Nixon, Haldeman & Woods on China trip and Public opinion polling

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Admit from a personal standpoint, just for what we've all been through, for him, for all that he's done for you, I'm just going to say I'm sorry for himself because of his ugly eyes.

Todd is a good man.

He doesn't raise you for the wrong reasons.

No, what I meant is, I'm sorry, sir, but he disagrees with the matter.

He's the matter of deep conviction and all the disgusting things that we're doing in our own thing and all that sort of thing.

So he constantly wants to keep us and save us from ourselves and all that.

It's always the case, I mean, he doesn't, I don't think, I've read it, he's a writer in the current history, but he hasn't read enough of ancient history.

Ancient history tells you it's always...

Nobody can ever be sure that you do the best you can.

Like most of the Marlboro people, it's better to have a foundation, a place to live by.

But he seemed to have adjusted to himself before he got to him.

Well, I didn't do anything to sell him.

I did exactly the other order.

It was good that you did it that way, wasn't it?

I think so.

Because otherwise... Because he has no illusions now that anybody was down pleading with him to stay around.

He made his own decision to stay, but she's the right way for him to be here.

He's gonna stay.

Exactly.

Everybody must make their own decision.

We don't know if the UFC is going to work again or not.

That's your plan.

We have a conscious complaint against them.

I mean, this isn't possible, you know.

What the hell else can you do?

I didn't let so-and-so judge you.

Unless you were in the campaign.

Unless you wouldn't do that.

We asked you.

I'm going to get your next poll.

This was 1,047 energy, so it's our standard size poll over the weekend.

And approval is 59, disapproved 28, no opinion 15, which is our last poll was January 26, right after Vietnam.

It's 5436.

The interesting thing is the approval of , which is .

I don't know.

As I told you, I did not expect that it was going to .

I think it's a solid growth instead of a .

But that is the point.

The disapproval is .

28 is way down, 36.

See, when you decided one of the three, as well as I think Gallop would have to come up with around 57 or a few.

Well, at least, yeah, I would have mentioned that it was Gallop.

By the time we were out, he was at 53.

Is that new license?

I think it's 34, 34, 37.

53, 36 here.

Sure.

Ours is $54.36 and his is $53.36.

Ours is $55.44.

Ms. Harris, I don't understand.

So, ours is up five points, but his ought to be up in some comparable order to that other thing.

So, I would guess it would be about the same as what we have now.

The other going down is kind of interesting.

Well, that's not bad.

I was thinking that we might get up to 60 at this point.

No, 59 is...

But it doesn't matter.

It's a stronger show, for whatever reason.

Maybe we're going to 49 or something.

We asked for approval, asked for approval, and we did not question.

It's the same.

Basically, yeah, it was 53-36, so it's been up to 54-38 in January.

And, uh...

I've got to get a split on this.

We asked the direct question on how they would vote if the election were being held today, not on a trial link basis, but would you vote for President Nixon, the Democratic candidate, or a third party candidate?

And that's Nixon 40-31, 9 for the third party, with 20 undecided.

But then he said, is this the way you would have probably voted before the trip to China, or has the trip caused you to change your mind?

86% the way it was, but 9% say that the trip changed their vote.

Now we've got to get the cross-status to which way they were.

They ask for overall, yeah, sure, that's a very good question.

Sure, that one, I know that it's asked by pollsters, but I don't think you get it.

That's a question for a sophisticated person to answer.

I think the better question is, do you try to get it?

But I don't know.

They may just argue, but I don't see it.

Who knows?

Well, it is a better question, except if you try to eat them, you cut down the undecided, but you get the individual candidates, and they differ, but we could have done it against Muskie.

we still can i would say what probably is the more interesting thing is it can help some people

But also, it undoubtedly improves the strength of the pride that we've got with you.

I mean, either that or we're just talking to our own people right here.

I don't know.

I mean, I can't tell.

We asked, what's your overall reaction was to the President's trip?

And it was 74% favorable, 20% unfavorable.

That's just overall reaction to the President's trip.

Awareness is 80%, 81%.

That's either a great deal or a fair amount.

And 17% said very little, and only 3% said nothing.

So total awareness, 97%.

Would you, in general, would you satisfy or dissatisfy with what was accomplished?

59% satisfied, 18% dissatisfied.

I don't know.

Do you think opening up more conversations between the U.S. and China would be more likely or less likely to be the world peace?

73% more likely.

In July, we pulled that right after the announcement.

That was 68%.

So that's not a problem.

How would you rate President Nixon on the way he conducted himself in China as the representative of the American people?

41% outstanding, 40% good, total 81%.

And that, I think, is significant.

12% fair and only 4% poor.

When you get down to where an American cross-section rates Nixon only 4% ratings and poorer, you're doing pretty well.

Because you've got more people in that group.

There are, quote, the odds favor that you need to hire a 41% rank.

As we saw the first opening of discussions with the people's progeny, he personally regarded more favorably as a world leader, less favorably, or doesn't make any difference.

We asked that in July also after the announcement.

In July, it was 45 more favorably, 11 less.

Now it's 44% more favorably, which is the same.

But the less is 6% down in the millennium.

That doesn't matter.

It's kind of interesting.

Which do you think is more important, establishing relations with communist China or establishing relations with the nationalist Chinese in Taiwan?

We asked this in July.

In July, communist China, 26.

Taiwan, 25.

Both, 29.

Now it's communists 33, Taiwan 22, both 23.

The communists, the relationship with communists went up seven, and with Taiwan went down three, and that both went down six.

By opening up normal relations, more normal relations, you can present an increase or decrease chances of negotiating the Vietnam War.

61% increase, 10% decrease, 16, no difference.

That's exactly the same as it was last July, right after the turn of the pandemic.

Then we asked that question that we asked in July of the names of eight men in various positions, Governor Gray, each one of them, how capable would you be in conducting negotiations and relations of kind in the Senate?

Very capable, fairly capable, fairly incapable, or very incapable?

was 38% very capable and 43% fairly capable for a total of 81.

Now it's 45% very capable and 41 fairly capable.

So the positive goes up 5 points from 81 to 86.

But the very capable goes up 7 points from 38 to 45.

Fulbright, no change.

39 favorable then, 39 favorable now.

You mean capable?

Oh, yeah.

10% burly and 29% burly.

Humphrey was 54 until now 50.

That's the total.

And the very typical is where the whole drop was.

It was 19, now it's 15.

The burly people was 35, still 35.

Kennedy was 60, now 58.

Kiffin was 56, now 66.

And that, his very capable went from 24 up to 33 out of 9 points.

That's his publicity, of course.

Mansfield was 51, now 54.

Roger.

Muskie was 54, now 49.

Dropped 5 points.

His very capable was 20, dropped to 15.

Same as Humphrey's, exactly.

Humphrey was 19, dropped to 15.

Muskie was 20, dropped to 15.

Muskie made the career.

27.

And I got it.

And escaped at 27.

You see, he led the Kissinger before, and I was behind Kissinger.

I mean, the Kennedy thing is phenomenal.

It's the carryover for the Kennedy.

I escaped his name.

But there's just no change.

He was 50, and I'm 49.

And it's very capable, it was 15, now it's 14.

My God, you know, that's a problem, and everybody can see that.

But the one that didn't change, it was low before the trip, and it's no lower now.

He didn't lose by the trip, as some people would ask for it.

President Nixon read some statements and asked if you agreed or disagreed, both positive and negative statements, to see what people's views were on China.

President Nixon's visit to China resulted in a sellout of the non-communist Chinese on Taiwan.

He made that as rough as he could by saying non-communist Chinese on Taiwan.

Article 325, Disagreed 57.

And you'll find throughout the piece that there's a hard core of between 25 to 30 that disagree with the substance of the truck.

If that's the case, we will have that be reflected in the recording.

Could be.

I don't have a break on that recording versus 10 o'clock.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you

On page two, where it says there, what you achieve, there is necessarily an answer to your question.

Obviously, some would prefer to go back to the question that you gave.

And without restating any method of structuring the next two issues, the next two stories,

Thank you very much.

The, um, deceptive resulted in a silent 25-degree-57 disagree.

18, okay.

President Nixon's visit to China opened the doors to more normal relations with a large and important country.

84-degree-11 disagree.

So there's...

President Nixon's visit to China caused us to lose the confidence of our allies in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea.

They were picking up quotes of things that had been said.

25 degrees, 60 degrees.

That's that, 25 degrees.

President Nixon's visit to China gained almost nothing for the U.S., although it operates the prestige of the leaders of communist China.

28 degrees, 61 degrees.

President Nixon's visit to China eased tensions and made world peace more likely.

69 agree, 23 disagree.

President Nixon's visit to China undermined the confidence in the U.S. among our allies all over the free world.

President Nixon's visit to China was namely a publicity stunt to get more votes in the 72 presidential election.

Thirty-four agreed, sixty-one disagreed.

The disagreed states solid that about sixty were positive, whichever side.

As a result of the President's visit to China, the chances of negotiating an end to the Vietnam War have been improved.

You've got some expectation there of negotiation.

That's kind of interesting.

In spite of what President Nixon said, there were some secret agreements made between the United States and China that the public is not being told about.

But back to the negative, I would put that question slightly differently.

I would say President Nixon said that we're going to have to agree on a secret agreement.

If you agree or disagree, it's a secret agreement.

That would have to happen.

You're talking about it.

You're on a talk show.

In spite of what President Nixon said, we're going to take your opinion.

That's your answer.

The U.S. had to make some concessions to China, while the Chinese made no concessions to us.

31 agree, 47 disagree, 22 don't know.

So I don't know.

As a result of the President's visit to China, there will be an increase of parity between the U.S. and China that will be good for our country, 65 degrees, 21 degrees.

The point is that the negatives that they've been pushing have supported somewhat around 25 to 30 percent of the people, and that's all.

I think you got more negatives at the beginning.

and so they'll seize on every little thing

So we've got Harris and Gallop both in the vehicle.

Gallop was in last weekend, the same time we were, and Harris was in during the week.

So we've all three pulled at exactly the same time, basically, to check the center of the engine.

We don't know how hard it's going to pull, that's the point.

We always go back to it.

Well, ours is a telephone pull, and theirs is a personal interview.

Sure.

Yeah.

So there is a difference .

But by the trend, they've become about the same.

In other words, we might have five points, 10% gain.

They ought to go up about a point.

Because we're all about the same thing.

We were 54, Gallup was 53, Harris was 55, so we were all right up on the same...

I was thinking a little bit of a different time than Harris.

Yeah, we were right after the Vietnam thing.

Gallup was a week later and Harris was two weeks later.

So it may be that ours is a little higher.

Could be right after Vietnam.

Could be.

The real question is, I think that disapproving down to 28 is amazing.

I think it does.

Pull it a little bit in your heart.

And it's interesting that that 28 disapproved is about the same number as the 28 disagreeing.

It's a little harder.

We'll spend, we've had since January of last year.

It's for poor loves.

And, it's taking care of us.

There are a list of other scientists.

But, all of ours are right.

It's the main thing of life.

So he didn't think it helped in the whole sense because he was so far ahead of himself, you see.

So it began to approach it the same way.

No, I think he can't be more realistic.

I think he would agree that it would help.

Don't tell him that.

I mean, I'm not even going to put out the fact of this, but without the fact, I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm just trying to persist.

It's really, it's a benchmark.

It's a benchmark.

It doesn't make an influence on anything.

They're bound to be somewhere in this low mark when you go back.

That's what the lasting effect is.

Here, I guess our argument has to be that the lasting effect is

But we're getting a lasting effect for reasons that we did not anticipate when we took the trip.

Right?

Yep.

If we're the trip alone, it's like last time.

We go up and then go down, and then you're like, so bad, whatever, but that's the reason we didn't have it.

But if it did have an effect on the energy, then it finally helps.

Correct?

That's what, I don't think this is what hurt me very much, but this one, if you look at these other questions, for instance, your rating on Vietnam didn't go up at all.

So I'm getting at it as the, you see, you put yourself in possession of the Western Guards, and the Congregs, and some of the rest.

But then, maybe it wasn't effective.

Well, I didn't see it on TV here either.

No, but only if there's any other answers.

And that talking to people doesn't affect you as much as, no, you've got to see it.

That's the big factor about it.

That's the thing people don't want to destroy.

You can't help it.

You probably don't recall, but

A lot of you can't.

He was in the law, but he didn't really, because he didn't understand.

He didn't understand the law.

This is the difference and so forth.

I was silent at every minute, especially when I had all these, you know, on the grave and so forth.

But we were wrong.

It was our fault.

We put him in a position where he was out of his field and where he'd have it in our hand.

And I agreed, too.

He wanted to eat his salad on the trip, you know.

He wanted to sit and talk about it.

And Henry didn't talk to him until he was on the way home.

That's true.

That's also a problem with Scali.

He wants to be talked to, but he can't solve it.

I don't know what you can do about him, but...

Well, there's more of our, not on substance, but on presentation to a scholar, and so that scholar, because he is not alone.

You got it right.

We've got a little more confidence in him, and the scholar is intrepid, giving him the way he wants, the way he wants.

I don't think there's that massive feeling in the country with Bolshevism.

Look at the editorials around the country.

He mentioned conservative thinkers like Johnson.

He really reads that stuff.

Oh, isn't everybody angry at you?

Well, because you read it every day.

Every day.

Nixon, Haldeman & Woods on China trip and Public opinion polling

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 6, 1972

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