Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on 1972 Election and Cabinet

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We've got one problem on this here that I didn't realize.

Oh, just snuck through him.

That is Colombo.

He's out.

What is he?

Well, part of Henry's exactly.

He was out.

He's out again.

Okay.

It's election.

They're having a cabinet crisis or some damn thing.

I mean, I don't know who to talk to.

And this just came in from Henry again.

I had sent it back because I understood that.

And then it came back in.

So I'll check it again.

It came in Friday.

Well, he told me Saturday.

It's dated the 7th, which is Friday.

Whatever it is, the combo is apparently they're having some sort of crisis.

Okay.

They can't make the... Actually, even if he comes on the 25th is when he wanted to do it, he could do the Dutch guy the same day.

It just doesn't make any difference.

Well, Columbia, they do.

Columbia, they're saying a dinner.

Two-hour office meeting plus a stag dinner.

The Dutch, you don't give a dinner.

But if Columbia's not coming, then we don't have to worry about it.

I agree with that.

I think it's screwed up.

Okay.

Another one you have to put down, as I mentioned to you, is the Don Hughes.

Well,

If you're not interested in doing any of the joint cheeks, there's going to be a chance to do that if you want to do the other thing at this point.

I have a medium-sized finger, but I'm sort of just a fan.

I actually don't have to have her.

I can just have him.

If you'd like to do health services now, Mr. Preston.

They're all here.

Right.

Just to get that out of the way.

Yeah.

Where are they?

Close up.

They're assembled in the personal room now.

They'll be doing that as lunch.

That's just a handshake.

Just again, I'll just take an individual photograph and a group photograph.

Yeah, I'll tell them I'll be about three, four minutes.

Well, if you don't have to do Columbo, that would probably be the next thing.

Monday night, have Bob Brown accidentally be sure he's invited to that cabinet dinner.

You're going to have one of the black men.

I think it's a nice big dinner, okay?

You just need to do round tables, and then you honor people when it is time.

That's the time.

We've got to produce more stands.

Cliff Harden.

You should be honoring stands, Harden.

You should have the letter, too.

Well, we ought to go for something totally different.

Yeah.

You have the strings all the time, so let's not have the strings all the time.

Let's have the ironing course, but maybe just something different.

Maybe the minimum we've ever seen.

Well, you don't want entertainment in these, do you?

It just wants something in the dining room.

Yeah, except for an awful late evening.

Yeah, I think it should just be dining room.

Let's have something different for the strings.

Maybe this time.

I don't know what the hell you can get, though.

I mean, you're a kind person.

Everything is good.

And there's one we thought about a while back.

Oh, he's got an awful good show that's been in Ford's Theater twice.

It's this guy Max Moran who does the, he does a combination one-man show of ragtime piano.

He's the world's greatest ragtime piano player.

He does the history of ragtime and stuff.

And then he does Mr. Dooley.

And he does a little characterization and reads some, or he doesn't read it, he recites some of Mr. Dooley's

political commentary type stuff.

You know, he's very, very good.

We looked at him for a Beeping at the White House type of thing.

He'd have to be in a combination with someone else at one point.

But it's very ugly, because he, you know, all that maple rag, tiger rag, and things like that that he did.

But he's really a first-stage thing, and he is a dining room thing.

He would do the piano stuff.

They've been working on a lot of other ideas.

But this is the time when you can do one that isn't.

Social page type stuff.

We're going to have one.

We're going to have one by the time, I'm sure, this year.

This guy's got some, you know, expressions.

I just talked to John Roach about, you know, the environment and what we're going to do.

I saw his background.

I was reading John.

I mean, I've had every two weeks a speech, you know, or something.

I remember this guy.

He said, it's fine.

But I said, I think it would be better off to go off and maybe do it two days.

And he could walk his life and then drop it for a while.

He agreed.

He's going to work on it.

What I meant is that I really feel that building something in the environment every month is so obvious.

What's your judgment on it?

That it isn't going to, in other words, I think we've got it between now and the election.

We've got

But I'm just trying to show a lot of ways we've got to give some credit.

You know, boy, did he serve.

Get some of the Julie's doing their kind of stuff.

And that made, well, Andrew's going to do more.

Pretty good.

And, well, Patrick, her part.

And I think it's something I can do right now.

And I think the idea that they're doing the film is fine.

It's presenting the message, you know, I don't think he can solve it, and that works, but let's try.

And so they're interested in the environment.

The environment is really the main issue, though.

It's, you can see it, you know, they've got the companies talking about it, and they've got, you know, everything that I am is certainly up.

It's there, but not up.

Well, we figured there's potentially something in it for the others if we let them have it.

Sure.

And it is one way to talk to young people because they seem to be overwhelming.

Well, if they're asked about it, I think they say it because it's fashionable.

I think that's a good chunk of it.

And I don't think their interest is as big as it was.

Let me be wrong then.

All this restyling the business has been nothing.

staying up for a day.

Recycling centers, there are volunteer centers in the suburbs where people bring their trash and then the volunteers sit there and smash up all the bottles with sledgehammers or something.

Take the cans and separate the metal from the paper or something.

You know, we've studied that, though.

I saw a study.

It doesn't mean it'll be shit.

You know, it's 5% of a major, and they say there's absolutely nothing about it.

You hate to tell them that, but it's... Well, you read that Drunkard article, didn't you, in Atlantic, that Danny Gerben has sent in, where he makes the point that

That's right.

Let's suffer with the environment for now, with the problems, and try and build our technology, because that's where we're going to solve it, not with all these silly new gooders.

He makes a hell of a point.

He says the problem of the environment isn't going to be handled by long-haired students emoting about it.

It's going to be handled by crude-cut engineers and technicians who do something about it.

Very good.

Well, I was going to say, if you have this problem, and also if you're going to have a problem...

We've got to develop some policy with regard to making sure that Congress is energy and so forth.

I guess that we probably will do it.

But I don't think that television this time, if you agree on that, that television

Well, and I don't think you want to be on television with some, even if he's a good man, saying, I need this man back in the Congress that puts you back in the partisan pool.

I should have a picture of him.

Sure.

Let him use the other thing.

I don't think he should do radio tapes either this time.

No.

Because, again, you're a pitch man for another gun.

Our argument to them should be the President's going to say this.

which they all agree, stay above the battle on the land, be president, and just, you've got to look at it, the more votes Richard Nixon gets, the better.

I'd send messages, written messages, not radio tapes.

Why do I have to do that?

I think we just say there are too many of them.

We start this year, the calendar year, we don't do anything.

Okay, and then you're going to get less errors.

Do you tell less errors and you won't do one?

Yes, I do this, but I would not tell like just many exceptions.

But tell the others there are no exceptions.

And tell less of them.

I'm telling you about your goddamn thing.

Because, you know, you're bound to get that.

You're getting somebody where you have to get Jerry Porter or something.

You can't say no.

The other area, of course, is Henry's area.

Okay.

What do you want, son of a bitch?

Yeah, man.

Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on 1972 Election and Cabinet

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 10, 1972

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