Nixon, Colson & Haldeman on Dan Rather and Media relations

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You have trouble unwinding after one of those, don't you?

I stop, but not like the ordinary person.

I do.

I've done so many things that I have.

I usually say it later on.

I usually say that for one, because I...

I put more into the circuit than most people do because of my...

I don't work as hard as I used to.

I mean, I know more about it.

All the way through, you know.

I mean, it's better than the other column.

Here's the economic stuff.

But here's mine.

See, I get it down, and it points to me.

And so they wham, wham, wham, wham.

And you get it.

So for us, it's true.

Well, if business goes as it could be, I mean, I often think that sometimes we spend more time, spend more time,

that he isn't murdering somebody.

And also, I frankly wouldn't have the energy to wear yourself out.

Remember, law school was a good place.

But the second time, I was a father.

There was context.

And I had the generation come along.

I got up very early in the morning.

About five hours.

I studied for three hours, four days, and it was just like that.

Very confident.

I said, my God, now I'm confident.

I'm not going to do this.

So again, I got up at five, got up at four.

It was insane.

Because what happened was that even though I was fighting to eat, then I ate.

So I was just like that, and I got up.

Well, I feel for you when you do these because I'm just watching.

I get sedated.

If I couldn't get sedated before, I thought that's fine.

will be coming from.

Oh, God, I get thinking of every question and I relive it.

Yeah, I'm getting like a bastard for that.

And I just, I, I'm only watching the movie, I'm not in there pitching, but I, I feel like it when it's over, yeah.

It's a, that was as, that was as much of an emotional world as last night as anybody's ever seen.

I think that, that rather, he was emotional.

Oh, yeah.

Oh,

You heard that he called home and asked me to see if I could come.

And I declined for obvious reasons because I heard he was setting me up.

I don't know if he intended to set me up.

I didn't know the person.

I thought it would be good.

But God, I don't know.

I just figured I didn't want him on a charming basis.

I knew he was going to be antagonistic.

And so I... You notice one small thing.

all through this book, and the preparation has, well, you know, Dan, Dan, I feel this, I think, which, of course, was Johnson's way.

I remember calling Mr. Dickerman by his first name.

I said, Mr. Raddick, Mr. Raddick, Mr. Raddick.

Well, it also projects you with a great deal of dignity.

And Bob said that you were concerned that you should have hit him on a couple of times, right?

I don't agree.

I think that you... Well, some people felt...

They had the company called that after the... You remember the one where they kept badgering and badgering me about not giving up the attention?

Yeah.

And all that.

Yeah.

He said, Mike, he said, now look, I've answered that question three times.

I'm not going to answer it again.

I'll do it in the next question.

He probably was right.

I should have said it.

Something not, I don't know, probably was said.

But the tone of last night, Mr. President, the lighting, the mood of the room, the way it was set up, your restraint and dignity came through.

And calling him a survivor is just part of that.

And you patted him on the head a couple of times.

Yes.

You know, you said where you work.

Which home are you talking about?

Your office or your what?

I mean, you just, you put it down so nicely that I think if you had gotten...

I talked to CBS a lot.

I said, that's what you reported, you know, on CBS.

Right, that's true.

I didn't remember it was recorded on CBS.

What's beautiful is that you reported on CBS.

That caught his ears and shit, but maybe I hadn't studied that way.

He said, I don't know, he reported it in your mouth.

I got it.

You got him wondering.

Well, he was on the spot.

When you think about it, he's... Well, just think the guy.

It's the biggest goddamn thing that ever happened to the man.

Sure.

And he's trying to step into the shoes of Crankite and Severide.

He wants to make Marlowe stop jobs.

Right.

And he's competing with Mike Wallace on it.

Mike was a man because he wasn't selected.

Mike, for some reason, sent a message to Henry Kissinger, who was one of their friends.

And I'm just, you know, holding them together, and it's like, good to hear you.

My God, I admire him for it, but they stick together.

And he said that, he said, Mike was hurt that I had selected to add the rest of the men to the board, and I had him in contact with their crying stage.

Mike, do you think the president selected these people?

Mike, select them.

If you did select him, Wallace would be a perfect guy to select because he's been getting friendly and conservative.

He's come a long way since he used to be a raving liberal.

But it's a mixed blessing for him, Mr. President, because he didn't come off that well.

No, sir.

Well...

Well, I was in the minority at the 815 meeting.

I thought the picture was excellent.

Very, very good.

George didn't like it because he said it looked down on you and made your eyes smaller, sort of jowly, but it didn't come across that way to me at all.

It came across with you looking very firm, very strong.

Well, they said it didn't matter.

Yeah, it was good, and the tone was right.

There was something about the room and the lighting that was very effective.

It was low-key, and that's why Radha looked bad, because Radha tried to get...

kind of sharp and abrasive, and he looked a little immature.

He didn't look... You think so?

I don't think... Well, I...

It was quite impressive the way he'd done all his homework and brought in his little cards.

Oh, he'd organized...

He had all those things.

Of course, some people, some people, of course, resent that, except for Christy.

Her friends would send her a note, and he had to read his questions off the cards, but he didn't prove anybody with that.

Well, I tried to ask...

After we got all of last night's, I had Harry Gantt call some of the political people around the country to see how they reacted.

And it's interesting, all of them, almost all of them mentioned Rather.

Rather, I'm sure.

Rather, Rather.

They don't think like, do they care what I say?

Well, no, they went both ways.

The interview went very well for the president, John Andrews.

He feels that Andrews was struck by Rather's aggressive attitude and direct questioning.

But as you go through these, about half of them thought it was the best performance you'd ever had on television, which I think is... Rather's hostility and President's coolness showed contrast between a sniping kid and dignified statesman.

Strong reaction from people saying it was the best interview the President ever had.

That was a Florida National Committee woman.

everybody thought that you came through very, very well.

And about a quarter of them have volunteered for comments about RADAR.

But when you go to the political people, almost all of them talk about RADAR because they're sensitized to the media hostility.

And from that standpoint, that's a good thing because it's a media hostility.

Well, our friend, I have a lot of people.

I imagine it does today, yeah.

And all the nuts do leave you feel good.

Yeah.

When I say the nuts, I mean the good people as far as I can go.

Because I couldn't have done more jobs for him than I did.

No.

I mean, if I'd gone a bit further, it would have been presumptuous for me to sign on a candidate myself.

But I didn't do it like Eisenhower.

I said, well, I haven't made my own decision.

Therefore, I can't .

I said, no, obviously, the convention will make that decision.

But I guess just to give you a curtain on my own thinking, I believe that if you don't win, you can't break it up.

And I think he's been courageous and some kind of controversial and done a good job.

I think this is a

That was a very strong statement for us.

Well, it was a very important political stroke, Mr. President, because it doesn't tie your hands.

Your options are open, as they should be.

Sure.

Let's face it, our options are open only.

It's like, for example, I've done the same thing with Hoover at the farm around the block and all that sort of thing, because I cannot get rid of Hoover if Hoover rejects.

That's right.

and I can't get rid of Agnew.

And I can't get rid of him.

So the whole point is they've got to determine their own minds.

So therefore, my view is to be just as nice as they can so that they do it.

Well, not only that, but in the meantime, between now and the convention, the media would just have a field day trying to drive you and Agnew apart, speculating unkindly, speculating on others.

This puts a cold war on you.

You know, one thing, Chuck, we did accomplish two things last night in that trip.

how'd you like the way I stuck it to him, that 68 bomb, bomb hole?

Oh, my, well, that was that son of a bitch who was talking about that.

He didn't raise that question.

When they pulled the bomb hole, if there was any error, it was political, that was.

And not a one of them speaks about it.

No, nobody ever said it was politics.

Oh, you stuck it to him last night about six times.

Massively.

The premise is?

Yeah, and, uh,

I mean, when you talk about press, I know there's a pool where the press has their own credibility.

They have their own.

Oh, hell.

Air shows the press is down, too.

Where's that?

I said, the press.

We all have a responsibility to build it up.

That kills the sons of bitches because it gets in the way of that cocky, snide attitude.

He won't have a cocky, snide attitude this morning.

What have you been able to do?

There's been a lot of telegrams, letters, and by 10.30, let's see if I can find this.

Yeah, by 10.30, there had been about 60 phone calls to his office.

His secretary was virtually in tears because she wouldn't let calls through to him.

But she kept saying to the callers,

You're complaining?

We all thought he did so beautifully.

One of the last reports I had was that she was just terribly distraught over the call.

She was taking the message as faithful.

The first thing is, we all here wanted to see Jesse, we wanted to see Ray, because he was in the agency.

They were killing him off.

They thought that's what they wanted to see.

We wouldn't know our bodies, but it's Manolo.

Is Manolo around?

Did he go out?

He just went over to the residence.

Why did he do it?

All right.

We do have quite a lot of software to put in on this phone, but it's here.

Well, I think just a few calls that we can lose, because otherwise they'd all be sitting around there smug and back and sassy at her.

Unfortunately, we don't have a waiter.

We've got Jerry Warren, who's fine, but he's a punctual one to me.

Let me just stop there.

But I, this is no time to my hard-pressed kind of shit.

Somebody else can just sort of walk in there and grab me, grab me, grab me, and I'm going to get bleak up and

Well, I've got Shumway doing that, who does it on a very effective, very low-key basis.

I told him today to get out of the office and circulate with the press people that he talks to.

I haven't had the report back from him.

I'll have it this evening from Shumway.

I just don't want to go out and talk to his friends.

Oh, yes, he's written a letter to Rabbit.

Wow.

He said, I'm not asking you for a correction, but I'm sending you this note to say that while I appreciate your quoting their surveys, I also hope in the future they can be quoted in the context in which they are asked and reported.

Goes on to tell precisely what the questions were.

And he said, the one point I thought was quite out of context was your assertion that only about one-third thought the president had kept his promises made in 1968.

While technically correct, in fact, the division is quite close, 44 to 37%.

but he has not kept his promises.

The implication of the way you put it was that by two to one, most people think the president has not kept his promises.

And he just takes each one of his poll questions.

Now, he's letting me give this to Evans and Hoback and one or two others, so we'll...

we'll create a little, uh, rift between... Oh, sure.

He can't help help fight them, because he needs their business done.

Well, I... Well, now that he was pissed off... Oh, genuinely.

Oh, God, he was incensed last night.

Because he...

But he liked it first.

I was going to say, he thinks you're best when you're under that, that kind of, uh...

He prefers the adversary proceed.

Yeah.

Your, your points do come across, come across a hell of a lot stronger that way.

I suppose, and so I, while it's tougher on you, I know, uh,

It's nonetheless a great year.

It's a better way to make fun of me.

That's what I'm here for.

But I, uh...

I don't know if at all you should get this kind of a thing.

You're up against... You're up against...

These specials at that time of the night don't get a hell of a big audience.

Our Christmas shows are only ten billion.

Well, ten billion is ten billion.

Well, it depends how you read it, the Christmas show.

They may have gotten more than that because Nielsen doesn't take the overall number of sets in use that week.

So you have to project based on the New York ratings.

And if you did, which came out at 7.6%, and it would just depend on how many sets were on that night.

It could be anywhere from 10 to 12 to 15 minutes.

on the Christmas Eve program.

And NBC is convinced on the earlier one, the day of the presidency, that they had over 15.

They are saying 18 to 20.

Yes, sir.

On a 7.3 rating.

They only had a 7.3 rating on that.

Right.

That must have disappointed them.

No, not for a public service program.

Not when it was running against...

entertainment on both other networks.

And...

I would think you could do better than that, though.

That's not very good.

Well... That's... No, that's what you get with... Howard K. Smith was lower than that.

They got more than... Howard Smith, I know, was very low.

Was around 5-something.

And that was $11 million, if you remember.

Howard Smith was $11 million at 5.6, I think.

So NBC was very satisfied with that.

But the interesting thing about the Christmas at the White House night was that you increased the rating over the preceding program, which never happens with public service.

That means that people changed from another channel to CBS to see that Christmas Eve program.

That means they really had one.

They promoted that well, and people were aware of it.

wanted to see it.

One thing I think we ought to do though, I keep that, I give a couple of people who are, understand, don't get caught in the White House, don't get some goddamn thing in the column, some White House-stimulated letter, you know what I mean?

This is terribly hard because we've got so many goddamn leaders, but the idea that somebody out of

I mean, if our polls show this, some of them are going to say that.

Well, we won't get caught at it.

We only get blamed for the things we don't do.

We don't usually get caught at the things we do.

I end up reading about things that have been involved and I never heard of.

But your general feeling was?

Strong.

No.

And even in the minds of people, even...

where people didn't get an impression of rather, they got a strong impression of you.

The reaction was universally good.

There were an awful lot of people saying they thought it was your best time.

That we don't always get on decor.

We got a very large number that were, especially among the political people, which I think is great because that kind of charges up our feelings.

Mm-hmm.

We also, Mr. President, have this little group, Accuracy and Media.

They're good.

They just, God, they raise hell.

And they know how to get publicity, and they've established a good network of people around the country.

We got them in the ad class, right, and Crutchfield's group, the CBS affiliates.

Good.

They're raising a little hell, so.

Santanalia.

I got it.

Of course, we made some pretty damn good points last night on the news, the cart and the egg, and the campaign.

But the idea about what the peace trip is all about, the idea about why the bombing was done and how successful it was, and we're going to have another troop withdrawal.

Yeah, it's played very heavily.

And I think the networks will play heavily tonight.

They have to.

The wires today are running a very, very heavy excerpt from TV, and still running it today.

Wally Nears has done a political piece on it.

You made a lot of news.

It'll continue for two or three more years.

No, Rather is the curious one who, every time virtually we have a press conference, particularly on TV,

He always puts in the needle whether the president was angry or nervous or, you know what I mean, and, you know, goddamn, and there's nothing to it.

And like, and it's like after the, he was the only one, you know, way off the page in the AIDS order.

He says, the president was blown.

very strong, et cetera, et cetera.

And of course, everybody else knew that it was a tremendous achievement.

But I didn't really believe.

See, I have not bought anything there.

He sucks up to people.

He's a clever snake.

But I believe that he is basically

extremely antagonistic in terms of trying every time to stick it in.

And he only sucks up when he feels he has to for credibility.

You know, when I cracked him last time about this, I didn't want to get into it too hard, where I said, well, the crisis of correcting itself.

He said, we always want to correct ourselves.

We try to be fair and all that sort of thing.

I said, well, that's your problem.

That's your credibility.

See, that would burn their ass.

Oh, sure.

Even if they know what I did, well, they won't correct anything.

And he, least of all, we've gone to him.

The one time we really had him was when he had that unemployment rate wrong.

Remember, he called it at 6%.

Right.

Unemployment, and he did it three times on network news, twice on network news, once in the morning, twice an evening.

And then when we really nailed him to the wall, then he went on in the morning on radio and corrected himself.

And he did correct himself, but of course he nowhere near balanced the damage he had done with three negative reports.

Sometimes I like to be on the press and just talk about the press.

Oh, God, that's the one thing I'd love to do.

Which I can do.

Oh.

I can do it very fairly, and the rest of the time, just tell them why they aren't, why they're prejudiced and so forth and so on.

He was afraid to get too much into the present, you know.

He was, you know, he didn't, he didn't push me on that at all.

No, he didn't.

Because I was small.

He's a, he's an interesting fellow, and I refuse to see him, he's asked to see me, but I won't talk to him.

But he, he sucks around in,

in conversations with people here, he will say how really he wants to be fair, he really is objective, but then he goes on the air and just jams it to us repeatedly.

He's the one guy I think he's, well, sure, he's the worst, but he doesn't get the exposure.

He's already got a goddamn story with Conley.

Oh, that's an awful story.

Well, God, it's totally awful.

Have you talked to Conley since then?

All I've talked to him is just a total goddamn story.

Bunch of crap.

Mish-mash.

Sure, Major?

I wouldn't put it past him, except I'm a little nervous that Connolly doesn't go wandering off.

He's not.

Absolutely not.

That one statement he made when he came back from, when he left the Texas border thing, where he said, I want to go out and ride my horse.

in the prairies for a long ride and think about my own future.

I just got a little uneasy when you said that.

No, but that is in Paris, though.

Right.

I don't remember where I saw it.

Maybe.

Well, it's a...

I understand.

It's something kind of vital to you.

Well, he's just such a great...

He's very nice, though.

Oh, God.

Must be hearing a lot of expressions.

Well, that's all I worry about, is that his old cronies are there.

Johnson, Harris, and Baskerville.

They have to be.

They don't know what to do.

Boy, one thing I was glad to leave a rather insulting question on George Wallace.

He had conveniently indicated he was going to the Democratic primary system.

I thought that was a good thing to do.

It was a good answer.

He came right back to you and tried to force you to answer.

No, I got it already.

Well, thank you.

It's all set.

Thank you.

Time Magazine gave us a hell of a good build-up on the economy today, Mr. President.

Yes, sir.

It's a six-page article with a big headline that lasts a year of real recovery.

And it goes on to talk about the economic indicators.

Europe's predictions are being borne out.

And their Board of Economists has met again and now reaffirmed that next year will be a spectacular growth

And the Christmas sales were a howling success.

They just detail all of the things we've been talking about.

About the most positive article in the economy, I think, I've read yet.

And as a matter of fact, they advertised it all over the country.

Liftoff, 1972, will be the year of real recovery, in this opinion of Time's Board of Economists.

Wow, that's right.

And this is going, this they ran full page all over the major news.

And the article itself is very, very soft.

In fact, all the year-end stuff has come through.

You know, the various, even the conference board, which has been the most downbeat of all, is talking about a 6% real growth rate this year.

Which, if it happens, will really...

really eat into the unemployment.

Well, I'm sorry, Mr. President.

I'm sorry, Mr. President.

I apologize.

Well, unfortunately, I'm unfortunate, both of you.

That's very foolish.

Last year, and really last year, it was a good year.

It was moving up even before the new economic policy.

We forget, you know, the GNP in the first quarter, the GNP in the second quarter.

The third showed some lovely knock, but it was good.

I mean, look, it's all a question

You had the market and you had the consumer attitudes just plunging.

And that was the guy.

The media were getting it so hard.

And as a result, we went off to the economy.

As a result, the market was 50% above what it was last year.

It's 100 points above what it was the whole of this year.

Now, the market, we'll see what happens.

Going strong today, it opened up.

At about what time?

Well, at 2 o'clock it was even, but it was about five points up this morning.

Good heavy volume.

And down to even, too.

Yes, sir.

But it's... Well, it's not... Yeah, I'd be happy just to see it just leap along.

Maybe it can't just go up.

No, not when it's around 900.

You know, it's an interesting lesson on the economy.

We all forget around here how frantically we were fighting off the media reports night after night on television.

And we just talked about it a minute ago.

It was at least two and three times a week that we would get a devastating jab by one of them.

And that's what caused the public psychology to tailspin.

And then when you announced

the new economic program and took the issue away, they didn't have that to do anymore.

And they've really kind of stopped.

You get very little negative stuff now in the media or in the economy.

In fact, it's all coming through exceptionally strong.

But there's a lesson in taking the issue away from them.

Almost more important than taking it away from the Democrats is you take it away from the media.

They don't have anything to complain about because we've done

We've done so much, they can't pull this.

And they stopped paying attention to it, which is really what's happened.

In the last three months, we've had just a few negative reports on the economy.

And yet, when you think about it, the basic conditions aren't that different.

They had an issue.

They were riding, and they rode it.

Damned into the ground.

That's really one great lesson out of that August announcement.

It stole that issue completely.

And the minute they stopped talking about it,

What's happened to the public editor?

He's back.

That's good.

He won't let that issue die.

You know, it's good that we're doing well.

No.

What I had is...

Yes, now he dies.

You see, I didn't want him to die.

Oh my God, no.

If he does now, he's back with his boots on.

He's back with his boots on and he's kicked us again.

And he isn't going to get a sympathy reaction.

Every time he kicks us, he's going to revive the Miami story and give us a sympathy reaction.

And that's the thing we want to do.

If he had died a month after Miami, it would have been...

it would have bounced back on us because we would have we would have been blind but it's it's interesting he's he is keeping the damn thing alive he just sent out his i don't have it with me but he sent around the monthly federation which is the a of the world cio publication and he went out of his way to have pictures of him smiling and applauding while you were speaking he wrote a

wrong two-page statement about how he personally escorted you to the platform.

He thought he was going to escort you off.

But you got away from him and went down into the crowd.

He thought he was.

He didn't make any moves.

Well, he said he had planned to escort you back to your... You remember, I tried to cancel him.

Oh, you grabbed his arm to shake him.

Yeah.

He forgets that all of this was televised.

I tried to cancel him, and I turned away and tried to walk.

He didn't try to walk with me.

No.

And the more he... Television killed him.

Television killed him.

And the more... And even the written press did.

You know, you got a summary from Liv Klein of all the emails.

Yeah.

And you sent me a note saying it looked more like they were blasting meanies and praising your courage.

I went back to a lot of them, and the anti-meanie stuff did outweigh the... Yeah.

But not by a heck of a lot.

Yeah.

An awful lot of these editorials that we went back and looked at were very positive on Europe.

I'm talking about your courage, telling it like it is, walking into the lion's den.

To Mr. Nixon's lasting credit, he admired, appraised us, and every time he raises that issue, it's just coming right on back.

I'm supposed to bring him in.

I think he's just got a recession.

Yeah.

All you have to do is tell him you have to be here.

I'm going to do the dad.

Well, and that you have his money.

That's all he needs.

That's his money.

Yeah.

We want to have the money.

You get him out there.

It's a total waste of your time.

It doesn't matter.

No, he doesn't.

Goddamn, we should have done better.

What's that?

Well, he wants to resign and become the chairman of Park Cut and find a successor.

I don't think he's being paid.

I don't think he's been paid at all, from what I understand.

I know nothing about the National Center.

I just know something about it.

All right.

He waived his salary.

Yeah.

Because they didn't have any money.

I think that's right.

All right.

Everything just feels that you need a quick, quick bit of a... We'll meet her.

Yes, sir.

3 o'clock.

Yes, sir.

I was, uh...

I wanted to talk to you about another matter of course that came up regarding the, uh...

He apparently, he was quoting that thing on the phone about the cops, that he wanted to go to Texas to bribe the source of the convoy.

He was reading the Periscope thing.

It was in Newsweek, yeah, a couple weeks ago.

And I said, oh, don't worry about it.

He said, oh, good shit.

But anyway...

I just want to be sure you believe now that everybody around here is aware of his obligation to... Yeah, Peterson's president.

I recognize Conley's high sensitivity and the touch base of him calling and so forth.

Peterson, on his own, came in this morning to me and said, what was all that stuff?

He said, I can't believe that because when Conley came back from the Azores, he called me, asked me to come over to his apartment.

I went over and I said, I think it was Sunday afternoon or something, but I spent a couple hours with him at his request and he was just so wealthy.

When he got the agreement, he called on the phone from over there to say, you know, this is what we're doing and all this.

And he was told it was a great accomplishment.

He said it was a

Obviously, the whole thing was a skillful maneuver because Connie did back off of his position, but he said his press was just too fertile, and this had ended up, you know, with Connie getting credit for it all.

Just let me tell you, your assignment is to watch him.

Okay.

And I showed this in the day, for example, on the CEA, and I said, I want a woman.

He said, well, Connie, you know, all right, I said, you call him.

All right, we have this one.

But he is the man who's judging my wife.

Take her.

property that we cannot have any of the little boys around here i mean by our little boy people below the top people i don't think they must not be an appearance nobody will make a mistake intentionally there is always the possibility that someone will forget to check something within the race

even think of doing anything without talking to the company first.

That's the way it's got to be.

Do you want Price in California on the State of the Union at all?

He's got a draft in that you'll have on the plane.

Well, he could come out later in the week if you wanted to.

There's no real worry about it.

I probably will go out and

The drafts I got to do on that.

Yeah.

Well.

So there's a plane coming out Wednesday.

You can come out then.

Come out Wednesday, yeah.

If you wanted to work with one.

I don't know what the hell Brian's got to say to you.

It's Saturday at the present time.

Okay.

We'll do that.

On New Hampshire, we can't do it on the 8th.

Because the Secretary of State isn't open on the 8th, and it's a filing with the Secretary of State kind of thing that shoots down all the things.

The 10th, Mitchell suggested, then I said, that's Humphrey's day, so you can't do it then.

If you're going to do the Vietnam thing on the 13th, can't we go back to doing this on the 11th or 12th?

I just wanted to do it on the 12th, the next day, and that was in Vietnam.

I wanted two political hotels.

And New Hampshire, I mean, really, today's the story.

I mean, what's his name?

He's taken out the papers and filed the petitions.

I mean, and why don't we do it one year?

Why don't we do it before?

Well, what the hell reason?

Why can't we do it on Friday?

We could do it, well, because you have Sato.

We could, except for Sato.

You don't care about him.

Nobody's leaving.

Well, I mean, Sal is leaving.

Uh, wait a minute, wait a minute.

You mean, uh, you mean sensitive that we're trying to, that our story is, well, that's what I wonder.

It isn't going to be that much of a story.

No, it's not much of a story.

And we can do it late Friday afternoon.

Yeah, why doesn't he do it at the late afternoon briefing on Friday?

How's that sound to you?

The other thing is, you move it out to a Wednesday before Sato even gets in.

And let Sato completely get the Sato visit overriding.

I object to that.

You should get it done very early.

In other words, he's filed the papers today.

You'll get the notice today or tomorrow.

And you respond.

Follow your response on Wednesday.

There's no reason for me not to do candidate most of us there.

All right, get it done.

Because we have an extremely low key.

And it always does repeat what I said that I'm... You understand now what it's to do is to say I will become candidate.

I mean, I will do uncandid, but I will not campaign.

I mean, Trish asked me today about it.

She said they were trying to get her out to New Hampshire to do a dinner or a primary service.

My own view is that the family should also stay out of the primary service.

Do you agree or not?

Yes, sir.

Yep.

Because they can't help with the campaign.

What?

That makes them a campaign.

They're a campaign.

They should not be in a campaign.

That's right.

They should be out doing...

of doing the kinds of things that are non-political.

I don't think they should do political things.

Well, they're going to have to.

But they do it in a different way than a campaign.

That's right.

A campaign is in New Hampshire.

All right.

You get the word to Parker, because he didn't know what to answer.

That no primary, not to go frankly to the primary states.

Do you agree?

Wisconsin, any of them?

Yeah.

Well, California's different.

But you know what I mean.

Well, California, before that, you'd do it now.

Yeah, I wouldn't do it in Maine.

That's right.

That's right, Maine.

And in Wisconsin, you could do it now.

There was something to do with so forth.

Okay, we should get at that.

So that they're going.

I'll be taking this a minute.

Thanks, Steve.

Was it Henry Ford?

Yes, sir.

Henry Ford.

I think what that next out there must have been the television people.

Yes, sir, it was.

But they should always, you know, you never know when I'm going to be bringing somebody up.

The people should always keep that clean out there.

I should check it, Mr. President.

You should check it.

God damn it, you're not the janitor.

But there are about, there must be 1,500 janitors in this White House.

I see them all in on the room.

Now, God damn it, they didn't keep that clean out there.

There were at least 50 cigarette butts.

And it was important to it, right out here, 50 cigarette butts, at least 50.

And three paper cups.

and so forth, strewn out there.

It was a goddamned hog pen.

You could look out here and see it.

The press was seeing it.

It was there when it came in in the morning.

I thought, well, I suppose they just didn't get around to cleaning it.

I went out and looked at the drivers and they were still there.

But it is, you know what I mean, this goddamned staff is going to be shaken up again.

I mean the janitorial staff.

They are not going to leave this place looking like a hog pen around here.

That's going to leave that place looking like a hog pen.

I think they're going to have a cooling oven right after it.

They come in at night and clean up the office.

Well, it's not your job.

I just meant you, the janitorial staff.

Who was it, Scott?

Was that his job?

No, his.

It's the GSA office.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, what's his name?

who do normally an outstanding job.

Boy, there's no excuse for that.

We ought to get these clowns.

Okay, fine, fine.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll keep going.

I agree.

I don't think there is any excuse.

There isn't.

You know, I'm being unclean and the rest of it.

You agree?

I have some right on this.

God damn it, that's why we cleaned out that room out there a lot.

We raised hell about anything like that.

I mean, whatever I do, if it's ever outside your office, it's on a bullet road.

It shouldn't be any place.

You know, I don't like a lot of bills or messengers.

Well, good, if you give that guidance.

Yeah.

And tell Parker to call her and tell her, you know, and tell Julie, and she's got to go over to Christian Julie's primary.

Yeah.

Because I don't want to give these bastards anything right there.

Let them squeal out there.

They're not squealing about going to the primary.

I don't care if they do.

We're going to play our own way to it.

I'm sure that's right.

Maybe it's the wrong thing to do.

No, no, no, I would have a look there.

The family?

No, sir.

Why?

Well, that's it.

It looks like you're... No, sir.

Worrying about it or something.

That's right.

He wouldn't go, but his family wouldn't.

It looks basically...

I said that I am not going to the campaign.

Of course, I'm...

I think as far as the family, I know they're not, but as far as that is concerned, that looks like a direct entry into that campaign to be concerned about.

And I just don't have the audibility of it.

Don't you agree?

Yeah, I think I do.

I just try to argue the other side.

That shows you care.

It shows the local people you care.

I don't see why you need it, Tom.

No, I just don't think we should.

Why borrow a truck?

Why have the radars and the rest say, I wonder if you can get one more vote for me?

Not one stinking goddamn vote.

Not at all.

On the Japanese dinner Thursday night, Henry's gone up the wall.

We thought that he wouldn't be there.

He says, you don't understand that the Japanese consider him the second most important person in the entire world.

We could take a stab at asking Kennedy not to go to the dinner, even though he's there, on the basis of the ticklishness of the balance.

They don't have any opposite numbers, do they?

No, they don't.

Now, what they're suggesting, they've only got four principals and their fifth guy, whether our fifth were Henry or Kennedy, their fifth they would want to have is Ushiba.

And that poses a problem of having Meyer out.

I will not have Meyer.

But Alex Johnson says that is not a problem, that Ushiba should come and that it's not a problem to leave Meyer out.

And, uh, but that's still, we'd have to have, you could get 12 in there, I suppose, couldn't you?

No.

Well, let me tell you, we won't decide until I get there.

I would think the thing with God damn Henry is that I tell you, he is just childish about Boston.

And I cannot be on this one because his point is that after he did the China trip at all, I think he's going to be in the 80s.

All right.

Listen, let me tell you why he did the China trip.

This is the reason.

He never fails to say that he doesn't have to be in one of these.

Huh?

So, what do they call it?

It's one of those fetishes.

Okay.

I'll try another job.

It seems to me that I'll keep both angles apart.

Just not.

I think it ought to be when it's a better place to start.

Nixon, Colson & Haldeman on Dan Rather and Media relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 3, 1972

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