Nixon, Connally & Kissinger on Presidential Travel and Public Relations

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But this is all she finds, and so do you all the time.

You both know how to...

fund that kind of stuff, you can make your opportunities.

I could tell you went on a roll.

See, it's like all over the place is quite a start.

I can see his point.

We tend, not sometimes, we get heavy-handed.

It bothers you when the advanced men get heavy-handed on some stuff, and they do.

What the hell is he talking about, Shane, with getting heavy-handed?

What's got into him this morning?

I don't know.

Oh, and he...

I think it's just...

What Hal says is, it's just, you know, the bigger the nerves, the more he gets uptight as he's... Well, now let's talk about the Moskviker thing again.

It's a...

I really don't feel that we ought to take that kind of a deal.

It wasn't fine, really, but what the hell reason was it?

They'll take his only thing in order to go on the chance trip with veterans, is it?

Then he quits after the trip, so what the hell?

And the world's not going to be tripped by the departure of the chief of code, come on.

I just say to us, very frankly, that he should have referred to Russia, but not to this one.

Now, that's one that can be cut.

That's my view.

See, Henry argues because it suits his convenience that there's no problem on the official part.

You can add as many people as you want there.

The problem is on the press and

I want the official party to make, incidentally, military aides.

I'm not going to take two military aides on this trip.

I don't need them.

They are the one thing that is really, I mean, as you know, they're always a pain in the ass to me.

I mean, they are no, they're no use to me, whatever, if we've got to mask that.

So we've got to have one, have one, but we've got to have one.

Do you really have to have one?

Yeah.

Why?

Because he runs the support unit.

You've got the large...

There's that one.

Another thing I was going to say on the Ziegler operation, if there's nothing else you can do, you can as a member of the Ziegler operation, right?

And as a, in other words, you can work there, you've got Buchanan and Scully, so actually Ziegler may not need Warren.

Everybody can do it on their own.

That's what I'm asking.

Everybody can help out.

so you're you've got four four persons in that way with scallopies they were you can't some of that's going to depend on what size press corps we get and we've got a lot of questions that have you know been raised with you that they'll raise over there what press they're going to put in and what their counterpart things are what they want us to have but then henry doesn't accept it all i keep trying to get it to open its horizons on this fight he says that the old china man told them only 40 people would be allowed in well

My answer to that was, when does that return?

And I remember the last visit of the President of the United States to China.

The point is, this is a different thing all the way around.

They may come back when they look at those comparative things and say, you had 400 press in Yugoslavia, then you must have 500 here.

We don't want to be outdone by the Yugoslavians.

Now, they won't.

But he can't close his eyes to the possibilities and make a predetermined judgment that they're only going to allow 10 people or whatever.

Also, he cannot be just completely, frankly, obsequious.

And that's on the other things, too.

I mean, that's setting up a lot of dispositions, because Henry is really kind.

I mean, anybody with good manners can come to Henry, I thought.

They really can.

That's why he's so surprised when you take on somebody, I mean, he respects it.

He likes it.

He likes it, but he is a sucker for good manners.

No matter how it works out, it's not, it can't wait to die, it can't be all right.

Shut it off.

We can live with whatever we end up with.

But we might as well go in with the thing that'll give us the best.

See, look at this Persepolis thing, and that is an example of it.

Goddamn CHOP has really put it on.

They have the TV set up by satellite from their banquet and all their ceremonies and everything, and it looks like something's happening on the South Lawn in the White House.

Beautiful picture, flawless color.

Great coverage.

He's obviously come out to put, you know, unlimited camera crews and unlimited facilities.

He's got his satellite up there and his ground station all set up.

And the goddamn vice president picks up the phone and calls.

You know, he's got that for his other guests.

And the Chinese can't do that, obviously.

But it shows you in today's age what can be done.

My argument, the other side, Scali says we have to have ten crews from each network, a bunch of us, six cameramen and all this kind of stuff.

And I said, well, we've got pretty damn good coverage for the movement.

There wasn't a single camera crew up there, not a network producer or anything else.

And yet we sat here for hours watching those guys run around in the morning.

So that's different.

I said, I don't know, they're all different.

But we're not going to handle those crews.

Now that's the thing.

We'll get as much as we can.

And what we've got to handle coverage, we'll get.

I agree.

But if we can't, what I mean is if you've got to cut, we can't.

You can do it with whatever's there.

The channels may say we've got a camera crew.

They'll cover you.

And that's all they'll give us.

But on the other hand, remember, I can't emphasize too strongly.

The least, the least important to us are the data dispatchers.

The data dispatchers.

and almost the same order of magnitude as a magazine.

This is a magazine type of writer anyway, except for the photographers.

Now, I don't want to get into it, but I want to go down to the library and start to take wires from the magazine to pick up the wires from the library.

But look at Henry's pictures.

Now let's say you talk about the magazine telling you to send their photographers.

They don't use Henry's pictures, Dan, right?

Christ, we didn't have any photographer at all.

We used them.

Right.

And how many pictures there were?

Three.

Three pictures.

That's all.

That's right.

And they got an enormous flood.

So I'm not going to fart around with all that talk.

It's like Camp David.

There was no photographer at Camp David except our own guy we ran in that morning.

Remember, for the economic meeting, those pictures don't always make it.

And it says we may end up with just all of it.

And if that's the case, if you take some pictures, you'll get good pictures.

That's the way we do it.

I want to play that hard as hell.

It can all be done.

I want to.

Whatever we have to do, we can do it.

We'll find a way to do it.

But we ought not to presume limitations that may not exist.

If we can do better, we might as well.

I'll be glad, though, that he went over this business of the size of the staff that Donald used so that he realized that we may over-staff.

John, where's he with me?

Over-staff.

Well, that's the military approach.

It's the same thing.

You always shoot more, drop more bombs than you need to kill or lay low the thing because you might miss something.

They may have more staff than they need because something might come up.

We're at the dinner.

You've got to follow the Marine Band into the... We won't have... You know, an announcement type thing.

There won't be a single microphone at the presidential podium.

It'll be that, the old thing of the old days with 300 mics a second or whatever it is, you know.

It only has multiple feet.

So what?

It won't be your podium.

It'll be the Chinese podium.

So what?

They have a podium.

If they don't, you can hold your paper up front of you.

You can live without a bucket of tin, sure, down to the floor.

I started cutting down on this section here, but I just don't like so many military personnel around.

That's one thing I know is too heavy.

I mean, every time you step outside the door, even on our trips, my God, the hall's full of people.

You don't need that many.

I read in the orderly exam that we do here in this country, Bob, how many are we having?

Why so many?

You know, and they're just all the men in there.

You read it?

I do.

Police Secret Service.

I have it all along.

You've tried to knock it down.

Well, we've knocked down some, but I haven't been hard enough on it.

This certainly is an excuse to be harder and to just move back on it.

There's no question.

We have more people in the unit.

We also have superb service and operation because of it.

We can have just as good with less people.

I told him this yesterday.

He came in and asked what he ought to do about it.

I said, just keep your damn mouth shut.

No, it was too late.

He had already answered it.

He gave an answer, and that gave him the story.

He answered.

I don't think that's a story.

Sure.

Ben Bradley called in and said, you know, Maxine Cheshire's got this story about you dating this girl who plays in X-rated movies.

She gets on the road and plays in new movies, sex movies.

And he did.

He even did.

And the call from Ben Bradford, well, that's my first one.

I said, that's what you get the car out of the post.

And secondly, once you got it, why the hell did you stay?

Bradford said, we've got this travel story.

Do you want us to hold it up for the time being because of your trip?

Henry said, yes.

Then he realized he had fallen into a trap, so he called him back.

He said, I don't know.

It's up to you to do what you want with this story.

I have nothing to say about it.

That would have been fine.

He just kept his mouth shut there.

But then he said, had to go on a second.

But for your own guidance, I want you to know that I only dated the girl three times.

And as soon as I found out she was exploiting it for publicity purposes, I dropped her.

I never knew she was in dirty movies.

Well, they put all that in the column.

They said, you're denied it.

But it's proven to know it three times.

I didn't.

And he's really about this morning.

He's all up.

I did this morning.

Because he came in and he says, I'm just curious at what they've done.

And I said, Henry, you said a lot.

That's right.

I said, well, they gave a quote.

They had the quote.

Now, if you hadn't said anything, they didn't have any story.

All they had then was that some cheap rug was trying to get some publicity.

Poor guy.

It's just so...

Sexy game, I guess.

It was at a dinner party Tad Schreiber gave him.

Oh, wow.

And he dated it.

What the hell?

He was just into it.

He got mad and played it.

It's not that I didn't even saw it.

You know, it's pretty tough on that, uh, on that, uh, we know that much.

That's how we should have been around here.

It's understood.

That's one, as you know, I'm not willing to...

a very firm commitment to be carried out, because it just- Everybody wants to sign it.

We've tried before, we don't.

That's when we don't do a good job of turning it on.

I think your idea is the ideal thing, is to use a board like Sapphire as a fundraiser when we've got something we do want to plan.

And just stay away from them otherwise.

They're not the leader social and so forth, for one thing.

I just do that on the same Tuesday a crowd night.

And after that, I mean, I don't know what they do to me is one thing.

I mean, it's one thing we're out of knowledge.

If he had, I don't know what he wants to do, but he may decide.

We've got a stupid story to tell on that, you know, about how much it costs me to be president.

But there again, I'm not sure if it's worth what he's doing.

I'm not sure it is.

Well, I don't know.

Nothing has gotten any real right.

I don't think it's going to do it.

$185,000 I'm supposed to have made.

I don't know what it's all about, but God damn it.

I could have made a hand of it, but I still have the goddamn stock.

That's one of those things.

I mean to punish that magazine.

They've done this deliberately.

It's pretty damn vicious.

Don't you agree?

Absolutely.

And it is.

They've done it.

It's a pure action shot.

Total...

Well, it's a mere innuendo type job.

They don't really have anything on you or Sanders or Rebozo, but they imply.

And by writing all this, nobody will read that stuff.

They don't read it.

Yeah.

He's obsessed with those people.

You're a Catholic priest and you're innocent, aren't you?

in the martial arts.

— 17 min 18 s with no transcribed speech —

You have to, uh, hold your arm this way.

Hold your arm.

I guess there are four systems.

Who's going on?

I mean, we don't have much in front of us.

C-800, hoops!

C-800, hey, hoops, hoops, hoops, hoops, hoops, hoops, hoops, hoops.

— 1 min 10 s with no transcribed speech —

Sir, can you take a quick look at the proposed leadership agenda tonight?

Thank you.

Do you have a preference on interpreters for the New York Slot Red City if they recommend any one?

One and two have to come from all the seats.

That's it.

One final question.

When Rex goes to Lexham 1966, is it my goal to beat Andrew Nye?

Then the lights, by all times, set.

Between now and Monday, do you commit to that?

The first case, normally, for the large file is $165.

The regular size file is $165.

But the market house is around $166.

You can get a case for $15,000.

The Lafitte runs 236 to the right of the case.

The Brionne runs 184, 56 to the right of the case.

They're all good.

Very good.

Bye.

Nixon, Connally & Kissinger on Presidential Travel and Public Relations

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on October 15, 1971

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Nixon, Connally & Kissinger on Presidential Travel and Public Relations

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on October 15, 1971

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Cite this conversation