes the war issue in another way.
Without war and without inflation, we're fighting black health and all that stuff.
Those are the issues.
Now, I put down the line, I put the, see the crime, that is all right.
The crime of drugs is good.
Just continue to get that.
Don't let that get away from us.
Any of that.
But then on the other things, I just showed compassion and interest.
Environment.
I think it's fine.
Because apparently if the kids all like the environment, you know, just continue to go around like that, going to these parks is a good idea today.
But that's, yeah, and the key there is to do as little as we can and look like, and get as much there as long as it really has to go down.
Right.
I still don't see what our voluntary action guys are doing, except setting up organizations.
But, uh, you will know.
The one program I'd like to see him get into is the Ranger Regiment.
That's the only one I guess we're gonna do.
You know, I've never really taught people.
And I anticipated that.
I'd be glad to sit in a group of people.
I'd be glad to do some education on television, on reading is fun, something like that, you know, and how important reading is, and who you is, and it's worth the time.
Well, I'll tell you, I'll push on that like hell.
three clinics, how do you get, we have to be able to get trained hundreds of thousands of volunteers to tutor on reading.
It can be all that difficult, or maybe they don't know how to do it, maybe it's difficult.
That is part of the problem.
How does that sound to you as a plan, what I just said?
I think we had it before, but really, that's the wrong one, and don't let it get away from you at this time, in general, as we have on occasion.
Well, we had quite what I had to do, isn't there?
It's really not our fault.
It's the fact of the media being so much against us.
They'll all look out for them and they'll come just climbing back trying to find something else to piss on.
And so, we've got to put a certain amount of effort into pissing on each of the fires.
For example, we can't just take fire on them, because then they will break the house down.
I told Colson, I really gave him hell years ago, I said, I want the taps.
I want you to get, I want you to get, I don't want to see the names of Forster, Dole, Goldwater, I gave you two, Jimmy Tremblay, who regularly make vicious attacks on the Democrats and keep making, you know, the irresponsibility.
They're putting their party above their country, up and down, putting the party above their country.
Partisanship, partisan, vicious attacks on the President.
And you've got that little room in the house.
They don't debate much news, but you've got to give them a little attention to give that to them.
Okay.
Yes.
I think the attached report, one way to keep the thing is to keep the phone near the clerk, sir.
And, uh, I don't know.
I should have said, should have probably gotten to Colson on it.
No, I think you should have.
He took it well.
He said, uh,
Well, we've all hammered.
It's a frustrating thing to try and do, but we... Because they won't do it.
Well, they do a little, and then they back off, and they don't hammer like... We finally got a little glimmer of...
I didn't say that at the start.
Yeah, that's pretty funny.
Uh-huh.
Well, and tell him to say it again.
Don't give up.
Say it again.
And, uh, get it on TV.
Oh, you know, you stopped at the end of the Democratic candidates.
How do you feel if you were wrong this morning after what they did to you yesterday?
Remember the early morning leaves because the news summary were off.
The early leaders, their whole ladies, and our friends, the trackers from the economy, and they had to tear out the paper.
break up all of that.
Poor old Rocksmeyer was on Face the Nation or something yesterday, you know, and spent the whole time talking about Nixon.
Nixon ought to do something about the economy.
Terrible that he hasn't taken any action on wages and prices and he hasn't done anything about the dollar problem.
Now, isn't that all gone?
They'll find something else.
They've got a year.
They'll find all this and this, and I don't know, a little bit of this is working, this is working, or not very, this and that.
I notice that the things that are getting, the two things that are getting out of here is that one, that we are penalizing the poor by postponing the welfare for I-6.
We're not postponing it.
We've got to have a Congress postponement.
That's one we've got to get clarified.
I don't know about that, though, because we can't let that set in that you've put off the welfare.
No.
You've simply done this to represent the reality that they've heard.
This has to recognize the realities.
I think somebody's got to get a hold of my head.
I would work too hard at that, though, because I'm not at all sure you are getting more from putting it off than you are from not putting it off.
Let's not get the position wrong.
If we could have just done our program.
Right.
I don't think there's a problem with recognition.
Everybody knows that the guy in Congress can't possibly put it off.
Well, he only put it off four months in.
You're right.
The welfare thing.
The people that are saying, and here in Washington, they're basically all about the government, the areas, the virus, and the country.
The country will cheer about that.
You think so?
Yes, sir.
I think so.
Hell, yes.
I think you will, don't you?
of federal employees, but goddamn, they got nothing to complain about.
I don't want a federal employee to be complained about.
They've had wage increase after wage increase, and good God, there's no unemployment.
There's no problem here, isn't that right?
These people got nothing to complain about.
If they want to be government drones, let them be government drones, huh?
And they're getting the hell of a pay for doing it.
That's right.
The other thing that was a good thing was to put in that 10% cut in the 4.8.
So many of those people were, you know, played that back to me.
Of course, it didn't mean anything, but they love to see it.
That's very popular, the 4.8.
Oh, it is?
I know.
They want to get rid of all of it.
It's a good thing to put it off, but at least a 10% cut puts it in the right direction.
Yeah.
Instead of putting on more foreign aid, you're cutting it back.
They like that.
Instead of putting on more federal employees, you're cutting it back.
Instead of increasing the government budget, you're decreasing it.
And it is very important for us to carry this out because, and I particularly want to carry it out on agencies like Hood and HBW, et cetera.
I want the enemy agencies of HBW and new agencies like transportation, they are to take the major brunt of this stuff.
You know, whatever's coming down my tail.
Now, if you've got a good heart of line agencies, old line agencies, everybody's got tape that are, you know, doing the best they can.
But obviously, you can't cut the trade.
You don't want to.
You don't want to cut Justice very much.
And most of the time, Justice is motionary.
That's right.
You can cut any trust.
You can cut State of Rivals in a Justice trustee.
But you can cut State some.
You can cut Demands.
Demands is easy to top up.
All the other trusts, they can do it.
We're going to move here quickly on Cuts so that we can get States on Domestic Consul and then ONP.
We've got it on.
No, but we will.
They do a little of that.
And like the Office of Science and Technology, we're going to make them cut a big chunk out of that, 10% to 15%.
And there's some of these things that have grown that just don't do you any good.
About the EPA.
Right.
And the High Fire Council and so forth.
We can't keep a good kick in the ass.
We've got some good news, you know, apparently.
and good news coverage during the week.
He weren't reading the papers.
That came out as a big start.
White House forces Ruffles House to back off of some kind of industry controls or something.
Yeah, it made a big platform.
I don't know what it was, but .
That's why John's a great politician, Bob.
And, you know, .
But John was very high on his talk list.
I think you probably should.
I don't think you have to, no.
Especially because there's so many undersecretaries, I think you can open it and leave.
He wanted, in that Connelly will be polishing his stuff, and he might have some thoughts that you'd want to talk with him about afterwards before his press conference.
I hate to take his time before his press conference, you know, I just have a meeting adjourned on time.
I'd take no more than an hour.
Yeah, let's have it, and just, I'm sorry.
45 minutes here now.
I'm just telling this subject.
45 minutes.
Because when I get off the phone, I'll probably call him and ask him all sorts of stupid questions about it.
And I don't want to get into that.
You talked to Rencrantz.
I thought he was coming to the house then.
Is it?
The first time I've been there.
He was just falling all apart there.
And he said, I'll try to promise you one thing.
He said, I will not call any more of my clients, tell any more of my clients to raise their prices.
And she said, yeah, that's it.
I know.
Well, God damn the banking plans on the business side.
When you put in that 10% investment tax credit, I see a lot of them didn't catch that.
They were saying this morning here that some of the guys they talked to said, great program, I just wish we had also put back the investment tax credit.
See, you said the job development credit, and they don't know what the hell that is.
And that's fine.
Sure.
And let them talk about the job development credit.
The businessmen will find out the job development credit is better for folks.
You're right.
The investment tax credit is better for businessmen.
So call in the job development and let the businessmen say, gee, I wish you could put it back.
And then you smile and say you did.
And they say, oh, really?
All you care about there is that they use it.
And they will, Christ, if you give them, if they got a 10% tax credit for one year, they're gonna spend money, all the money they had to get their hands on for planning equipment, especially because they have not.
They've let it deteriorate, they're back.
If you give them a bonanza period, that'll, I think, certainly not go between COVID and stuff and things like that.
But it also, that's the one Peterson keeps talking about that you look at it the long haul, too.
That gives the American economy a kick for building its productivity.
Because with better equipment, better plan, you'll be more productive.
That automatically increases productivity.
We thought I did more of a good job.
Yeah, yes.
Schultz is concerned.
He's very concerned about putting a man in the bird.
As you know, Schultz was his biggest
He said, when Peterson first came in here, I told him that balance of payments was the biggest problem he had and that that's something he really should get cranking on.
That was, don't get diverted by the little thing.
I work on balance of payments.
He has his first problem.
He said he hasn't even started on balance of payments yet.
And he said, to be perfectly frank, I'm not sure he can run the weekly.
I'm not sure he's all the manager that they think he is.
And John said, well, hell, he ran Bell and Howell.
And Pete said, Eric Schultz said, that's a totally different thing.
And I just, I really wanted to take any questions in just on Peter's.
I don't know, you sure as hell can't leave it with Lincoln.
That's the thing.
But I think we can do it still.
Well, that's Schultz's other point was, let's don't move on Peter's until we know whether we've got Weber or not.
You've got Weber here.
And I'm not so sure that's impossible.
I mean, you can think of the language, but there's a lot of challenge there for him.
And just to continue on in a routine job is one thing, but to have left and then be called back, that fills in with the university, too.
I mean, this is a big thing.
The president has said you can't have him back for a while.
Maybe his wife doesn't all that desire to go back, either.
They're going to Chicago.
First thing, probably like Chicago.
Have their friends there.
And the other thing is, let a sentry go back.
Go back to Chicago and let him spend the weekends there and work here during the week.
A lot of people do that.
It's a horrible way to let a lot of people go.
Oh, sure.
It's hard to wait for people to be away for a hundred years.
The war is terrible, but they do it.
They always do it.
Well, that's actually, you know, it's good to have everybody excited about things.
We're trying to negate them, and now it's exciting.
And now this does.
Of course, if you ain't got a hell of a lot of stuff like this, you've got a pretty lot of, you don't have to pay for that anymore.
Things like this, they do.
They do, you know.
I got to say, yes, for another 10 days.
I mentioned the passing yesterday.
I had to do a stand-in.
I really thought we were dropping the ball, even though it was fun.
And maybe they don't understand what I mean as to do it.
About the President's EP, you are getting involved in the handling of this in line with the candidate meeting.
But it seems to me like when I do this with our press coverage,
Like that consumer thing, the girls' nation and so forth.
I just don't think we have a system for getting it out.
I think we, so we get the people of the White House to have a copy of what I said.
That isn't what I meant.
You see, Bob?
No, no.
What I meant is that is the kind of bills that Steve, I mean, the story about that, that business thing, that consumer thing.
was all that good in terms of reaction and most people, leaders and all these people that are part of the cynical thought it was, wouldn't it be, wouldn't a thing like that should end it up?
Who would be responsible for that?
It's fine.
No, or, or, uh, Colson, Colson, uh, I mean, Ken, I think it's the press, uh,
Oh yeah, he's got, he's set up, he's got Shumway and this new guy, you know.
I wonder if all this stuff will get to these press releases.
We could do more of that, maybe.
But you don't, you know, it doesn't happen the way you want it to happen.
Even if we had a hundred people doing it, it would get, it's got to get started.
Look at the little columns and, and we've got to take lots of little ones on those, not any big ones.
I just don't work.
There's a real problem in that we, and I've noticed it in my head, you get to thinking in terms of the impact of what you do or something like you do last night.
When you go on all three networks, you just got to remember nobody else in the world can do that.
And that's literally true.
I mean, there just isn't anybody who gets on all three networks and talks to all the American people that are watching TV at one instant.
It doesn't happen.
Except the guys only land on the building or something like that.
You can't do it very often.
But the problem is that tends to distort our sense of perspective.
Because you get used to the effect of those when you do it.
And we forget about the fact that there is a drift value, and that's all it is.
But we've got to keep it going, too, of each of the little things as it gets going.
So I don't know if that works, but it's not filled up the image of the man, except for the other piece.
As I said, a thing like this, you know, a few reasons.
I mean, that was quite amazing, very emotional.
Now, that's the thing.
Can I have a little longer?
Yes, sir.
And it gets paid off.
You've just got to encourage the ripple effect from the people over there.
We've got to plant some story stuff out of it.
But you can't get the impact of television on it.
The problem is, you can think back to the Roosevelt days and things like that, and that makes sense, but they didn't have television.
And you could ripple those things with much greater relative effect than you can now.
If we could get a fair break on television, that would be something else again.
If we could get, you know, a guy on television, if Ted Agnew became a commentator, we would feed stuff to him and he'd sit around saying, you know, the president yesterday had met with the business council people on consumerism and just had an outstanding reaction.
In fact, here's Mr. Jones who was there bringing along.
They do it on the other side.
All the time.
Yeah.
All the time.
Always willing to talk about the great emotional reaction.
Yeah.
And then he really, really struck up the thing we were getting on that Democratic meeting.
The adjectives that he used, you know.
Urge by, strong, handsome.
Yeah.
I heard it when I was there.
Yeah.
Really something, though.
It is.
It is.
If you don't see that with the girl, you mean ever, ever.
They don't use it.
Not even our friends talk about it.
They use it.
Not much, though.
Or it's not like that.
I think the McGovern thing today, I think the break on this was almost as if you had written this script, you couldn't have asked for it any better because somebody's got to take you home.
I'm glad, I know you didn't want to do it, but I'm glad that they did put in the exemption.
I think that you do need that.
Yes, we do.
I didn't want to go there because then we have the money.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll put it down to a billion in the sense of that kind of thing.
No, it sounds different than everything.
No.
8 August is the most interesting month, it usually is.
August the 16th.
A little more than they expected then.
This is Saturday.
Today is the 16th.
It was good to go an hour or not too late.
Even if we hadn't been triggered.
Due to the fact that the Democrats have been out pissing on us all this time, eroding and so forth, just a little wacky out there.
And let the momentum of the fall also be there to give us a little help.
That's right.
You're on the fourth momentum start.
You're going to have some momentum, economic momentum.
You're also going to have some foreign policy momentum.
You may have, yeah.
And whether you get the war, you're going to have Soviet and Henry's going back to China.
Those two things are going to have a lot of momentum.
It's going to be an 18-9 momentum career.
Well.
Pretty good shape, though.
You can't quite count things.
The best thing is things have got to work now.
That's what I mean.
Things have just got to work.
And if they work, we've got quite a bit of things going on.
I got to give a China trip to Alaska for me to be in the middle of February.
You've got a Soviet threat in the middle of the day.
You've got yourself carried right through that period, and then if you say things have got to work, and if they don't work, then you get cold blooded and cynical.
You have the ability, come June or July, if they're not working, to create a crisis and ride through the crisis.
Go that way, which is what you can manage.
Rockefeller called this morning.
Wanted to speak to you.
He wants to congratulate you on the speech last night.
He wants to see you when you're in New York.
Wouldn't, if you've got some time, it wouldn't be too much of a problem.
You don't have to leave until after 10.
So you haven't covered the loyalty at 9.
I'm going to see Reagan.
Oh, my God.
He says the President should be aware that Rockefeller's been informed by your husband that the postponement of the resolution doesn't in any way indicate lack of enthusiasm.
And Rockefeller understands.
If Rockefeller, according to your husband, is aware of the President's pending meeting with Reagan, then he's a little jealous.
Attorney General and Erland both think it would be a good idea for the President to meet with Rockefeller Wednesday morning in New York.
It would be done at 9, right in any parts of 955.
If the President does meet with Rockefeller, Attorney General thinks he should be there.
And Erland will also, and Erland is going to make this trip, and then come back Saturday.
Why don't we invite him for breakfast?
Why don't you?
At 8.30.
Maybe I should just call him and talk to him earlier than you could call him and ask him if he could have breakfast at 830.
Why don't you call him and just start out by saying I'm going to be up there on Thursday with him at that breakfast at 830.
Yes.
I still want a congratulation on the speech.
Okay.
But you can kind of one up it by getting it first and then I'll pick it together and then up there.
I wonder if I can go ahead and split some cards.
No.
I don't think it's necessary.
The problem is moving around New York for me is a hell of a problem.
It really is because they close the damn streets and are a very, very bizarre place.
We're going to get a little older.
You know, it's an interesting thing, talking to
Except, you know, even as a businessman, you know, there's many brighter people.
They didn't understand anything at all last night.
It was so confusing.
It was so big.
It was so hard to see.
They didn't know what happened.
I didn't know what that means.
I was talking to Julie today, you know, and I said, you know, I was like, that's right.
I don't even know if it's a name.
I wondered if that is, if that could be the reaction.
I wondered if it were wise to go on crime time and deal with that.
No, I think that's good.
Yeah.
Because they don't understand the specifics, but they do understand that you did a damn big thing.
And you've got your own, you've got your rhetoric, you've got your posturing of it, vis-a-vis the war and moving to peace, and your point of the challenge and all that at the end.
Which you wouldn't think that came through, yes sir.
And I don't think it came through as a thing you're going to get ever played back.
You aren't going to hear it, but it has to be there in people's minds.
I talked to my wife in California afterwards, and she said the same thing.
She said, I don't understand a single thing that he's done.
I don't understand any of it, but it sure sounds good.
And so how can it sound good if you don't understand it?
She said, well, because you're coming out of the war and you have a plan for what you're going to do.
And I think that's what gets across.
They don't have to understand it.
They have to understand 90% of what the government's doing anyway.
I mean, I regret that.
It's because I didn't have more time to try to, I guess it's to try to focus.
I mean, it was well written.
I mean, Lee and I worked on it a lot, and some of our contributed a great deal to it.
And it'll read all of it well.
It'll read it directly, but it isn't the same, you know.
It's like the difference in that stuff I did on the color monitor and the other thing over there, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
When I get up there and I just start to say it, it's different.
I have to read some heros of wisdom and read them to somebody else that just is quite the same.
Oh, this had my fundamental idea in it.
You know, I had it all in there.
It's the way a writer would do it rather than the way I would speak it.
I guess it really gets down to having to go through the vagueness of
always going to close, then it becomes, it becomes then too much of a set piece, going to close their temperament.
If you do that, they're all going to look for it, and say, well, the Christ is all this.
Make a little sermon about that.
That's all right.
I don't know.
Just don't always do it.
I don't know.
I don't know what is the general reaction about that.
speech insolvency.
I don't think what was said, you see, our people are all naturally, all the calls that you got virtually were businessmen.
Well, it was an awful lot back then.
You could always say it.
No, but just remember, what keeps doing, getting here all over and over and over again, bold, strong, courageous, leadership, stepped up.
It wasn't that they were sleeping.
That is because of what?
rather than all of us, what we said, all of us said.
All right, part of the way there's some new stuff that came in after our last night.
Arthur Wood at Sears says, enthusiastic, the kind of leadership the country will welcome.
Tax record has restored confidence.
That's on substance abuse.
Robert Baldwin and Morgan Stanley, very enthusiastic, good reactions from calls he made.
Quoted a prominent labor consultant as a great speech.
Quoted his senior partners entirely liberal on all domestic aspects, some uncertain about foreign reaction.
Eugene Black was enthusiastic, mentioning specifically the freeze of us in credit and excise taxes.
Thinks the international side will be excellent with regard to Japan, but some uncertain about our credit in Europe.
John Clark, an insurance executive in L.A., several people in his living room, you know, they used terms like gutty and courageous, especially emphasized scope and completeness of package.
One described it as a blockbuster.
Blockbuster came in several times.
That relates to content, but it's also, you know, but it's also the...
overall feel of it, and I think that's what you're after.
You weren't trying to sell any one of the individual items in the thing to the people.
No, no, no.
What I'm really interested in is whether, I think if you go on television, you always must give people an emotional level of thought.
That's my point.
I think they've got to feel elected and church people.
That's what I'm thinking about.
I can see that.
That's the reaction to this.
It's an emotional reaction.
Sure, it's based on assumptions, but it is the emotional reaction.
Now the business of the reading the teleprompter and so forth.
I'd like to try.
I could do the whole thing with a teleprompter.
You shouldn't, because it's not on my side, but I can look down and what I have to do is mark paragraphs I'm going to read on a teleprompter and then I look down and I look up and read them on a teleprompter and then turn the page.
You know what I mean?
It'd be an easy way to do it.
You would have to do a simple run.
You're going to have to drive around and get a feel of working on a page up to the...
And you don't like to do things like that.
But if you've got the guy running a teleprompter right, he can keep right pace with you at any time you look up.
Mark it for your own types, but look up when you want to.
The teleprompter should be right where you are.
You did a lot of looking up on a sign.
That was a really excellent picture of a sign, too, that made me quite sense in better shape.
They had a blue back.
They used the blue, which is much better.
Yeah.
It's very good.
Carruthers, incidentally, said, however, you shouldn't wear that blue, a blue suit on a blue backpack.
I don't know what suit he had.
His suit was on the lower one, wasn't it?
Erich's.
Oh, Erich's.
Well, it is how he was looking.
He was going, your communication with people was better than you've ever done before because you kept sending you instead of sending the American people.
And I said, you've got to do this, and we've got to do that, and we have to look into you too.
And I said, yeah.
From a TV guy's viewpoint, I think he's probably right.
Because the television medium is not a mass communication medium.
It's a personal medium.
It's like a phone call.
I think he's a man who knows better.
I put all that in today.
Most of that was ad-libbed, you know.
Well, it doesn't fit the text of the speech, but it's good for rerunning the New York Times ad-lib.
But you don't give a damn what runs in the New York Times.
That's why you should ad-lib.
I don't think your speeches on TV should be the same as the text we give out.
That's good.
You couldn't do too much on this, though.
It's so highly technical.
But I mean in the rhetoric, not in the substance.
But you can in the form of address, like the using you, that sort of thing.
Oh, yeah.
I did a lot of that when I started changing traffic.
Michael and I were talking about what does this mean to you, this dollar?
I said, no.
We'll wait the rest of the evaluation.
Does this mean you take a trip?
So that brother specifically mentioned that, that reference, he particularly liked it also.
So that's okay to think about.
Also, it's a very good slide.
It's a lot of people want to say that.
Well,
Before the conclusion, I'm sorry.
We'll talk about it later on.
He looked up at the meeting and he kind of raised her skirt.
I think he got it across to the people 200 years ago.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
There was so much else that I'm not sure that did.
It's a good story.
But I have a feeling, because I haven't seen any other time.
I'm not sure that, you know, in that context, that it was a saleable point.
And that may be why it didn't.
I don't think it is, but I may be wrong.
I think you did that.
I think you got that feeling.
And that's where you can pick up this week.
Do you want me to have someone else call Rock and Roll inside that?
The Oakland A's are going to be in town on a tour in the next couple of days.
And Bob Ellison, their broadcaster,
wrote in saying they'd be here.
They're here today, tomorrow and Wednesday.
Many members of the team have expressed a desire to see the President wonder if he wanted to invite him over to serve and come through for a handshake.
You can get private police if you want to 20 seconds on the phone.
All right.
Sure.
And we do it tomorrow.
You've got to break anyway for that swearing in ceremony.
Sure.
Catch that and then you get back to working on the White House tour.
It's kind of a nice, just very good name for the major players.
I've heard other people, I don't know a couple of them.
I've got some.
I've got some.
He's got the less fun motto.
The owner and the coaches had brought Charlie Fenton down here.
Charlie Fenton would be here and Bob Elston would provide the booth.
And Elston did, I think, used to do the Washington Snackers.
Currently so.
He's been in here before, Bob Elston.
Tom might be delighted that they come by at a certain time tomorrow.
I'll give him the first class.
He would go out along with his grandpa, you know what I mean?
I'll pass that line of letters.
I'll help him.
That we do kind of all the same.
My wife does private tax.
I consider it important for them to get that kind of money.
And then have them just come into the office and have an extra day and travel a lot and do sports and so on and so on.
They're essential in our area.
Kansas City is not.
Well, I think we can start to fight a blue story.
This is sort of a good human interest story anyway.
Do you want Mitchell up there for the rock and roll breakfast?
Yeah, I do.
I'd love that breakfast with the rock and roll over here.
8.35 is the time to do that.
Sure, if you don't leave until 9.55, I'll give you an hour for breakfast and a few minutes to get ready to go.
Sure.
You don't want more than 10 minutes of it.
And you've got to hike it up to 94, so no one can rush you to get up.
It's not well to do a thing like that and get out of the country the way you did this week, Tiff.
You know, I think it was good that I was... that I did spend the time up there, and I'm going to do it again.
I did go, and I wrote that goddamn thing myself.
To the extent that it did get across, I thought I would never have done it if I had taken the treasury draft, which was, of course, unbelievably bad.
But not bad, though.
Somebody else just started out, and we were in a horrible crisis, and it all happened.
You know, we've got this crisis requires us to do things, to tighten our belts and so forth.
That would be terrible.
And Orsak would always dare act, which was good, but Orsak, as he would, with the, you know, the typical, you know, sort of, sort of mincing, plundering of it, rather than, rather than, you see, that, at least, you know, standing in front of that speech, it's red, is a, yeah, it's, I mean, it's a, it's a white,
quite a masterful job of marching, you know what I mean?
It is, I can tell right away in one way, it's not a grand cardinal, but I mean, when I'm not parking, I say, look at the way that it fits together.
The speech itself fits together, and saying the war, peace, and all that, I think it's very important for the little destiny of the satellite police.
And he did it.
He did it.
The whole job is literally work.
He's probably going to do work, because he doesn't whine around.
Well, if none of them agree, yes, sir.
In his case, he just takes it right away.
Yeah.
Pricing him off another line.
Yeah.
Is there a person set down for a second?
And can the governor hold the duty right through here just a minute?
Yeah.
A lot of it.
Listen, before we get, let me say, Bob Haldeman just sent a letter to me.
And I wondered, I am going to speak to the Knights of Columbus 2 p.m. Would you be free for breakfast the next morning or something?
Well, it's 8.30 and you might come to the Walmart.
And I might have John Mitchell probably with me in a hurry and we'll have a good hour.
And if you don't mind, I need to put it on our schedule.
Now, there's a good reason for this, too.
I want to be sure that everybody knows I'm still, you know, we're still working on revenue sharing.
I said the only thing, as John Irving told you, all we were doing there was simply, simply a major reality that with the month of August coming along and as Congress went back to September, that the day might be split.
But if they believe, if they want to make it to October, they can.
That's for your information, anyway.
How do you feel about the wage price thing?
Do you think we'll probably get cooperation for a while, and do you think the people are ready for it?
Incidentally, your labor is very expensive.
Right.
I don't mind her losing her.
Since I was peaceful.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One thing, too, as you all realize, only the sophisticates understand the international money and everything, but Nelson, we had to do that.
We had to get our friends abroad, particularly the Japanese, to revalue their currencies so that our goods would be competitive.
Don't you agree?
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
Well, we all had that.
Everybody played with Bart.
John Connolly, of course, was a good guy.
And, of course, we had George Schultz.
And Art Burns was great.
And Pete Peterson.
Pete Peterson, that
Now we gotta make it work.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And we can, of course, with the less of all countries, of course, we can examine what you will do.
But this really, as you know, very well know, is really the common market.
Plus Japan, that's all we should talk.
Nothing else.
It's so good of you to call.
And you, how about the, I can't tell his name, his reaction, but.
Oh, yeah, he does, yeah, good.
I only ask because he's in the band community, and we, I don't think he, four of them, because he knows that building is necessary.
Yeah, right.
Could do that, you know.
Good, good, well.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ready?
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
Sounds, sounds, sounds good to me.
Did John say that it was possible to wrestle the boat?
I haven't practiced, too.
And I mentioned to myself, man, would you like to bring him about here?
Or would you like?
Fine, fine.
That's fine.
Anybody you like.
Fine.
And just go ahead and talk to him, and I appreciate your being in the state.
Can you turn me off?
Can you turn me off?
Yeah.
You know what I did?
I wrote this speech.
Of course, I'll leave it in planning sometime when I'm out at the camp.
David and I had a meeting and gave the signals to everybody and told them to come back with the progress.