Nixon, Goldwater & Colson on AFL-CIO and Public Relations

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you know, that you're holding them in just a moment.

We didn't really get too much into that discussion.

The only talk about it was Peterson said that he was in Chicago this weekend.

It was a very good, positive reaction from people that he talked to.

The speech, ugly enough as he put it, not only from businessmen, where it would be expected, but from kind of the liberals who

used to defend the labor movement.

Now, of course, he's one of them.

Yeah, exactly.

But he wrote the reactionary buzzer.

There wasn't much other discussion of that.

They got to pay for it and vote and so forth and so on.

I saw this last night.

They were taking a very bad defeat.

I think that's true.

I think they are.

Yeah.

Vote is not a very...

He's no match for a demagogue like Parks.

He took it pummeling publicity-wise, but just not being able really to stand up.

He could in that particular circumstance, obviously, later go outside.

We find that, generally speaking, our Democratic friends, they don't care where it comes from.

Hop around.

I could run in and have a little talk with you.

I mean, he knows that he's supposed to, as you're giving me reluctance.

I don't mean just to be positive, but to kick somebody to balls.

That's what he has to do.

What do you think, Bob?

He can do it for us.

I mean, I was also very, I talked to him last night.

He's very concerned about this.

The pay board and the rest of them are screwed up.

Shultz is more concerned about the actions than he is about the occurrence.

And he's got a latent death wish for the pay board.

He's hard for him.

Bill, we talked last night after you talked to you, and we were planning to meet at 10 this morning to put our own thoughts together for you as to what we now do this week, if anything, with respect to the labor situation generally and the pay board as contingencies and a backup, how far we want to push it.

That's the question at this point.

How hard?

Well, he's got everything.

How hard?

Right.

I talked a little bit about it.

What do you do about many Spanish Christians?

What do you do about the cold?

What do you do about the long shot?

What do you do about retroactivity?

What do you do about the Congress, Senator Drew?

Now, that's basically a fairly good game plan of the thing, but up to the same token, all of that has got to be done without the indication we're getting old.

You see the top of the high seat with the

This is a written press, but it's very difficult, Chuck, for us to get across, and I know the efforts of the Mays are for sure, for us to get across any of, except the White House.

Both of you were madly happy, but we didn't get any.

My God, we've got to know that there's a hell of a lot more people to think that.

But you know that they, you hear, I can't forget about that.

We don't want that for that purpose.

The later guys would say that we trumped up the charges.

And me, of course, who didn't think of it at the time, said that the president was nervous that he trampled when he came in and so forth and played that.

Your whole press corps is creating some mythology there.

That is very common.

And that's why I talked to him since.

I remember I said, right, I said, we've got to get some of our own people to get up and say, now, the only one, the only one that is quoted is Ford.

Ford got it quoted.

Somebody else must have said something.

Yes, they did.

Quite a few people did.

They did.

Well, any governors, any big shots, or Reagan, any people like that, I don't know if they had any good connections.

The problem we have is that he didn't understand.

Even here, Bob the cabinet officer should have opened his mouth.

Even here, you know what I mean, on the insult to the presidency.

Would you not agree?

Yeah, I think I should.

Because basically, he must not overlook the fact that you really raised it to some extent.

I'm not, I didn't, I'm aware of the fact that television reaches more than the written press, but I'm talking about television too here.

There's the, when you read it here, the

and the rather effective job that CBS did on it.

Perfectly.

I mean, my God.

So this is what the high schools do with the pricing.

And they say we make it all up.

Now, see, now you're getting a distorted view out of this summary on that.

Because that was a new summary.

That isn't the way CBS said that.

That isn't the way...

cancer.

That's the tone in which he said it, or the way it came through.

And that high school thing, they had a minute and a half of it on, and it was just sensational.

And what you mentioned, Mr. Tarko, you said that the CBS gave us a bad shot.

Well, if I could, we wanted, on Saturday night, to make an attempt to turn the thing, as if we could have done the whole goddamn thing up.

That's what the point was.

The ticker wasn't in, though.

Yeah, on Saturday, it was in.

You see, the point was, it was so natural.

I was walking out of the Kennedy Center, this big tall gawky kid said to me, he's scared to death and shaking, and he says, would you come down to the Capitol for my class picture?

Of course, we didn't get that because everybody's smart enough to take it down.

Yes, we did.

I said, I can't go down to the Capitol.

I said, but if you'll talk to Steve Bouldemar, maybe I can see you.

That perplexed me.

is printed on both wire services, not just on the writing places, because our papers, if I didn't have any papers, I was reverted to television.

Mr. President, the NDC, the NDC, the NDC, oh, it's a small thing, but what I'm getting at is I can also see the way that these things work and the things we have to bear in mind.

We are up against a situation where our opponents, whether it's me or Humphrey, Jackson or any of the rest, are all going to say,

two lines.

One, that something is obvious to this, that we trumped the whole goddamn thing up, but actually they were very polite and very considerate.

That's the White House trumped up the charge.

That's the name of this.

You can't get anything else that trumped up the charge that we were badly treated.

And second, the other line is that, which of course

And that's exactly the opposite of the big lie to me.

I don't know why I said that.

It's kind of besides the point.

I just thought the other day about my performance and how they're putting out the idea that it's the solidity of the music being captured in the register.

I know it's a big lie.

And then the other idea is that instead of Texas going down there, making a good, strong, confident speech, that he was trembling and nervous.

Now that's something that they just thought up two days later.

They're not getting much out of that.

Yeah, but they're getting virtually no footage.

One newspaper picked it up.

Don't ever underestimate what they do.

I can't read the effort, but go back and read it.

They don't do it with Bobby Hennison.

They don't get rid of that.

The TV didn't pick that up.

It's a nervous thing.

George Schultz heard it between the half of the football game.

The other half he spoke, right?

Isn't that what he spoke to you about?

Yeah, but I didn't radio that on a wire tape.

Well, I don't know whether it's that.

I'm just saying, watch out for it.

Okay, the other one that's even more interesting, that they're really, they're starting to try to push down.

is that you that this was that he was stepping on that which is the line that we were disappointed that we didn't because it was treated more badly and then what you're going down there and that david there was a real triangle that is going to sell all that is is a weak defense to what was already a strong offense that has gotten across i think it won't sell unless you just allow a backlight

I can't, I can't emphasize it strongly, but maybe if some of those, those leading senators and congressmen up there, I know it's Brock, he's got, Brock's got a statement, I know it's hard to, God damn it, maybe it doesn't make any difference.

Bill, I wrote, I wrote the toughest statement in the world for Bob, Bill, and gave it to him at 4 o'clock Saturday, and they put it right out, but it didn't get picked up.

Sure.

I know.

You can't blame our guys at all.

Ford as well.

Ford would get before him.

His nose, actually.

But I never let them distort something.

I recall, I'll never forget, they distorted the funds 52 bucks after it was made and all sorts of kind of stuff.

Made the whole thing and so forth and so on.

It was hard to get up with it.

It took time.

Well, see here, you get in the first lick of it.

I agree.

A big way.

I couldn't agree more.

I agree, but don't.

That's a different way.

Okay, but when we move on those things, and I don't think that's out of the White House.

I know.

But it doesn't happen unless the White House moves.

That's my problem.

And maybe we can do this together.

He started it on another, get an outside national character or something.

Oh, we sure don't.

Yeah, we've done it in the 50s.

I mean, I mean, here's something where a whole load of...

I haven't talked to him, Mr. President.

I was talking to him this morning about distributing that mail letter and getting a 500 TV clip.

I don't think we want Hope to say anything because I've publicly heard his question.

No, he's too close to you.

He's identified himself.

Yeah, but it's the point Conley made.

So what if the president wasn't angry?

He had every goddamn right to be angry.

And if he weren't angry, there'd be something wrong with him.

That's true.

People expect you to be angry when you're treated well.

It's not, it's not you as an individual, it's the fact that you were... That point gets played back.

It gets played back all the time.

If people pick up, wasn't it terrible that they didn't even announce it and didn't play it in with the Chief when he came in and didn't stand and applaud?

They did, actually.

Actually.

If you know of them, I did give one.

Sure, what about the reception?

Remember when I went back to the place, I wasn't caring about the reception.

I didn't say anything about what Meany said, I didn't say anything about the...

I expected exactly what I got.

I thought actually they were quite restraining.

That was my attitude.

Well, that's what they were, by order.

That's right.

But they were restraining so far as they didn't have any severe strain both ways.

Well, it sounds a little more human, much more antagonistic, I'm sure.

I'll say.

Connelly's press conference today, Mr. President, is bound to reaffirm evidence.

Well, it's going to have to be.

This is something where you'll understand where most of our people are on the line.

We don't want to destroy God, right?

Right?

Or do you agree?

No, I agree.

You've got to keep it going.

Absolutely.

Now, on the other hand, it's the way that I've had a long talk with Connelly.

That's why I have a payboard for you guys here.

We have got not to give the men a chance to say we're giving to labor right now.

That's why we've got to be done as well.

Now, we have to do that at the same time, though, that we don't break it off from labor, such as we, so that we have no support from there.

In other words, we just can't kick labor generally.

And we've got to have a fuel station in the dam.

Well, as Celso points out, the construction people have stayed positive.

They spent the weekend doing exactly what they're supposed to do, which is work with the board on, yeah, their specifics.

They got a lot done.

They had a constructive weekend.

There's another interesting balance in here is the crack problem, which you probably saw, which is that labor could have gone the other way if they had developed and maybe should have been full of smiles and cheers because they've gotten far more out of phase two already than they expected to get going in.

No, but they took the other 10.

The Krantz, the Krantz showed his, and he does have a political, he said that, he said they couldn't do that, and he'd go all out in the 72 against them.

That's right.

This basically, I can't emphasize to Schnaufer and to everybody concerned, let me put it very directly, that everybody concerned would have to realize that whether it's any more public or open-minded,

And eventually we must be true.

Our Democratic and certainly all the people up in the Senate, they will lie.

They'll use the big lie.

And they get away with it.

They always have.

Now, we have got to do the same thing in return.

In other words, Donald and me, for example, they have what they're using.

And you see, they lie right before a string.

For example, when you went in there, most people who were there said, gee, that was great.

So they say he was scared of the nerds.

The other thing is that they lie right in front of us.

They say, oh, laborers are very courteous.

But everybody knows that means discourteous.

Now, the point, don't underestimate that tactic.

It is goddamn effective over a period of time.

Not at the median.

They can't knock it out alone.

Why do they use it?

Because they've done it for years.

It's a political tactic for raiders.

Remember how people used to laugh at Hitler?

Big lie.

But I can tell you, Trump, Trump lied throughout the 48th campaign.

It was horrible.

We all thought that, oh, how can anybody believe he's terrible?

It eventually got through because nobody took him on.

And you cannot allow a big lie to be used against you.

The thing to do is to whack him right back.

That's going to get him honored.

Humphrey should be answered hard because he, well, you know what he did was an extremely clever move, however.

He sent this wire saying that he had sought to provoke the confrontation and

slobbers all over, labors, and then says, I'm very sorry that because of the votes in the Senate today, I can't be present.

He's not going down there and getting tired with that television tonight of those thugs.

Well, Muskie's been invited.

This is Jackson's day, so it was to be Muskie Humphrey and Jackson's day tomorrow.

I'll bet you you'll find Muskie won't go.

I wouldn't, I...

I think it's a big lie set down.

Oh, sure.

They were afraid to do it.

We can't, I mean, put it this way, we can't just get into a position where he is too big, too much exposed.

I think he's got to get something, just a little room.

You know what I mean?

There's no question about that.

We all know that because they're jumping on him for things he hasn't done over and over again.

Well, it's just, it's a, there's a Murray-Johnner syndrome, etc.

And M. L. Murray got credit for all kinds of things.

It's a good idea.

He doesn't hold well with the fighters, but Chuck will do it.

But he's, he's got, we've got to find a way for somebody else to get off of his fat ass and do something.

Now, uh, who the hell can you do?

That's a good plan for it, anyway.

I don't know.

Yeah, what's the difference?

A man so stupid couldn't get caught.

No.

Oh, isn't that bad?

Yeah.

I mean, it could get that bad.

It could get that bad in the sense that they'd be walking a few closer.

That's my point.

I guess it's really the next thing.

That's where it ought to be.

So much good stuff.

Who the hell is over there?

If it's not Cigar Gun, he's still there.

Yeah.

God, that's what we put in there.

He's a nut guy.

You know what happened then?

The guy you need over there, you can.

Now, we know that he is a stringer on the clubhouse, ruthless.

And God damn gets it done.

I really think there is needed somebody there.

We got to get out of the White House.

Out of the White House and say,

a lot of the night and they do it but you have a hell of a time don't you get them to do the same job that's right of course the problem is an officer here can't do it all a lot on his own he's got to do it hanging on somebody he can't get anybody that he can't get do it was his it's his basic job

Also, Lynn is a political operative, but he's not really a press man.

He's not a publicist.

Tommy, did you get the... Did you follow up on the idea of getting a few of these wires around?

That'll help us.

Yes, sir.

What I mean is our own people know what their country is thinking.

My feeling about it is that...

Having said these things, I have no doubt about the need in the background.

It's what it is because of the pedatology.

In fact, far beyond anything we know.

Far beyond.

I mean, I base that not on any kind of polls or anything like that.

I base it on these conversations we've had with a lot of people.

You can base it on polls.

The only polls are the poll in the weekend, so it's going to be fantastic.

That's it.

Of course, the thing that's had a lot of action, too.

Oh, yeah, he'll have that out next week.

And it's hard to measure.

It's that old.

They must sense that because they're fighting back so hard on it.

Look, when Frank Lousy comes on the phone, he's a certain high-pitched.

35 years, he's never been so thrilled by anything in his life.

That's quite something.

in 1972, he would do everything.

Especially when the only way it falls in from then, I can call on these guys.

And it's something that we didn't do.

In other words, it's not a thing where we take all three books, but it's not a thing where we take all three handbooks, like November 3rd was.

And go on without it.

You know, the only defense that they had was... Well, I think so.

I know you've got a good one going, but I also know Bob.

You get long experience, and you get picked away.

Sure.

I mean, everything you can do with your hand.

This is a constant battle.

I'm just wondering if we don't have to go.

Barry, how are you?

Oh, I'm fine.

Good to see you, good to see you.

Sit down, sit down.

We're guessing.

Good morning, fine.

I wanted to say that, uh...

I didn't mean to...

He'll get him.

You know, on board, but on board, we both know he's not called home.

I mean, he's the right man.

But Chuck was telling me, and I don't know what to do.

There have been so many cases when you call up, you're down there trying to get someone, but who goes to the bathroom first?

But over here, he also knows how to say it.

I don't know.

Remember, Barry, we had a talk about a year ago, and you said we ought to get a few fighters together and so forth, but who in the hell are we going to get?

You tell me.

Remember, I said you'd get it together if you and I ran the town.

Well, you know, like, you know, it's weird, isn't it?

You know,

We've been pretty sloth with wires and so forth since we got a duty down there this morning.

But anyway, the wire just came in by the, you know, store.

I was going to say it's...

Or a cabinet officer.

Of course, we don't have any cabinet officers.

God, people can do this.

But, God, that might get up.

I don't know.

You know, that's about the President.

I'd say this insults the President to the United States for anybody to say that he's telling the President, you know, what you can do.

God damn, Barry, you could get people thinking about beyond belief.

What do you think?

Oh, I agree with you.

And the reactions I've had over the weekend have been disastrous to me.

I was out there in Columbia the other night with Anthony.

Oh, Columbia?

Oh, Columbia.

They had this reception for the Cowboys.

Oh, God.

They must have been happy.

They were happy for all of us.

Me and his daughter was out there.

She was crying.

She said, you know my father.

You know he wouldn't do those things.

Of course, I went, what do I do?

Well, I've got a beauty I'm going to make as soon as I get down there.

We talked to Dr. Bob Dole and said, I know he's off on this, but we've got a tower running for reelection.

He's got to keep his mouth shut.

Dominic's a busy man.

He still does a good job.

Dominic's a good man.

Brock's a good man.

Brock's all about colorful, but he says he'll save you.

What about Baker?

Baker does a pretty good job.

He'll pop up and save you things.

In fact, Scott has been saying something now and then.

Oh, Scott's been great.

Yeah.

The old Scott.

Yeah.

He's got it.

He's a radio company.

He's a great specialist, sir.

Yeah.

Financing campaign, Susie.

What do you think of that now?

I think it's the worst goddamn thing that ever came along.

It started with Teddy Roosevelt.

Never has gotten very far.

I think we'll beat it, but if we do it...

If we don't, you think you ought to veto it?

No, I don't give a damn.

I'd go on national television and say, this is why I vetoed it.

It's wrong, it's stunning for a democratic country to be participating in, and I'm going to veto it?

Now, if the Congress wants to pass the things I want, fine, but you have to put the pressure on it.

I remember the best example of pressure was

I was the only senator who voted against the Kennedy-Erwin labor bill.

The only one.

And Ike told me the next day, he said, what the hell is wrong with you?

I said, if you've got to happen now, I want to explain it to you.

And after he knew what was going on and how weak that bill was, he went on national television and asked.

that the people demand a stronger bill, and by God, we've got the same bill out of Congress that I've tried to make on the floor of the Senate, and only two voted against it.

That's what you're going to have to do, I think.

It's a very hard one, these domestic things and so forth.

keep these guys on the hook on our ground in Vietnam.

We got them.

Now we can get the casualties down to five, four, three, and so forth.

For these batteries that got us into this war, now to sabotage our efforts to get us out, that's what's involved here.

And I think we've got to put them right to the fire.

Well, Mr. Grayson, I don't think the war is an issue anymore.

Well, even the prisoners of war, I can't see how...

that anybody has a plausible way to do any more than you've done or said about it.

Except the point is, it may not be an issue, let's look at it this way, but we can make it a very positive issue.

See, that's right.

We have a mix.

We have, after all, we have done a hell of a job.

It's just not.

This war was lost when Johnson stopped the bombing.

And now we have pulled out and we're going to win the goddamn thing.

Well, on this war, and efforts to get advanced in language and selflessness,

If I were you, again, I'd go on national television and say, I have no intentions of violating the concepts of the Constitution by yielding the war-making powers to the countries.

It's also outrageous that you should be ministering to people who believe so much about the democratic process.

They put up a resolution once, and then usually when it gets defeated, they end up at least for that year.

But now they've put it in five or six times.

They've fulfilled to which it isn't, on which they don't hang it.

And that is harassment.

That isn't a democratic crisis.

What changes in those two weeks?

Well, I'll tell you this.

It's not having much effect around the country.

You know, when you speak before the public night after night, you come home saying, well, this is a pretty rough point.

The only thing that I'm sensing that, and I mentioned to you earlier,

layered defense defense people are beginning to say well well let's start talking about the 80 million dollar budget you know you told me that last summer but uh this is the easiest thing to defend of all the areas

And I've suggested it earlier, and I think he's doing it.

He put together a package that will point out what you inherited when you came into this office in the way of a defense system that had practically been done.

We went up home to him, Mr. Chairman.

Well, it's awful.

We were gone.

Well, one point the senator made to me is that the detainment of weapons is such that in 73 and 74, four or five major weapon systems that we've started are going to come into the inventory.

Like her.

But move is coming up.

Yeah, yeah.

It's the big one.

Yeah, yeah.

The 14 and the 15.

One thing that would be very helpful, very, if you would, is that Henry and... Ron Reagan has got this group that's conservative, and I think that if Henry had been here, he would talk about it.

Yeah.

Because they listen to you.

Well, I find if you talk to those people, if you just talk to them, you can also come to fight the liberals.

Look, let me tell you something, Henry.

Tell Henry something.

I'll tell you something, too, so you know that he can back us up.

You know, when I ordered that test on that cheek, did you tell the story of that token?

We have over 10,000 wires in here against that test.

25 for it.

25.

10,000 to 25.

And that morning, they, you know, one of our little scary guys up here says, oh, God, this is terrible, terrible.

And they put it in my weekly news summary.

I saw that count.

I know why they put it in.

And they had to because they were against it.

We've got mostly environmentalists and actually domestics.

And so I said, Henry said, the Supreme Court's going to rule, and it means that they go, it looks like it might go good, what are you going to do?

I said, I told Henry that morning, I said, I'm going to give a goddamn up to court guns.

We're going to go forward with that test, because I found them and we did it.

We dropped a year behind in the APM.

Also, it would ruin our negotiations with the Soviet Union.

Not one of the conservatives spoke up and said, thank God the president went ahead with that sentence.

I don't mean Barry Goldblum.

What I mean is not Bill Buckley.

That'd be all these guys.

What the hell's the matter with them?

Why'd they attack the liberals?

Well, to be perfectly honest with you, that thing was not this.

You may have seen major view up here.

But they're like, it doesn't make you on the hill, and that's what you do.

I think if you, anytime you have a case like that where you want something, say that it's kind of obvious something's going to be said, just get on the horn.

We can always find somebody.

I don't want to do all of them because it kind of wears out.

I'll say the juicy ones.

It isn't so much the guys on the Hill.

I'm not referring to you.

It's the human event syndrome group who direct all their hire at the White House on the weakening of defense, on the selling out to red China, and on all of it.

two liberal reforms, two liberal and domestic stuff and all that, where they never seem to recognize that the president can only be as conservative as he can get something done.

Our problem is that, look, look, look, Barry, the court, they ought to be coming up and down and shouting from the house about those court assignments.

Well, they are, not all.

The second thing is, certainly Bill Patrick is, at least, about power, about human events, but the second point is that with regard to defense, God damn it, who fought for ADM?

I didn't.

Who's fought for Herb, all this stuff?

Remember when...

We're fighting.

I don't think the other bodies are that close to it, too.

The conservatives have always been loud amongst themselves.

He said, Ron, let me tell you about this.

We never hear from him.

Understand me.

This isn't support we want, but they want to attack the liberals.

Well, I asked Buckley last week in Kansas, you know what I'm saying, on a board in this older state, a sermon.

It's a very good record.

I said, Bill, you're giving the president a bad time.

Who are you going to support?

Oh, he said, I'll support the president.

For Christ's sake, you don't mind banging around?

No, we don't mind banging around.

We're more conservative than Barry.

We're here to be banged, you know that.

But I was going to say that when we've got good causes, you're conservative.

No, let's take on... Not support me.

I didn't call me to attack the liberals.

Attack the Humphreys and the Muskys and the McGoverns and the Kennedys.

They're wide open, Barry.

And they're...

Yeah, kick them in the balls.

This is what we strongly felt here, that we've made a mistake maybe in thinking that there needs to be more defensive presence.

And there's been too much thought of that rather than of attacking the opposition.

The opposition's a lot smarter.

They attack us.

They don't defend themselves.

And the problem is a lot of our supporters end up doing the same thing.

Let me tell you an interesting thing.

There is a theory of politics which you and I understand.

Very few of these other people understand it.

When Eisenhower was here, you know, the whole bit was, and it worked in that period because he was a figure above the bat.

All of a sudden, he said nice things about Eisenhower.

I mean, that was lying for him.

But it didn't do a damn thing for McCarty.

As you know, the party was awful weak in 1960 when they ran.

They were very generous and so forth.

Now at this point, I don't want a bunch of people slobbering over the president.

To hell with that.

I'll take care of that.

But they ought to be kicking the balls off of the McGoverns and Humphreys before, but you just... And because that makes news, too.

You can't get...

There's only a handful of senators, Republican senators, who will do this.

You're not going to get the Percys, the Javises, even Jim Pearson.

Oh, yeah, that should be acting better, but he's not.

Now, Buckley does a good job.

He's a good man.

Jim Buckley and Brock.

Brock.

Thank you.

Yeah, who does really strong people?

Oh, they're wonderful people.

That's right.

Of course, another thing, too, we've got to realize, they'll say something and don't get to play it.

You'll get to play it because of your name.

Not necessarily.

Now, the question is, I received the Washington Post.

Well, thank God.

What's the thing?

It does great out west.

When you're down there in the mountains, it's like you can start to see some guys that time.

You and I were talking, that's what it was for you.

Go after them.

I'll write about human events to them then.

Right.

I don't know if the factory came up yesterday.

I think it was.

The factory came up early.

It's just in that line.

And Tom Wicker came up yesterday and said, it's going to sound awful.

It's terrible.

It must be awful.

It's the worst thing I've ever seen all along.

I say, if you go to those factories, how can you do this?

No, I don't know.

I don't know.

Organs.

I'm not really talking about the general strategy.

Bob put his thing on it, where he said defend and the president kick the shit out of the opposition.

But I'm going to talk about the tactics.

You can't do it in the general way.

You've got to take care, you've got to frankly overstate, exaggerate, do what they did last.

But God, people are saying irresponsible arrest.

If that's what makes them, is that they're the same thing?

Well, the first, the corrections never catch up with the charges.

The third goes, what he needs is a guy like Dole used to be, who loved to see his name on the front page of the paper and knew that the only way he got there was to attack irresponsibly, say something irresponsible.

And he didn't.

He used to attack irresponsibly all the time.

Now he's a genius.

And most of the time, the chairman thinks he's got to be a citizen or something like that.

— 1 min 21 s with no transcribed speech —

I think we've got a problem in terms of it's not, we're putting too much of a low bow down here.

It's like Harlow did when he had charge of congressional relations.

Why has McGregor gone back?

Because McGregor keeps more of it down there and more of it himself rather than in here.

Now, at the present time, we've got the whole cabinet and the Senate and the rest saying, well, what does Colson suggest we're going to do, right?

What's Colson's office going to do?

Nobody ever sits and thinks.

Although they hear him on that, just at that point, that it's up to you to not wait for directions from the White House to get out.

We could let Kevin be.

But it doesn't happen.

It happened.

What kind of an officer is open to the options?

And we praise the hell out of Brock, I mean, out of someone.

So I thank you and Bush and Richardson for doing it, although they didn't do it on their own.

They did it on inspiration.

what do you mean that's everything well i just understand the purpose of this discussion is the long-range tactics has nothing to do with the short range because on the basis of the short range and i think we came out of that thing with probably a hell of a lot bigger asset than we realized on the personal standpoint the uh you won't find it around here too much i mean our people here are too close to the russians posting all the rest

but how in that country something happened on that day.

Don't you agree, Bob?

I think so.

I think we've got to, I don't think you can be sure of it, and I think you've got to, and maybe not, we've got to be sure not to let it set in the end of the way.

I think it did.

I feel strongly, but I don't feel ever so that yet.

Ever so that.

We know that it had a profound effect on some people, that the people that it affected are those that...

The wires would indicate that, the centimeters kind of stuff would indicate that, but the people that it affected were strong, were very distressed.

But maybe they were ours already.

That's the interesting thing about Meacham's Daughter of Time, you know, that's...

A good point.

In other words, she sees her old man as a villain.

Even she saw him as a villain.

So I'm sorry for that.

And feels his distress that her old man's becoming a bad guy.

The one thing that we've got somehow, that it isn't enough just to let that one go.

There is the enemy there that's a useful one.

And he's a hell of a lot better enemy than Congress.

That's right.

We can't win fighting the Congress, though.

You know, one of the most revealing things that came in on the wires last night, wouldn't be printed in Washington, was that at the racetrack, it was a very interesting story.

It was a very interesting story out of Miami, but it was a very interesting point to pull account of what happened.

The first mention of it was of the local union, that this race is in honor of the local union, and there was silence in the stands.

There wasn't any reaction.

And then it went on, which is a member of the Aprilville CIL holding its convention today in Miami, and there just was a unanimous chorus of loud boos.

The Aprilville right now, you couldn't find a more unpopular institution because of me.

The great game he has to play, and this is a terrible title, which you can fall off the other side of this very easily.

The great game is not to martyr him.

To let him with all the rope that we can give him.

And then, at the appropriate time, whoever he embraces as the Democratic candidate becomes the issue.

Do you want Richard Nixon, who's fighting for all the people, or do you want George May, the selfish specialist of the party?

I don't know what I'm going to say.

Well, I still come back to the one thing that we could do what we wanted, which would be to use Hudson.

He's going to be on television tonight.

on a public broadcasting service program that doesn't that doesn't count but the news that he would make out of that uh it could be very important how he handled it he was there with you yeah well you gotta say something you gotta say something and the question is

Maybe there is.

There just has to be some more thinking about that today.

How can anybody be worth it?

That was three years ago.

The Congress did it under the Capitol Commission.

And the President, he hadn't been raised for 20 years.

People don't look at the President of the United States as him as a union boss.

He knows you have a lot of expenses to deal with.

Well, the timing is different also.

He didn't pray and direct the violence of the president.

You know that's coming back before the convention, isn't it?

What, the tires?

No, the thing he was saying.

What, your hand doesn't work?

No, it doesn't.

But that's one where, again, I think the fable that it is, he can't get to it.

I mean, I'm not arguing that technology could make a public relations thing out of it.

Right.

Yeah.

He might as well have blessed with the thing that the president should do on television, take it on to your office, I guess.

Right.

Well, I can't find God even wanting to go to Miami at all.

That's because he's not as close to it.

There's no way for you to take it on, there's no way for the government to take it on, but there's somewhere there's...

He's done a bad thing for the public people.

Oh, no question.

The kind of thing that needs to be done is some very skillful publicity about George Maney, his show producer, and what else.

Yeah, but you have Maney.

But the right kind of profile story is now by the right people on George Clooney and

That would be good.

I'm sure they're not.

But there's little things that Bob says he's got to probably relate to, and those little things mean more than what the Baylor Bill has been directed at.

We ought to get a picture of him getting in his windows.

So that's the one I want to get.

We ought to get a picture of him at the golf course at the race track.

I mean, I'm sure a lot of people go to horse racing, but a whole lot of people don't, and most people know that horse racing is a investment business.

Let's remember also that he has one great vulnerability, and that is his own temper.

And if photographers are around taking pictures of him at critical times, it doesn't matter who's the photographer, it could be somebody higher than the outside.

I can put a photographer to work alone, just all the time, taking pictures of every place he goes.

Well, you see, it'll drive him nuts.

That kind of thing just sends him home.

They say, well, I'm doing something.

I'm doing a feature.

I don't think it's a story.

I'm a freelancer.

I'm going to try to sell it to...

I'm trying to freelance it, trying to make a living.

A lot of work, trying to make a living.

I don't think it's a story.

It may not make it to the bottom.

We have to get... No relation to it.

That'd be very...

There's got to be...

And that'd be great to get him mad, but be sure you get it wrong.

I was taking some, you know, I was taking movies in that convention hall.

When you went into the crowd, I just wanted to take movies of me because it was much more interesting to you in the crowd.

Nobody took TV cameras for it on him.

He was furious.

Every time I'd raise my camera up, a guy would hit me with his elbow.

I saw a little ground up back in the crowd somewhere, thinking I was away from the sergeants at arms.

They put somebody on.

Since they were all that quick, I said, let me make you out of it.

But probably they hadn't put up.

Bang!

Somebody hit me again.

So we can work over photographers that way, too, you know?

Sure.

Photographers...

Ninety percent are good for us on our side.

They're really not.

That's the proof that's ever been allowed, basically, though.

Let me say, while I raised the point that it was only because of the CVS, it was only an indication of a larger problem.

It's good.

A larger problem is that we cannot do things here without doing causes in there, and so on.

And, uh, but that, that little needle that goes through, it was a goddamn thing, good, good thing to do.

Oh, and that picture that ran all over the country of the kids with their hands on their shoulders.

Yeah.

I was just saying, isn't that a marvelous picture?

Of the person, you know, the girls, both with their hands on the person's shoulders.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

You see, the thing that we tend to overreact a little bit as a person, because the thing is that we're sensitive too.

Across the country, the fact that CBS gave us a little jab for spartanizing a damn thing, but people look at that picture and they say, isn't that wonderful?

And we can't overlook that.

We can't do that stuff that they're not looking for.

Now we do.

That's the beauty of the Coastal Operation.

Goddamn it, we're at least finding out what the hell they're saying about us.

And I must say, the Mart Allen Operation.

Now, that's what I know.

I know that the Mart Allen...

It bloated on the more negative side.

Don't change it.

We want the dog to change it because we've got to know the words they're saying about us.

And I notice that, and basically the reason it is bloated away is that we've got a very conservative group over there working on it.

Yeah, the conservatives tend to be negative about everything that's been done.

And that's good.

That's the kind of deal I'm right on, sir.

Also, Mr. President, it's clinical.

You cannot put an emotional content into that news center.

No.

Because Mort does once in a while.

I got one night on CBS when they did such a good job of covering what was it?

Not Mort, where we were.

At CBS City.

And Mort was decided to cover it.

But by definition, it's clinical.

When you get people like Lausche and Aiken and old hardship and old timers reacting the way they did, you just can't read that into the news.

There's no way you can write that.

I don't think there's any doubt about it.

And the follow-up today on the out-of-the-union thing, as much as it has gone to, as it has gone to, as the hell of a lot of the evening people said there was a lot of guts, chutzpah, chutzpah to come down here.

And it's Rizal promoting that line.

That's his favorite.

Rizal?

Oh, God, he's just spent the whole weekend going around talking to anybody and everybody who was from the press, just praising me after the set.

He's done a great job.

He'll go great.

It's not our dream, though.

Well, I'm glad to hear that, because at all, I couldn't believe what you just said.

I couldn't figure why, according to the mayor.

I mean, the mayor's a liberal, but an honest one.

He'll get off once in a while.

I don't think they're that far off.

I don't want to go on all the time.

You can't expect it.

If they do, they lose their credibility.

But on the other hand, this was a job that was not any rather than working together.

I think what we need to come back to you today with this person is a carefully thought out analysis of where we go from here over the next several weeks.

I think it's very, on this issue, it's critically important.

And the way we handle it,

can be a make or a break if it goes too far and jeopardizes phase two, then you've got one possible bad reaction that we created the confrontation, made the confrontation, and that's the confrontation.

On the other hand, if we can walk that tightrope to the point where meaning becomes

But the people that get into that basically here have got to get some experts.

So the people that I think have to get into that, you've got to connect yourself and see whether Schultz wants the same players to do it, whether you want a champion champ.

You've got to get Cotland.

Because Cotland has got a political account.

It's better than any of the people I've seen together out here.

The only other one I would suggest is possibly Grunstein.

I think sometimes when we have too many people in on a deal,

that you don't, you just, you don't have enough time to check.

But those are the three that I think should be there.

Collins, Schultz, Rumsfeld.

Do you have any other candidates?

Is that Rick Schultz?

No, it's not.

That is a really good trade now.

Schultz, Schultz can recommend all the labor that I need.

Rumsfeld will be there in three seconds.

Collins, the political cell.

I think he got a pretty good balance there.

When did you get the full results, sir?

Well, that isn't factoring in any particular reason.

No, I'm just curious, sir.

It might give us something more to live with.

Yes, it will be effective.

The long-range strategy is slightly different.

Yes.

I wanted to check one other thing, President.

I'm trying to set up a secret meeting in New York on that matter I discussed with you Saturday morning.

The hound has come up with a place which is not ideal because it has no separate entrances.

I know Rockefeller is a place where there's one entrance and one street, and one can come in through his own way.

But before I approach him, I know it's extremely discreet.

Best place.

Nobody, anybody would expect you to be at Rockball or any of those.

There's no problem.

But I would go to... You know, I'm going to start... Terry would go to the early season of Primitive, uh, Turkey.

Yeah, that's good.

And I think, uh, it would be much better to have a hotel.

Good.

And Rockball is perfect.

Perfect idea.

Good.

I just didn't want to do it in case it blew without checking.

Oh, it's all better.

Okay.

But if I...

If you've got another chance of blowing... We think I will.

You'd be a good enough liar to touch it.

You've got a lot of practice.

Okay.

I think what we're doing now is we're going to reverse that.

The fact that I can't decide who's strong in a political season.

And we have opponents who are totally without morals.

The moral standards have gotten them.

We've got to fight in the same way.

And I mean, cut their goddamn balls off.

And that's what we have not been able to do effectively.

Maybe it's just impossible, although we aren't doing anything.

We are getting some of it across, aren't we?

Sure we are.

And we can, if I have a question, we'll get more.

Let's just do it in bed when there's a glitch.

Actually, we're a half a dozen guys, we have to call every week and say, for Christ's sake, calm down.

Yeah, exactly.

I think maybe you're right about that.

There's no problem with that.

well the fact that the white house is doing this i think it is doing well there's some problems so i would prefer i would prefer to take our lumps a few lumps that we were involved

Hits of 20 million people or 40 million people are going to watch it without a way of doing it.

As long as it comes out that you were badly treated, rudely treated, while on a courageous mission, which is really what came out.

The fact that the White House has managed that that happened, it's not bad at all.

I'm not talking serious.

I'm not talking mad that you were rudely treated on a courageous mission.

As he said, if you'd stayed down there for the weekend and just taken it easy, people could have smiled at you.

He ought to be glad that you're alive.

Now, this would have been the worst time in the world to, you know, sail in a boat around there, or ski down, or go over to Manistow, or screw you around, because that would have been well until they started making a move.

Nixon, Goldwater & Colson on AFL-CIO and Public Relations

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Nixon, Goldwater & Colson on AFL-CIO and Public Relations

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on November 22, 1971

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Cite this conversation