Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on AFL-CIO and George Meany

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I told him I'm straight-armed or I heard a W-0.

I want Peterson to take a hot play on this one, totally.

Out of the international monetary play, he's got to put his batting around.

And I told Collin Dean that Garrett was his wife, and he said, my God, he's been just, we've got to quit the building.

They've given us too many voices.

Peterson, you've got to put too many voices in this field.

Harder is enough to just tell Peterson to quit batting, I mean, just get him to, get him to get into the job shelves.

Joe Schultz said, I feel strongly that Peterson has just got to get out of this game.

I mean, he's got to quit talking to people.

There are too many voices at this time.

I don't want any more talk.

Is that clear?

No more talk by Peterson.

And frankly, we can't go on.

At this point, Peterson prepared a memoranda and that sort of thing.

Don't talk to foreigners.

At this time, I want Conley to do the talking to foreigners.

A little more of a discussion before I turn it over to the secretary of the executive assembly.

Mr. Duquesne, from a political standpoint, you must report to Congress each time that he does.

And I prefer that you speak on each and each call.

Half of Reagan's mind got hurt very, oh, long ago, sir.

All thanks to Reagan.

And, uh, he still doesn't have a central speaker about anything.

Well, he's unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

I could see why he would drive Finch off the wall.

I could see why Finch would drive him off the wall, too.

Yeah.

Finch is the goddamn top.

What's the other guy's name?

I don't know.

But there's a Reagan official on and on and on.

But anyway, he's a good man to talk to.

He's a good man to talk to.

strong in the White House, right?

What the hell do you mean?

He says, what about the NGP?

What about ABM?

You know, nobody's mentioned NGP.

I haven't pushed out of the NGP.

You know, they don't realize that these, uh, yeah, this whole guy, that White House stand was against NGP, you know, the environmental stand.

There's a lot of people that, uh, that want to hear that.

Where are they?

If they understand that for us, and we're doing the right things, and against the Congress, they're going to say, well, why didn't you approve it?

I don't want to do that.

But for me to get in and talk to these goddamn idiot people, you know, first of all, they're all weak.

But, uh, Reagan should talk to them.

Well, Reagan, on and on and on.

Well, yeah, he says Reagan, but it's just not going to be a while.

Crap.

But, uh, one thing, Reagan, you've got to go out and play the process.

You don't need to hear it too great about it.

This is that.

He says, planting or planting this Bradford Sandman package in California.

Well, now, there isn't any package that I understand, but what in the name of Christ he's planting some Bradford package in California package?

If any of the Sandman's do you understand the problem?

The problem is that planting is a red flag because he's an associate manager.

See?

But is there any way that that would be... Is there?

There's no way you can win on this.

And we are winning on this.

We're doing an incredibly good job on this, you know, with Reagan, with Reagan.

But the crisis is that you're off.

There's probably one guy somewhere that they're upset about.

That's what you usually get.

But they're supposed to, they have a complaint process to deal with it.

John, get that out of the way, okay?

Did he meet with John on that screening?

Yes.

He met with John at 10 and then John's screening over here.

Good.

So we know about an hour with John.

You don't know what time that the labor thing was meeting?

If I were to look tomorrow, what time was it?

They apparently opened the convention at 10.30 tomorrow morning.

And that is the opening of the general sessions of the convention.

We're trying to get a better run down.

They don't really have a very firm schedule.

They apparently kind of push the thing over the cliff and just let it go.

Because they don't seem to have a fixed plan of what happens when.

There is one option now that is being argued from down there as a possibility apparently, Colson's contacts, whatever they are, which is

would agree that he would be the only speaker on Friday, and that you could open the Friday session, and that they wouldn't put any other outside speaker on on Friday, so that it would be your day.

That would make tomorrow mean he's a Friday nurse if he wanted the extra day.

So that's what we were trying to get at.

But it's not his fault.

I had to tell him what we were supposed to do.

This is the text that should be prepared to the person.

I didn't want to go into a big thing of what your plan is, but I just said the person will expand beyond the written text and just leave it at that.

That the written text should be simply a boilerplate type of a thing that enumerates without any rhetoric, because the rhetoric should be in a release.

Let them cover the rhetoric line.

And don't tell Zicker that I'm going to expand, right?

Understand?

I told him to tell anybody that there was any thought of expanding.

Then Ray got all worried about this.

He can't just let it go to laundry list.

I said, Ray, there's no thought of that, but he doesn't want a prepared text for the rhetorical part of the speech.

The prepared text should just be the boilerplate that will be put out.

Then that leaves the president free to go beyond it.

He always goes beyond his prepared text.

No, and I don't think I should.

I shouldn't tell them.

Because that's the device, that's the device that I can choose on.

If I tell them that, somebody's going to tell somebody.

Everybody out here has to show them that.

What's happening?

It's like, oh, I haven't seen, oh, I didn't see a leaf in the, oh, I don't see that.

It's the first day.

What we're getting at, we've tracked some of it back down, but it's not in current news.

Like I love the New York Times magazine thing on Sunday.

Nobody talked, that was the Kevin Phillips thing, and nobody talked to Kevin Phillips.

The one White House staff source that Phillips used to stop us was Dick Quill.

That's worked for us for three years.

And Quill three years ago, over three years ago, had never worked with White House.

He's expressed an interest, I see no problem with it, of stopping by and seeing the press after the meeting.

I don't want you to be aware of that when you're talking with them.

All right.

Okay.

Chris, the basket is going to go off.

Well, I don't think, well, it was either here or having him do it at the Madison Hotel.

I think we have better control over it here.

I've talked to the backgrounds many times.

I don't know whether it worked out the deal or not.

I don't know.

Okay, that's fine by me.

So that way he won't leak.

He's enthusiastic.

He doesn't live with everybody, but he is enthusiastic.

It might tell one of his faults and then I will know.

And he says that the executive committee meets today.

That's where the action came from.

He says the report he has now is that the executive committee today will raise hell with phase two and then will instruct me to stay on the board.

So, as far as any substantive value of you going in order to keep me on the board, it's not necessary.

No.

Because that will have already been done.

If he goes off the board, I won't go.

Do you agree with that or not?

Or does anybody agree with that?

I'm trying to find out about the board thing, and nobody knows what the board's going to do.

Our problem is one, the one business guy we thought was going to move over to retroactivities changed his mind.

He said, I just shifted this bill yesterday from the table.

And, uh...

They don't know whether they're going to get any food out of it today or not.

The engineer or set the board of directors, the day is bouncing back and forth and they don't know what the problem is.

They're trying to throw a bat from the inside of the bookcase or something like that.

through that thing.

What happens is you have to get up quite early in the morning that way.

Yeah, well, you wouldn't have to be there at 10.30 to be able to open that person's book.

Unless you want to try to follow the pre-seed meeting.

Is it better for you to go early afternoon or something like that?

No, no.

Just before the interview.

In early morning?

The time to go would be for 12 o'clock.

Better to go over Thursday.

And, uh, let me, uh...

So, me, it's a, it's a, it's a confidential meeting that appears that day.

Just as well to have it that day rather than have it present today on Friday.

I can't understand.

What the hell's the difference?

Why do we wait a day to go to a day after meetings and all that stuff?

So I'll overwrite it.

I can overwrite this story.

They'll run a pair of them and I'll overwrite it.

Yours will be bigger because everybody expects him to be there to say what he's going to say.

They don't pay.

They don't expect you to be there.

We don't expect you to say what you're going to say.

So the fact that you were there that day I would think might have some effect on me.

I've negotiated with him a long time and showed up there for basically a year and a half

I don't want to announce today to go on my own, you know what I mean?

Talk that I can't tell, but the time that I would like to go is 12 o'clock tomorrow and announce it tomorrow morning.

And I'll just get up in the morning and decide to go.

And like these passengers at the restaurant, they can go down without their laundry at once.

You know what I mean?

This is the way I want to have this stuff up.

I don't want it to come secret or raise hell, and you just cannot go his way this time.

This is my way, correct?

I don't want it to get out.

I just don't want it to get out.

I want it to be announced tomorrow morning, but I'm going to come at 12 o'clock.

Maybe it's hard.

I think you'll wait until after 7 o'clock tonight, and you work it out with me.

Right?

I saw you work it out with me, but don't talk to me.

Okay.

Tell them that I'm tied up here, that I believe on the ten days I can do it, and I don't want them to say anything until we're sure because we're working some bullshit.

If we'd like to work it out for them tomorrow, if you can hold it for that, we'll confirm that at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning.

7 o'clock tomorrow morning, we'll confirm it.

8 o'clock.

Yeah, one way or the other, they'd like to come tomorrow.

But please don't put out that show so they're not talking to you.

We don't mind.

Have things done.

We've got to do more things that are effective.

at the highest level, you know, rather than the third level, because we just don't, it doesn't work at the third level.

I just say I can't confirm it, but this is what we'd like to work towards, and if you could be set for that, we'll confirm it 8 o'clock tomorrow morning.

We've got some things hanging fire here.

The president can't be sure whether we can get away with it.

But I think he ought to wait until after the news hour tonight to do that, so they don't even give him a chance.

You know, he still may not hold with that.

Sure.

He did a lot of time.

Sure, sure, sure.

So, we've got some problems here that we think we can work on.

Also, by then you know probably what the executive committee's done.

Sure.

Now, because the executive committee has ruled that if he walks off,

And I cannot go, do you agree with that, Chris?

Even Colson agrees with that himself.

I don't think he can.

I think he's got it.

Even if it were announced, I don't think he'd cancel it.

Yeah, I'm talking about it now.

Well, if he would, it would be good.

Excuse me, we've got to continue this conversation.

He's got this, uh...

They don't think he will.

They, they, Chuck says that all the information is that they'll, they're definitely going to keep him on.

Hello, Dustin.

It's X-Day.

Oh, I said it was time to go.

You understand?

At this point, I just want to be sure.

And play that with everybody.

The singer is to be told that, too.

You understand?

Everybody around here is to be played with.

Uh, that way if you accept the speed driver, you start to get a quote or a fake thing.

And you can say that if I don't quote, I may send a message, but sort of wrap your suit of English on like, I let them if they're writing a message.

Which I did in a library home, I got a two hundred words.

Fair enough.

We need to keep our options open.

Well that George is, well that George is on the game only to the extent that he thought that Mike and I had to be leading us.

But the guy with Mike, how, how long do we have on the shelves?

Just leave it there.

Okay, we've got another shelf to leave it on.

I'll be with your goalie in the morning.

See you at 12 o'clock tonight.

Just trying to think of what we ought to do.

I'm not sure that it would be better to leave tonight.

I just decided at 9.30, in other words, to go down.

You have no problem.

It was at that point.

Go down, get in, and sleep there tonight.

Go work on it.

Yeah.

I think it would be out of hand, of course, essentially.

If you're on the floor, you don't have to say intervention.

Maybe it doesn't matter to say it.

What difference does it make whether you put it out in the tent, blow it, make the morning papers?

The morning paper.

And the morning television news.

Today's show.

Why is that bad?

Bill's about it.

You need, if you follow the order up there, you need some build up about that all your advisors have told you not to go, that you're going anyway.

Walking into the line.

I think you've got to do that.

You get a two day build up about it.

I just got surprised.

I got up in a jerky way and went down.

My view is that I probably would go down tonight.

But I would go at about 9 o'clock.

Do you understand?

But don't tell these assholes out here.

They're not to know.

They're being told this time, uh, in, uh, hours.

But she said, first of all, you have to call me.

I can go as late as 930 for that matter.

She got in there and told me.

She said, okay, you can call Mike.

Okay, he proves.

And we announce it here.

And we leave.

Call me, we can call me at 7.

All right.

Get it set.

Announce it here at like 7.30 and say, since you are, you're going on down to the gate at 8.30.

All right.

Well, I have to go a little bit later.

I have a lot of work.

I get down to the bed.

Get up.

It's much better to...

It's much better for any of us before you've got to put any anger into it, not to just get off the plane and helicopter into the place and get up and make the steep.

You see my flying chair?

I mean, even though it's a short flight, it's not the best way to do it.

I mean, I can go to your partner and I can go all that crap, you know, and I think we'll just do it that way.

Now, when we go over there, I think we should helicopter over.

Isn't this Miami Beach?

There's no reason to ride for 45 minutes over that goddamn place.

You see?

And uh, isn't the helicopter, uh, isn't there a helicopter landing pad?

I'm sure there is.

I'm sure you see.

Take a ride around the parking lot with that helicopter over.

And we've got to, that's another problem.

We don't have a helicopter down unless we tell them that.

Alright, tell them the helicopter is going to be there until the weekend.

Okay.

That's the way to do that.

I'm going to be down.

I'm going to be there until the weekend.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on AFL-CIO and George Meany

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

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Also recorded on November 17, 1971

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Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on AFL-CIO and George Meany

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on November 17, 1971

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Cite this conversation