On January 18, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, Rose Mary Woods, unknown person(s), White House operator, and William L. Safire met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:17 am to 11:27 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 650-006 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
He was possibly off to get some of your people.
He started to, you know, he started to get on their back.
He started to get into a little, uh, a little, uh, a little, uh, a little, uh, a little, uh, a little, uh, a little, uh,
Secretary of State.
uh with records if you remember
I hereby appoint Critchard, now I am, I hereby appoint Critchard to head the U.S. delegation in Paris.
With the responsibility to head the U.S. delegation in Paris on the Chilean.
I don't want to show you.
I don't want to show you the moment.
and it's expressed in reply that I favor U.S. support of agreement to renegotiate the Joliet model.
It's totally
Yeah, yeah.
It's truly...
Oh, it's a photocopier action.
To abuse and express a number of occasions.
in various meetings on this matter.
It would very much honor you to part with us all.
Thank you.
I expect you to see that always the government strictly complies with my position, which is that you would credit that to the chosen government who are apparently Christian.
I'd rather probably in the circus.
I also have a copy of a photoshopped copy of the letter to me with my marker notes on it.
It says, President Bush, we'd like to see the marker notes on your letter.
And it says, Albert, send that to Roger.
Send that back to me.
And I see Schaffer very real.
Three months, period of consideration, pilot.
And, uh, this is our end of the movie.
We get together the hell over at Connelly's shop.
Our wedding at, uh,
Well, anyway, it seems to me, from what I see in the news now in terms of the government period, that they fight us.
I don't care whether it's natural.
Kennedy always gets a play, but I'm pretty all over it.
They fight virtually every day.
Our reactions, I know, may be a couple of steps on the wires, but they just don't get any play.
We haven't been getting just what we aren't getting any blood.
You know what I mean?
We can't fool ourselves on this, because I see that we've got to know more and more elephants.
We can't have calls.
They see them, and they like to see things that are creepy-ass.
But our people just aren't getting the blood.
Now, what the hell we can do about it, I don't know.
Except for a massive assault.
I think the only way is to just assault the hell out of them.
One of the difficult – well, we have a meeting this morning, Mr. President.
Clark McGregor has the Republican leadership there.
Yeah.
They're very confident, aren't they?
Yes, sir.
And that's been, of course, one of the problems.
Our guys have floated off to take it easy while the Democrats are campaigning like hell for president.
So we haven't had the troops.
Yeah.
They haven't had pretty much of a month this year.
Yeah.
You know, for example, on the war, Christ, they could be murdered on that.
I just, I've got to get hard.
The muskies and the hungrys, the blood is on their hands.
And we've got these, Christ's got these brothers of the first people there.
The men that sent our boys to Vietnam, who never brought a man home, who never reduced, the categories always went up.
Who are they not to cry about this?
What the hell would they have done?
Why didn't they do it when they had the power?
I don't think, who's doing the writing on this?
Do you think that you can't get more writers?
That's definitely a problem.
No, sir.
I don't think it is.
We, we, uh, Doug Kellett, uh, Oh, he's got a, he's got a, he's got a, Well, Doug is a, Doug is a political warrior and he's a conservative.
He's, I mean, despite some of the things you read about him, he's a hardliner.
In Carolina, this is where I remember the first time I had a bus.
Oh, yes.
Because of what he wrote.
He wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal.
That's what I remember.
But this is a shot in the goddamn head.
I agree.
Well, what we have to say is that the next responsible is the best student in the nation.
Goddamn, they had to be hit, though.
They had to be hit very hard.
Well, I agree with you.
They had to catch them on the floor and embarrass them and knock them into the seat.
Well, we had a very, very good briefing.
I've sent one of my men with Clark McGregor.
Noah Cook, who's been writing for Bob Dole and doing very well, is going up at 11, and he's going to start writing for the leadership and for Dole on the political counterattack.
He's a good writer.
Yeah, it's good.
It's tough.
He's a good hardline writer.
Buchanan has written some good stuff, like Barry Goldwater.
op-ed piece in the New York Times on the bombing was done by Patton.
That has that twist to it.
I have a young writer by the name of Carol Eakers who does very good political stuff.
He's tough and sharp and how it works in it.
So we have to know it's not a lack of writers, Mr. President.
The problem we've had over the last three weeks, we have not done well at all.
And it's been, I think, a threefold problem.
One, our troops have been complacent
And it's been very hard to get them cranked up.
I don't know whether it's the mood or the fact that they think things are going so well that they don't have to worry about it.
No, it's mainly the fact that it's vacation.
That's probably the way it always happens.
The second part is that our guys have been away while the Democrats have been out on the hustle.
The third part, which is the most realistic appraisal, is the press.
This has been the field day for building up the Democrats now.
We will start getting our licks in.
The Vice President put out this, not to bring you with problems, but he put out a hell of a tough statement on Saturday.
He got buried in the Humphrey series.
It's just that right now the focus is on building up the Democrats.
They basically gave us horror.
They gave us some stuff before we got to Christmas.
Now they figure they've got to try to get the Democrats.
I don't know.
And from a political journalist standpoint, the interest right now is the movement of the Democrats.
I realize that.
Apart from their basic biases, that's the case.
Cook went up this morning with four speeches, one for each of the four Republican allies.
And he's going to give them to him at 11, and I've told him that the problem I've told him, Mr. President, is not that they're
unwilling to do it, they don't know how.
Like, we have to go up there and actually not only reproduce it.
Yeah, he's the one who does.
But let's keep Scott constantly beefed up.
Get Barry.
Barry ought to get in the ring, son.
I think, I think Scott, Barry, Doe,
Those are the only ones, I think, that can do a goddamn.
I don't know anybody else that could.
I don't know where the hell Baker is.
People like that, he never opens it.
Yeah, he's not much of a... One of the things that we've discovered, though, Mr. President... Order is good.
Order is good.
that is more helpful than you will always see in the news.
Wendell Wyatt in Oregon, Gurney in Florida, Louie Wyman in New Hampshire.
And if you pick the primary states, the key ones, and they're getting back home publicity.
If Wendell Wyatt, or a better example, if Gurney or Louie Wyman take Muskegon very hard as they're doing that,
We don't see it in the national media, but in the states where the primaries are going on, it has its impact.
On Teddy this morning, we've got four good statements, one of them pointing out that David Humphrey has had to twice, titularly to the Democratic Party, has twice had to restrain Teddy Kennedy's youthful, exuberant, personal attacks upon the president and call upon Humphrey to do it once more, splitting Humphrey into, you know, every chance we have to build up
one Democrat at the expense of another is a technique that we've got to employ all year long because that really puts their feet to the fire.
It's a whole lot better than just roadside attacking.
So one of these statements is building up Hubert as the defender of the Democratic Party's conscience and not allowing the young senator from Massachusetts to run away with his personal attacks on the office of the presidency.
regardless of how he might, how partisan he might feel.
The bounds of partisanship go just so far.
That was a brutal speech last night.
God, that was just...
I don't think it's that way.
You know, when we talk about brutal, we don't mean brutal.
That's all.
You know, if a Republican out of office had given that speech last night, they have just said this is crass, this is...
The papers looked at him.
They put him on the front pages whenever he did.
He gives them problems whenever they build him up, because by comparison, he makes Muskie look like a very weak sister.
It really is.
I think Kennedy doesn't want to know when he does that.
The moment he takes that center stage that way, Mr. President, he weakens the enthusiasm of the Democrats for the candidates that they have.
I've been a fellow for a year who's been most concerned about Muskie's candidacy, but I have to say after Sunday, unless that was a very bad day for him and very unusual for him,
He's not going to be much of a guy.
I think both his dad and his announcement statement were typical of what he is.
And frankly, if you give us an nomination, it's all right.
They talk about color.
I mean, you understand.
Christ will go out and be the color again.
We'll be done.
But the point is, I do feel that you've got to get brutal as hell with these people.
I mean, particularly in just attacking them.
I mean, I don't, this is packing them on the war.
Let's start making the war the issue.
There'll be, in a week or so, you'll see there are reasons for that.
But the point is, make the war the issue.
They got us into war and Nixon is getting us out.
Has anybody ever said that?
Why don't they say it again?
I mean, they've got to send, they've got to send, they sent the men to Vietnam, Nixon's getting it up.
They increased American gas prices, Nixon's reducing.
Oh, they, they, no way, you know, got them good on that last week.
And, uh, they've all been reacting to his, uh, his escalator comment, which really, yeah, that really zinged him.
Because Humphrey spent his whole press conference every morning defending himself.
He said, he's, he's,
It's what the Christ did we do.
That's a damn poor answer.
They were not partisan, and now I am partisan.
What the hell?
But I mean, this is, I'm telling you, I see it as a golden opportunity to make the war easy.
Now, raise your hand if you want to take this again here.
Who are they talking about with me?
No, he's got a good speech for next week.
No, because of his divorce, isn't it?
He's beginning to come out.
Well, he called me yesterday for a...
Yesterday, over?
No, he talked for a head... Three?
Yeah.
Oh, shit, six.
And he said, do you suppose the president thinks less of me?
I said, Bob, I can tell you right now, he doesn't.
I guarantee it.
And he said... Tell him to go back and read, this afternoon, read two books.
Well, the time that I was alive, I said that, read about two of the great British crime ministers of the 19th century.
One is Lord Cecil of Melbourne.
The other is Blake's Israel.
But for Christ's sakes, I mean, of course, one was a Reagan, one was a Turing, but...
But in the political life, you know, unless you do what Teddy did, show the Congress, they can do what they goddamn please.
People will make more of them.
And they probably just want to search them.
That's probably not true, but you know what I mean?
They don't know the reason for the divorce.
Forget it.
Nobody gives a damn.
I never heard about it.
He walks in, I never heard about it.
I don't know his wife.
I don't know what the problem is.
I don't know whose fault it is.
None of my business.
I don't know.
I thought that we were rock and roll right now.
I never thought rock and roll was the worst.
I knew it was going to hurt him.
And I knew that he was marrying a woman and take the rest of her.
But I wasn't going to judge him because I'll crush it.
I knew it.
I know it's for a second.
That's his own goddamn business.
There may be something to it.
I don't know.
And I handled enough divorce cases as a young lawyer.
Not a minute.
Great.
All you got to do is handle fine when you...
That's why you know that there are two sides to every goddamn one.
You don't ever judge anybody else.
You don't judge if you can't.
Divorce is a terribly difficult thing.
It's wrong, and there are kids and all that.
You ought to avoid it if you can.
I mean, that's the thing about the Whigs and the difference and the reason he may not break the story.
Hope Nelson, his mother, it's really neither one of them.
They have their affairs, but they ever got divorced.
See, a politician could have any goddamn career he wanted, but he couldn't get divorced.
That's all right.
That's fine.
It's not me.
Tell him to read it.
He'll love it.
Great, great answer.
Yes, sir.
I asked him, I said, you're doing great.
I just want you to get up and kick him in the balls.
Well, I said to him, I said, will you get up tomorrow and let Teddy Kennedy have it?
He said, oh, my God, I can't let Teddy Kennedy have it now.
People will say, well, there's Bob Doe.
He's divorced.
Who's he to be attacking Teddy Kennedy?
And I would say, Bob, you've got to listen to me.
You've got to understand that it's only important to you.
It is not important to me.
He told me about it.
He was very...
But Bob is up in his goddamn mind.
I mean, but people can't hold a man in man's hand and that sort of thing.
I know these personal things.
He's got to get his kick about and be a man.
He said he went to dinner with Rebozo.
I asked him to.
Right.
And four other couples were there, and they were all divorced.
And he just said, Hope Lewis, who'd been divorced, and Rebozo.
Rebozo's been divorced.
And Rebozo, and he mentioned several.
Yeah.
So it...
Perhaps my closest friend, he was divorced years and years ago and he married for such an unhappy experience he never married again.
He just plays the field.
Well, what the hell?
That's his right, shouldn't it?
And that's Bob's right.
He's right to do it.
I knew Bob's wife, and she just let me.
I don't judge him.
I don't judge him because there may be things we don't know about.
But if I could get him, I need to do a little therapeutic work with him.
I'd like to get somebody else.
I'm down here.
Forty-five Republicans.
There's a lot of them.
They're going to start slumming somebody.
Well, Dillard's good.
He's got an acid tongue.
Well, I've got a couple of those.
You'll see my full voice.
The war is one that we ought to really... Let me tell you, Larry O'Brien's statement was not all that.
I mean, our people were stupid enough, some of them, to think, isn't that great?
Larry O'Brien, Henry would say.
He even says the war can't be a choice in Henry.
You don't think he said that to help us?
Because he didn't want it to be an issue.
Precisely.
God damn it, it was our issue, not theirs.
We didn't think how he said it, and we don't know.
That's the whole line.
There are two issues, Mr. President, that are going to undo the Democrats.
One is the war, and their having gotten us into a mismanagement of foreign affairs.
And the second is busing, and they're just cut right up the middle on that issue.
And as was pointed out this morning, and I've forgotten who's now on foot,
When they reformed the rules, Dick Scanlon of the Democratic Convention, the way in which you choose delegates, Scanlon was the guy who warned them.
He said, do you really want George Wallace arriving at your next convention with a couple hundred delegates?
And they never thought about that, but that's what's going to happen.
He said, Wallace is going to go into that convention on a platform of no busing.
And when he arrives there with a couple hundred delegates in his packet, which they can't stop him, I don't think at this point.
He just saw us right up the middle on that issue.
We are in marvelous posture at the moment.
Oh, I must say, we have a difficult problem.
We can't get out of my country and say a court decision is wrong.
I can't do that.
You know, I can't do it.
First, I wouldn't do it anyway, but I can only say that, well, I can speak in general terms about our principle, but I can't say the original decision is wrong until it's referred.
Actually, I think it's moved on the legislative side.
That's one that we want to be alert to opportunities to
exploit wherever we can, because I think that's the domestic issue.
And the war is the other one.
And those two issues, Mr. President, they work for us and against the Democrats.
And if we just neutralize that the damned economy is an issue, then these two are winners.
I'm just totally convinced of it.
Well, I just want you to know that I saw Kennedy's speech as a hell of an opportunity.
I mean, because if anybody oversteps, there's always a counter-reaction.
I've had that with the overstepping, but not unless we do.
I can say, plus, it was horrible then that he had said it.
Well, both times before that he's overstepped, we hit him, and he's gotten a very bad second-wave reaction, editorials, comments.
We'll do it today.
I'll do it if I'm up there and mouth the words myself.
We've written this stuff, and it's being given to them right now.
And Scott's in a good mood for this, by the way.
Scott rejected him this morning.
McGregor rejected him about this sort of thing of answering Friday.
And he's in a feisty kind of a mood.
He's kind of feeling his oats, and there's been some very good press about Scott and his relationship with you and working with the White House.
He's riding high, so I think we can use him.
I want him to get, be sure he gets a good Q&A on how to respond to the POW withdrawal issue on Sunday.
He's on the press.
He is.
You tell history.
He's got to have something very, very understandable and simple that brings it in.
I know.
It's up to you.
I just want to speak to him now.
a draw over the election.
It's just an overjoy in the field government.
Well, that was the thing I thought was so unclear in Kennedy's speech last night, where he said that you were propping up the two government just long enough to get re-elected at home.
And that's, there's nothing popular about propping up the two government.
Well, I don't care not quite if they got us into goddamn things.
That's not a son of a bitch thing to get us out.
They didn't bring anybody home.
They didn't get the casualties down.
What did they do?
What could they do?
Nothing.
More and more and more than they've ever had.
They've never brought a man home.
You know what I mean?
They've never reduced the ceiling.
And they never reduced the casualties.
What the hell are they talking about here?
And they never reduced the bombing.
We've done all, everything.
We're getting out.
We're getting out.
Unfortunately, we have a very good issue on them.
We must not let them get away with these little issues.
Now, what I mean is, this isn't going to hurt us as much as it is as an advantage for us to have to realize they've got to kick them hard in the street and make them stick to the Democratic Party as the war party.
This is the same as the other war party.
I'm trying to get our people to understand, Mr. President, they say welcome.
Don't escalate it.
We're not being hurt by it.
My answer to him is, no, my answer is, you've got an opportunity to score.
Lots of these things vary by issue.
And we need to exploit them.
We've got a hell of a lot of people that need to be educated.
This is the way you get your message to them.
I thought it was interesting that his speech was never once interrupted by applause.
I see.
He spoke for 25 minutes or 28 minutes.
He never once said any questions.
And he had questions.
And he did get some applause in answering the questions, but that's...
That sounds accepted, but he's not a big fan.
He's not a pro.
Now, Mr.
Covey is, you know, the only really evil man they got.
Humphrey.
Humphrey.
You've got to say Humphrey's able.
Humphrey's quick to speak.
He can stir up an audience, do everything.
He's not going to mention it.
He's not going to mention it.
But I'll tell you, I have a feeling Humphrey just might, just might run second floor in.
Oh, I think the odds are pretty good.
I think the space shuttle statement by Muskie was a political disaster.
I really do.
Well, that's in an area where he had to run strong.
Well, he's a person in the environment.
You know, Teddy, the other day, Teddy, let me take it off, he's a civil rights man.
We haven't done this.
We wish for Christ's sake, what did his brother do?
So it's not a law damn thing, but we have really, our civil rights are frankly too good.
We have, we've done, we've totally entered the dual school system.
What the hell in Christ have they done?
We've had the program of jobs, you know, and our insurance, whether they do it or not, there was no program of that like we already had.
There was no progress in any school system.
There was no program of the food stamps that was added when we came in.
We had taken care of that, and there was no program of the welfare requirement.
We have action on first grade.
We're waiting for the Congress for two and a half years to act on the other.
God damn it, some people have to talk that way.
If they do, they can kill them.
He's very wrong on that.
The budget message is a great sentiment on the civil rights establishment.
A good person.
I hope it doesn't do much.
It's good in some places.
Yeah, it is.
Okay.
It helps.
It's a mixed picture, I suppose.
He let it go up for three weeks, and he let it trail off for three weeks.
Shultz believes that Dewey Day and some of the Democrats over there are really
sabotaging flanagan believes that the other monetary measures not the money supporters are taking the pressure off so that you don't need to expand to be safe i would side with freeman and schultz
He probably didn't know that much about it.
He was a Wall Street man.
He was a Wall Street man.
I thought I was going to be an actor again.
And you better not say I'm not ready for some more.
I'm not ready to be an actor.
I mean, I heard some goddamn things.
He's the easiest guy to manipulate in the world by just pulling his ego up.
He sits there, presides as a great central banker.
I'm going to do what's right.
I'm going to do what's right.
But anyway, we're going to work on it today.
That's important, because that's the one way we get that time.
That's it.
It's about the end.
We've only got a damn strong captain then.
We've got to get Mel Richardson, you know.
In his area, Richardson is strong.
We've got to get him in his area, too.
It's a hell of an area.
The other guy, Rodney, is fine for what he is, and won't be fine for what he is.
And Rodney's work is fine.
He'll travel around to the William Cox, you know, and just scuttle over.
And Labor's a nice guy.
Hodgson's a nice guy.
Bucks is doing a hell of a job.
Bucks?
Oh, Bucks.
I got a letter this week, Mr. President, from the best political parameter in the Midwest.
Good morning.
This is from Bill House in Kansas.
And Bill House was the head of the cattle money.
He's a conservative Republican and always on the negative side.
Everything's always going to hell.
And dear Chuck, when corn prices dropped to 90 cents on the farm in the Midwest this fall, I just about wrote off the Republican Party west of the Mississippi River for the fall of 72.
I conveyed this to both sides of the state.
Today, I can truthfully say that we have a chance, and should the president continue in the direction he is now going, U.S. agriculture will be basically healthy by summer, and it will be very difficult for the Democrats to carry any part of this country.
He goes on, he pleases the hell out of us.
He said he's just terrific.
and that we've really now gotten every one of the dairy industries in good shape, the pork producers, goes through the list.
He said he's got one problem, which is corn, and Bucks is handling it beautifully.
Corn's next year.
We all know corn's next year.
But when Bill House writes me that kind of a letter, I get a feel we're doing better out in the Midwest.
He's always kind of down to them.
Who's that guy?
Yankovic.
Yankovic.
He's the... No, Dan.
He's the fellow that's been doing all the polling on youth.
You've been reading his stuff because you've noted it in the news somewhere.
I didn't know the name.
He's been running all the youth polls for four or five years, and he's now running national political polls.
And in fact, Kine, New York, very interesting fellow.
Kine and the young people government has done this to me.
But they'll also take on celebrities.
They do.
Like our friend.
How's our news candle?
Luke?
No, the other Jewish friend.
Jewish friend?
Senator?
Oh, Senator.
He's married to an Arab.
He must be a stranger.
Senator's got his way up this week, by the way.
He's got a big bribe started again.
Yankelovich is the one who, he's now taking over all the political polling for Time.
Oh, boy.
And for New York Times.
And so I've decided to get close to him.
For years.
And he's brought down a wealth of... You don't think for years?
No, sir.
I had a... Young, old, being old?
Very pleasant middle-aged collage.
Really?
Well, I'm just not young today, so... Oh.
You said he was pulling...
He was pulling you, yes.
He's a smart kid.
Yes, sir.
Prisoner would like some coffee.
I'm okay.
I want to be heard by you with this.
It was an interesting point for the answer.
Very interesting point.
He's the author of the thesis you've read a lot about, about the malaise in our society.
People are feeling down about life.
He believes this.
He said a lot of reasons for it.
I said to him, man, how is it that
President Nixon, as the incumbent, elected with 43%, holds up in the polls as strongly as... Yeah.
bell bell i don't know whether i rose told you this but be sure that on this that you do not have any typing done by anybody except her you understand i know you do i know you do your own work but i don't need copies and so forth but you understand i don't just do history of myself or and of course the title grows okay
Well, I'll tell you, I've got a lot of birds coming in at 11.30.
So, I've got to go out to the docks right before 3.
Let's see.
How about twos?
Would you do it with two?
Let's set two.
Okay, Bill.
Uh...
Well, once you do this, drop it off.
You know, I'll be at the EOB, drop it off, and then I can read, and then I'll have you come by, say, around 3, and we can chat about it.
Because, you see, then I've got to get back to the State of the Union and raise my hand for the draft before, and I'm forgetting this damn thing until after the State of the Union and finish it off next Monday.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, I'll be coming.
You're beginning to feel good about it.
You don't have to be a little bit insufferable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we'll see about that.
But the main point is, more important than his ritualistic language is the direction and what we really say here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, the point that I was trying to make is that I think this idea of...
I think one of the most powerful points is this, that here we were basically in a bomb shelter, and I said to my people, we're asking, why didn't this bomb itself?
Why didn't we agree for a deadline?
Why didn't we agree to change POWs and so forth?
I said, I had to originally sign one in order to, because the only hope of negotiations at the time that both sides were seriously negotiating secretly was to keep the secret.
So now, however, I think that's a powerful point, the fact that we took the goddamn heat when we could have blown out of the water.
You come over to the EOB.
You were there constantly out there.
I'm not going to stop you today.
Just give it to him.
He'll bring it in to you.
Well, the only point we can't go over is that I think that I signed it, but I don't like it more solid than we thought it was.
He said, you fellas in politics seem to react too much to this.
ripples of the poles.
He said your basic structure is a hell of a lot more solid than you realize because, or that you may realize sitting where you are.
Because he said with the attitudes that prevail in our society, with the downgrading of institutions, the feeling that people have that
government can't perform if they haven't gotten what they want.
Could you comment on saying that today?
People are against chief executives, governors, mayors, county officials, business leaders, and presidents.
And Yankovic has this theory that there's a dual standard of moralism in the country, that people expect totally moral performances by government, business, etc., even though they won't do it themselves.
And his feeling is that for us to have 50% of the public staunchly behind us, who's ever said to you to take Gallup or Harrison?
Having come through a period when, as he described it, the country was adjusting itself culturally and socially and politically is quite remarkable.
And the strength, the residue of Nixon's strength in the country is much stronger than we gauge by day-to-day polls.
And this guy, he's a cool-blooded professional.
I don't think he's got any political instincts at all.
But he might have more people that are witnesses to Victor than the others have.
Thanks.
A wider base, also.
That's what I mean.
They had more.
They had a wider base.
On the other hand, if you count down to it, Buchanan's got a very interesting theory.
You've got two different theories in our set.
You've got Price's Darwin theory, which is the impression that you don't rock folk, you know.
He realized everybody.
At the beginning, they were able to just tear off their eyeballs.
And the people wanted to excite the populace and the non-believers and so forth and so on and so on.
Well, that's a certain kind of controversy.
That's what it is.
Of course, I pointed out to him that, well, after all, when we had our so-called confrontation with the media, everybody thought it was going to help us as opposed to help at all.
I may have told this in another way.
I may have told this with our own privacy.
Now I can at least describe.
It may be, and I don't know whether when Harris does anything, that began probably in 50 months.
It may be that we have more support of people who deal strongly rather than not strongly.
I don't know.
I can demonstrate to you in every fold.
According to the county, that's the case.
County says, I said, what's going on?
I said, there was an air show this evening, now it must be.
He said, well, that's going to change the minute that they nominate, because he said it's one character, God damn party, party to the list, and it's going to make me have a fight.
And then the other point, whatever the comment makes, is that that's a full show of support.
He's like, whatever the hell it is.
I said, don't approve the number last year.
I said, although you could say that it was really less.
You can explain the less with the fact that this is the 18-year-olds and that did it.
So that made it count for 45%.
But he said, well, the point is, the honest point is, people feel better.
He said, I don't get a ban on anybody judging.
They're more confident.
And he said they feel better.
He said, now, on the other hand, and he makes a very good point, that as far as political leadership is concerned, they must be loved, hated, love their sons.
feared by some and hated by a few.
And he says, it may be that we do not have enough of the love and the hate.
Now, love and the hatred.
And the hate, he says, I should have said it very high-eater, but he says that his point is that love and fear are essential in political theater, and you need a hell of a lot more of that.
And this at first, this at first is, uh,
It's totally opposed to the apparent price that you're talking about.
They're damn smart balls.
But they don't believe.
They say just be presidential and come and see is what makes you win.
And now, I mean, Connolly, of course, totally disagrees.
And your friend Howell, of course, totally dislikes Howell.
Probably for whatever reason.
No, no, no.
No, his reasons were kind of very interesting.
He thinks Connolly, as close as he can be,
He thinks Conway is a guy who wants power all the time.
And the closer he is to you, the more presidential power he's going to take.
No, he just thinks he's very ambitious.
He admires him.
He thinks he's a skilled professional.
But I don't know.
I know he's skilled.
But my point is that the love, fear,
You don't still fear about raising hell.
Johnson still doesn't have a lot of fear.
I have a lot of love.
He is still too much fear, too much hate.
The question is, Eisenhower is still love, no fear, and very little hate.
Trump is still love and fear and hate and evil portions.
You see, it's always a question of balance.
But in our case, I mean, I was, I tried to not to be candid there.
I said, well, what the hell, you've got to be exciting.
What the hell could have been more exciting than what we did last year?
We discussed the China announcement.
They always say the Inc. announcement.
The court appointments, they were controversial as hell.
And we walked them right down to the line.
And the meeting conversation, you know, any one of those, John, for a normal president would be a hell of a win for me.
No, but not in today's society.
That's right.
The TV, the TV in particular, could, any one of the things we did last year, could so glorify it and deify you that nobody could touch you this year.
They could go back and reshow that
famous China announcement, and make it just...
I mean, if they wanted to...
He said, well, that's what I'm for.
He said, maybe we pay too high a price.
Oh, shit.
India-Pakistan.
Oh, shit.
Not really.
Well, the only point I'd make, is that there's a fine line today between the Garnett Price Theory and the Buchanan Theory.
That is, that you can serve that country and...
Show yourself to be a strong, tough leader that inspires the fear and a little bit of hate and the respect, which I think is a better word than love, because I think respect is what you're talking about.
You can do that.
A warm feeling is what he needs.
Well, it's a warm feeling.
Identification.
Part of our warm feeling thing is the utter failure of our public relations staff in that respect.
We do, I do, perhaps more warm things than anybody that's been in the office across every city.
And the attenders who might not have called us.
It comes through.
That scene of you with that Cuban girl, the scene of you with your arm around that black, it comes through.
My argument would be that in today's society, it's very hard to generate any feelings.
I'd rather generate respect than love any day.
And the meanest confrontation, Mr. President, of all the things last year, did more to solidify your political strength because it was a lasting impression.
of strength of character on your part but still today people talk about it there isn't anything they know no subject has come up more often in conversations we're not people remember that vividly and they think of you as being strong and the one thing that if we're running against musky which i guess the odds favorite that you've got that he doesn't have and we and this is where the canon is right and price and drama are wrong is that strength of character to be tough gutsy and
whether you're right or wrong, when you're up against a guy who looks defensive, looks indecisive, looks wishy-washy, isn't really sure of his own mind, is not a strong leader.
He tries to project this calm image of, trust me, and that won't last, because people today have got to rely on something.
They've got to have strength they can lean on.
And the main thing, by contrast,
just to take one extreme against the other, than anything against Meet the Press Sunday, that will win the election.
And it is what people yearn for today.
It's what they want.
And if they feel troubled about society, they want a president that they can...
They know that he's going to be doing the right thing.
They know that he's going to be doing something and doing it tough if he has to.
It may be, I don't know if that's...
that they need something to do.
You have to engage in some activities that are goddamn, I mean, that are something more.
I made an interesting thing.
I said, well, what'll do it, John?
He said, more conversations like the grad and the freshman are still on.
He said, that's just, those are good.
He says, I have a buddy, he said, I want to do, he says, those, but those, he said, right, no, you shouldn't do that.
Everybody knows you're just as great.
But all that, he says, proves that you're a goddamn good professional.
You know, he's right.
He's right.
And I know the interest.
But you see, his point is that the emotional reaction is causal.
It is the ending there, too.
You've got to have an ending.
You've got to keep the shit up.
And everybody else, you know.
Well, we'll have those occasions.
We have.
Of course, you know, I recall Winters came in and said, no, I can't react to the 70 election.
He said, you know, I related to the president for the first time because he was out there fighting.
And Buchanan makes a very...
down on the planet that Christ and God had all that room is wrong in interpreting the 7th election because they also said the election hurts.
They said it wasn't the 7th election hurts, it was what people said afterwards that hurt because of that miserable, that telecast, you know, where it set fire to some party.
Our guys screwed it up beyond belief.
And as a result, we left that crane at peace.
But it wasn't that aggression.
You know, the Gallup poll right after the election, we had 57-30.
It was way up the same as we had before.
That's right.
It's not the election years at all.
From then on, we had a drum fire of attack on the press.
A drum fire.
Steady bros.
They just beat the hell out of us.
The thing you also have to remember, Mr. President, when you look at where we are today, is that last summer, with the
public attitudes on the economy just going to hell in a basket, and the Pentagon Papers, and credibility in government, which is an issue, and the recent Laos, the media blitz that we took on Laos, my God, where would we be today without China, without the new economic policy, and Meany?
And Meany, I can demonstrate to you that Meany did help, and said,
Taking Simlinger's poll, where we were starting down the first week in November, and right after Meany, you shot up that better than you were before.
Take Harris, where between the first and the 10th of November, we were on a down escalator.
And then we're back up, actually, from his second November poll.
And that's after Meany.
Now, he didn't poll right after Meany, so I can't be that precise.
But if I'm any judge of political sentiments, that Meany confrontation had a
hella solidified, and in Simlinger, it's dramatic.
Of course, he pulls every day, so you can catch daily movements.
He's showing us a 50, which is the best we've ever been, and he's showing that economic expectation is too good, I'm afraid.
I mean, I'm almost scared.
He's going at 131.1, and it hasn't been that high in our administration.
The big part of that, if it's helpful, is the negative period, which has never been so low.
He's got, in answer to the question, would you vote too?
This is going to happen.
This is going to happen.
I'm assuming that I don't have the one after the Kubenowski.
Oh, that's a little.
He's told you, though, that I, as a matter of fact, I told you that on Harris, we were heard at the bottom of the statement right at that time.
Right.
I didn't even have to ask much.
I still, I'll lay a bottom dollar on that.
But the point is,
That's good.
Within a month, just so something stops, people get over it.
Because our country is so damn volatile today.
I don't know, but they have to mull around.
They're having a hell of a time taking on this last troop of control, aren't they?
There's nothing they can say.
You just look at a silly, goddamn thing.
So the president makes his announcement earlier than usual.
I read that.
Who said that?
Richard.
Oh, yes.
Well, that is utterly untrue.
I always make announcements three to four days before the 15th.
You know what I mean?
Yes, that's right.
So, you know, they just kind of...
They're groping for things.
The interesting thing about something, Mr. President, is that in... Would you vote to re-elect President today?
The no replies are the ones you really agree because...
yes doesn't mean all right it doesn't well it does but no is very important in august of last year august said he had 42 percent saying no that means they vote against you no matter who was running and that's see that's a very that's a question that really gets at the hard core about what he had 26 26 that was on august 5th well he does it every day and it's a quick and it's evolved it's a
But it's a better question.
I kind of like this question.
Now, today, the number of no's, and this was at the end of November, the last big poll that he has.
This is the end of November?
Well, no.
No, no, right after the meeting.
What he does, he throws a few hundred questions in every week.
But he does a big poll every month, or every other month.
I have his weekly stuff coming in very consistent.
And he won't do a big poll unless it's a big change.
His weekly stuff hasn't changed since November.
November it was 48.6.
The last weekly one he had was 49.7.
But the big thing is the no, which was 42% notice, is 14%.
And it hasn't been that low since you were elected.
For example, before the meeting, it was 18.5, which he considered very low.
October, 18.5.
September, 18.1.
End of August, 20.7.
But 14.2 is remarkably low.
He never had it that low in advance, ever.
Now, to me, that says a hell of a lot.
One out of seven has made up their mind they're going to vote against us.
We'll say so, answers the polls.
A lot of others will, but they're all available to us.
It isn't that we've got a hard core.
Well, that's getting the bars.
It was very bad, so it wasn't.
But mainly, they really want to fight them on this war issue.
God, there's a handle on the Democrats now.
Make Vietnam more easy.
Don't be afraid of it.
We're worried.
We're worried.
We're worried.
We're worried.
We're worried.
We're worried.
We're worried.
We're worried.
You notice the interesting thing on the amnesty thing.
I love it, too, where they get these goddamn little air prints up there so they didn't want to come back.
That's great.
Just great.
My answer was better all the time.
We'll consider it after the war.
And they got served and all that sort of thing and fired off, but Lincoln didn't give a dang about the amnesty.
Must be he was shrewd on that one.
That's the only one he was shrewd on.
No, no, he came out against it.
against him, and won't even consider what the committee .
Well, won't even consider .
He said he would consider it only after the war was over, and at that point he would decide what
Yeah, well, that's basically what I said.
He didn't really, I mean, he...
I said we had to wait until all of our prisoners were returned after the war was over, and he took them back to the same lot.
Well, precisely.
And he said, oh, sure.
He then went and did further.
He said, well, boys are there.
Well, we're asking boys to serve and to fight and to die.
We're not going to bring people home who elected not to.
He almost took the alliance back on Sunday.
He's pulled that issue, Larry.
The one he's pulled and he's very uncomfortable with is busing, because he tries.
He knows, he knows what the people think, but he knows he can't take that line.
And he just goes like this, and he loses when he does it.
What he doesn't do, Mr. President, he doesn't get the people who are... No one else does.
Just the leaders, yeah.
But he doesn't get...
He doesn't get any identification with the anti-busing people.
He mushes them.
And he keeps using this phrase, it's a necessary instrument of racial integration.
That's a disastrous phrase.
Well, people don't like to think that their kids are part of some instrument to achieve racial integration.
And I think he's hurting badly on that issue.
I'd like to see some issue polls on how people identify him with busing them.
And the census.
Well, you think he's going to start coming back up there?
He must be way ahead there.
Well, according to Philips, who's looked at the polls and spent a week out there and talked to the people, that Muskie has a solid 25% in the Polish woods.
That, however, will start eroding if Wallace goes into the state.
Wallace will be on the ballot, but whether he goes in and fires him up with anti-busting rhetoric,
that must be strength for the road.
Oh, I'm sure he will.
I'm sure he will.
And he's got nothing to lose.
And he'll go to Maryland.
And he'll go to Indiana.
And he'll go to these states where he'll pick up delegates.
He has a chance to do something in Maryland, too.
You see, he'll pick up the congressional delegates from the Eastern Shore, Rob Morton's old district.
That way, he'll put him in the general election.
He had a plurality from 1968 in that district.
So he'll pick up delegates and
But that isn't where you'll hear it.
According to Philip's thesis, he takes the Eastern European vote away from Muskie, that Muskie's great strength, and that he cuts into Muskie's vote much more than anybody else.
That Humphrey's vote in Wisconsin will be basically Humphrey in the Western part of the state, buried behind the small Scandinavian towns where Humphrey's always been well-identified.
he feels there'll be a lot of Republican press overs to vote for Wallace.
And it's a very interesting analysis.
Based on the polls, he gives Muskie 25 to 30 and Humphrey 20 to 25, and Lindsey 10, and Wallace maybe as much as 15.
So he... No, we haven't talked about Lindsey in Florida.
What's he going to do there?
Well, Gary's people say that he's going to be a sleeper.
Really?
Yes, very good.
The better he does, the better he likes it.
Yeah.
If he grows some muskie, I like it.
If he grows some Humphrey, I like it.
And he might grow it from Humphrey in the southern part of the state, the Jewish area.
I just think that anybody who draws from the front yard.
That's true.
That's it.
I don't want guys in there to draw from the front yard and get knocked down because Humphrey only has good supporters.
I don't give a damn at this point.
Now, whether Muskie's nominated or not, I just want to keep it confused until they get to Miami.
So what do you think?
Yeah, what do you think?
Well, look, you see, the way it's going, Chuck, if Muskie moves, he wins to reverse the primary.
I noticed for example, you used the dark skin today.
Mm-hmm.
He's got the endorsements, you know, from all the power.
Yeah, but he already has Hughes.
He may just be a little bit like Hughes in the room, but... What is his association?
Well, the conservatives got Hughes, he got... That's Jasmine.
He got a whole bunch of... My point is, the bandwagon psychology, I mean, our liberal media friends are desperate to have much in the free run so as to avoid a democratic fight.
Now, can they avoid a fighting convention?
Well, some of the...
I mean, they can't avoid walls.
I can't avoid a loss, unless it's a runaway and he's got it locked up ahead of him.
You can't answer whether he can make the bandwagon work until after Wisconsin.
If all he's got after Wisconsin is a big win in action, then the battleground shifts to Pennsylvania to where I'm pleased to have heard of that.
And where Humphrey and Muskie will make, that'll be a bloody primary in Pennsylvania this year.
Illinois won't matter because there's no contest in Illinois.
But Pennsylvania would then become a very key target for the Muskie-Humphrey fight.
I don't know, my labor people in Pennsylvania tell me that Humphrey would be strong, but that's natural.
They'd be that way.
Okay.
if musky gets by that and is doing relatively well then he probably will make it without it without a big convention which will make him that much stronger but i but he isn't going to be that strong but he really is and i've been believe me i've been the guy that is most concerned about me in the white house because i've known him and i know his weaknesses but i also
His image is good.
Was.
But I think you'll lose it.
Sure was.
Sure is.
You know, I get to see a good panorama of his announcement.
And it's trying to be Abe Lincoln for Maine, and it fell flat.
It just didn't make it.
Press appended.
The politicians appended.
And I don't know how many people watched me progress, but anybody watching that came away negatively.
Convinced.
I know what Roger said, but I don't agree with it.
Well, that's part of the beauty of it.
Now, we have to realize that nobody ever feels the same about performance.
They end up hearing, oh, he's a chemistry.
And I think Bill is basically, of course, Bill, Bill, too, Bill, is a tentative.
He himself...
goes a little too much for the clever, evasive answer.
So he probably liked Muskie's evasiveness and cleverness and thought that was smart not to get tried.
He'll let the belief in be, you know, sort of, you know, I'm pretty clever, I'm pretty evasive too, but I don't have the impression to be very honest when it was a rapper.
Now you do it much differently than most of us.
There's a very great contrast.
And you're present, and that's it.
Hell of a difference.
He's a candidate out in the primaries.
He's submitting himself to the people.
That's much different than a man who sits in his office.
People will be offended when a rally takes you on where they expect to have a candidate and expect him to be taken on.
And they don't expect him to duck issues.
If he's out there running in the primaries, why can't he answer that question?
It's interesting, although reportedly, reportedly, the press picked up the business that he had custody and almost flew, and he abated the answers and refused to give a yes or no.
The voice is back in town, as far as I know.
Okay, I'll go right as far as I can.
They've all, they've all got their papers right there, ladies and gentlemen.
to go after the juggler.
Score some points for us.
Yeah, I think about that.
You know, that type, you know, that I find to make a very low case for the union.
And a lot of our people do.
the Scots and the Fords and the Erics and the rest, they should try to get a good hand, particularly when I finish.
That's what we want.
But the Democrats are going to sit there and grab that hand.
That's why I'm going to wait for Paul's time.
I'm not going to have to tap the House employee.
That's what I mean.
I'm sure Republicans ought to really try to make it sound as if they're doing well.
Thank God we're just supposed to be
Actually, as I said earlier, one of the problems was I've made some calls around the country to Congress when asking them to attack this fellow or attack that.
And the general answer is, my God, we're doing so well, let's not do it.
There's been a certain complacency.
I think it was always, always wrong.
Well, that's, that's... Well, and the other point is that we ought to exploit the Democrats' weakness, no matter how, how young we are.
They, they deserve it.
I'll leave it to you.
I'll get them out, sir.
All right, then.
The plan is good.
All right.