Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Public Relations

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10 to 12, I meant that I...

uh... uh...

Is that a joke?

No, because the whole thing on that is just to do the .

And there's no need for a .

If you want to drop that, call me.

Yeah, but I can check with him and see if he has any beverage.

You don't have anything particular?

Yeah, the only thing that I had that I wanted to.

Well, I'd like to get views if I could.

Goddamn speech.

Could that be something that maybe we could just get that out of the way that they, that I'm working on that talk for, is it now, is that on or off now?

Where are we?

It's still in between the draft that they had this morning.

It's not acceptable that it's going back on.

Gross simplification now.

Well, they took just the opposite approach.

It went through a thing of, I'd like to come here and tell you I'm going to do something for the parochial schools, but I'm not going to.

I should work it out with the understanding what can be done.

Obviously, the trouble is you don't have except what you can do.

the domestic counsels against the goddamn thing and the research crowd.

That's why I've been trying to push it because I think the adversaries are biased on this one and they're almost, maybe not intentionally, but unavoidably are undercutting.

I understand the problem, but let me stay on the same view because he has the same concern.

that it's, you know, it's something you probably should do and we should be finding a way to do it right off the bat.

Is this just too good a forum to miss on?

That's why they take a very good time.

Well, Marlon went up there yesterday and said nothing.

They gave him a completely on purpose, completely nothing speech and got a tremendous ovation.

And the view is that they want to be enthusiastic with the administration and tell them that you ought to go up there and run with me.

And that's Connolly's view, is you ought to go.

It's the only thing you ought to do.

Well, could they?

Could John leave his office and walk over to Connolly's office and sit out there and wait until he could see Connolly and get Connolly's views to what could be said?

Connolly's pretty good at how to do something.

But if Christ don't get something like this for Christ to write, I got him busy anyway with the US News article.

I think.

Because how did they cheat?

You know, for him, you see.

Well, he's got Buchanan back at it now.

Buchanan, of course, working over the record.

Buchanan had no idea.

Yeah, because he knows now what can't be done.

I see.

Oh, we'll see what they do.

John is trying to be funny, and funny is simply said just go and be kind, be nice, you know.

So come over here.

All right.

Well, I sent Henry out.

I wanted to hold the PR situation to him.

I don't know if the PR situation is bad, but often it's confused, which is a pretty good place for it to be.

The PR situation is not what matters, what happens.

So it's not a matter here.

But the main point is we've got to get in position what happens in the right way.

That's right.

So I spent some time with the sleeper yesterday, and I sent Henry out to him.

For today, at least, he's not sensitive to the issue.

You've got to see him.

No, this is a three-hour situation, actually.

He's not confused, but, of course, there's shingles.

Editorialized in some of the papers in the New York Times.

What's the word?

Invasion.

Quotes.

That's a good thing.

You know, then, God Almighty, I mean, what's in the name of Christ today?

The key thing here is the thing is that they're

Well, we're not making a thing except for that one Vietnamese general.

We're not saying that we're going to hold them here and nothing, you know.

The only thing I was concerned about was the tendency which our military has, which they started to show, of saying,

outside this city, if it falls, that's going to be a real problem.

If this one falls, it's going to be the worst problem.

Tell me something.

Now, they've done either that, and then you say, have an order to retreat, give up territory, win the battle, expect to lose some, and of course, they're willing to do this, and I think they're willing to protect a lot of people, and it's okay for that now, too.

I mean, we have no other ambassadors we're going to send out to.

This is an important one, but there's none others.

No, really, I'm serious, because I don't want to crack her up anymore.

We can't get any more through it.

Well, no, I think, I think it's, I think it's, I think one of the reasons that I told him to do it, I said, now look at it, we screw it up now, let's do it again.

We just spend time every day with these folks, doing the workouts, PR, and we do.

And boy, he's, he's set now.

And, uh, he knows, he always recognizes afterwards how important it was to God, but he doesn't recognize it at the time.

It's a distance, uh, kind of understanding.

Well, it is a distance.

I mean, yes, it would be much better to be able to go to work, press out at the weekend, and say, oh, Christ, can't he get that answer from somebody else?

You forget that answer is more important than anything you're going to be doing that day.

But we've got to do it.

Ron asked a good question this morning.

that the weather's so bad that they can't bomb.

Why is it that those films of the refugees coming out show such beautiful, sunny, clear skies?

Films of the refugees all in beautiful weather.

Well, that's good.

Don't for us.

Refugees, that doesn't hurt us much.

Oh, no, he wasn't worried about the refugees.

He was saying that the weather didn't look so bad.

I mean, two of the ladies are there.

Just the idea that they're coming across.

We're preparing the way so that people know we're going to bomb the hell out of them.

That's, that's one thing that's set up for once.

I do too.

And the state did a good job of hitting the, uh, the, uh, the order, too, which is the usual thing.

It came out anyway.

It came out from the public side, the fact of the invasion, the violation of DMC, the violation of the Geneva Courts, the violation of the 68th Agreement.

It's all pretty clear.

And it is clear.

It's been well stated on the news.

Question.

Just one thing you can do.

You ought to attack Muskie.

That's what it is.

You know what I mean?

He says, we must not, we must not react to this attack by the enemy.

Or did you notice the story?

It got quite flooded.

Yeah.

And maybe what he thought was somebody plugged, you know what I mean?

Get some of our towers, somebody like that to start playing that line, because we're going to have to take on the defeatists that say, well, crisis is something, let's just get out.

So I want you to see, take personal charges, they can use somebody to get off their fat ass and get some tax money, no kidding.

And on them, for defeatists not defending us, could you do that?

No concern for our prisoners of war, no concern for the GIs.

For example, the protection of the 70,000 Americans that are still there, does that have to get it through to any story yet?

Yep.

That's very important.

It wasn't heavy in the news, sorry, I didn't see it at all.

to do something this morning.

It was yesterday.

There was one little blip.

But it may be that that is a very important line.

Yeah.

Nixon's got a responsibility for that.

He's got a responsibility for the continued withdrawal of what can only be undertaken if we, you know, if the South Vietnamese are able to hold.

See what I mean?

Oh, my God.

Just one small thing.

I want to mount somebody in the outside to shoot at that guy who was fired.

I'm the voice of America.

It's John Hershenson.

He wasn't fired.

He quit.

If he quit, I don't give a goddamn anybody for a good reason.

I won't use him.

As a matter of fact, he's a hell of a good R.I.P.

film guy.

We want to use him for the convention.

That is mine.

We had an idea of getting him out of there before he went.

Would you tell him for me?

Because I don't want to have him at all.

Have you talked to him since he left?

No.

Well, they told me he's very good, but tell him that I just wanted to know that somebody cares about what he's done.

You see, if I, if I write an order and he doesn't get out to full ride or something, he's had that kind of a fight with the son of a bitch, but you ought to call him and say, are you available?

We want to use you.

Okay.

Would you take the, make the, take personal charge of getting this Democrat to die a big business thing?

And I guess you are in charge of that, aren't you?

Or is Colson, or somebody else?

For example, running out the Albee Bush thing, running out the Johnson, running out the, I mean, running out the contributions to Humphrey's campaign in 1968, who were they, you know, businessmen that contributed to that?

Is there anything you can do on any of these things?

Yeah, we'll have them.

We'll have them do your analysis from the day of this.

What is your reaction to, and perhaps the anti-credit record, or the fixes in the anti-credit record of the previous administration?

The only defense is a good offense at this point.

What is your reaction to the...

I think they're picking up ITT and all that crap about a week late.

It's like they're always, they're sort of washed, you know what I mean?

And now they're gonna be molding and they're gonna be cutting the business and all that kind of crap and so forth.

They've been at it, but I mean, now it's a...

But they all say that, you know, there's a lot of stuff in here, a lot of questions been raised with no points been made.

They're quite excited.

One thing that I don't know how it got out of them, but you'll have to say we were in Scala years.

See, the Edison, Tom, Gerald, ABC, both talked about an air crisis around the White House and so forth.

So I'm sure they'll get that from me.

You know what I mean?

And I don't think they got him from Ziggler, because I think he finished.

Because I had a good talk with him.

Ziggler was cold as ice.

Mama cut the wire chute for her just the other way.

There wasn't any air of crisis.

I think this is the kind of crap that the TV guys, that's how they build the interest in their show.

How does Pierpont get his piece on?

He goes out and says there's a big crisis at the White House.

And he gets on.

I just thought you might watch for it.

We've got to, because they're dead wrong.

Ron should hit them on those.

Those are ones where a guy should be hit.

What did they tell you they were talking about?

Did you see their wires?

And what they're building on, of course, is that there was a lesson being given.

If you want to put that out, you probably should.

I don't think that's... Oh, no.

There's supposed to be a... You can't look like you don't care.

That's right.

If there's an era of crisis, you've got to be right.

There's action at the White House.

There must be.

That's such a... Well, also...

It's good to have a story come out as a big last night that we're going to do.

You've taken a hold of the story I called you about last night that analyzed the real target.

Yeah.

Did you see the headline?

Yeah.

Yeah, what are you doing about it?

Who are you getting that?

Should it take a lot of order?

No.

No, because that's one I, again, if you can't, but it's one that we've got to, you can't do with a bit more tight, yeah, I don't, I don't, it isn't, it isn't, it's an attack thing, it's a,

What is going to be, and what is Stanford's reaction to the, uh, there's this about that Nixon has a moral obligation to, uh, to, to reveal his campaign contributions to the board of directors.

I don't know what that was all about.

That's John, the April 7th line.

That's John Gardner.

Yeah, because if all candidates, they expect Paul to accept Jackson.

Jackson.

Wallace doesn't.

No.

Yeah.

Jackson, Wallace, whoever's asking Wallace.

They, that's it.

Everybody, all the important candidates, I don't think Shirley Chisholm, and I suppose the one revealed, and McCarthy has revealed their list of billboards in the House, received prior to the April 7th

What is the line that the expense is taking?

The line is that we will qualify the law, actually, because the reporting requirements in full will report all the contributions that go to the contractor.

He doesn't say we won't report the early ones.

We report them.

School Jackson is carrying a line on that.

He says, I won't report them because I've made commitments to the people that contributed not to report them.

That won't serve us.

I know.

Uh, that's what we're not using.

Yeah.

The other, uh, the other line, I'll give you, I'll be busy.

I'll let you know when I'm busy.

Uh, the thing that you've got to, uh, you've got to get through there.

I'm just trying to think of a way to finesse it.

If you've done any thinking about, uh, yes, I know a lot, and the, the result, you can't, all the working around it is, is,

beyond the flat thing, you get into the debate with them on whether you should or shouldn't, the reasons why you can't.

Can't you say something about the fact that, well, for example, my history helped a little, probably hasn't occurred to anybody, but it didn't mean that the fact that you don't have any television in Wisconsin, in other words, what the hell, we're not campaigning in the bad primaries, you know, we have modest, modest effort.

Yeah, but see, you can't, that won't float.

Okay, don't use it that way.

The reason it won't float is that eventually the amount that has been collected will be known.

How?

Because you have to report it.

You have to report the money that you have on hand.

Oh.

You've collected before, but you don't give the names.

That's a curious thing.

But all your committees have to report what they have at the start.

Well, let's stand and sort of like we got out and said, well, give money now so you don't have to report it.

Yes, sir.

Just like everybody else in this jury has.

It's the only way everybody else can, but I don't know if he needed to.

He absolutely needed to if he wanted to buy it.

Now, he hasn't said it publicly, but obviously the presumption is that he's saying, and they can report he's saying, he can't deny he's saying it, because any reporter knows it's true.

Right.

Do you have any other thought on it?

I'm just trying to think of a way to handle it.

But as he said, come against him.

But the best answer you've come up with so far is what?

That we will comply.

We are complying.

We are complying completely with the requirements for reporting campaign contributions.

We'll file full reports on a timely basis.

Whatever they say.

Stuff will be entered.

I want that, and that makes the issue out of the fact that we have a hidden contribution.

They don't have money.

Does the money mean that much to us?

Yes, it does.

I'm not sure.

We can go back and give it back.

That's the alternative.

You sure as hell don't want the amounts that we have in shown.

That's right.

He's going to have $15 million in it.

And that's money that you can't get.

He couldn't get.

We couldn't get on a reporting basis.

The other thing would be to get turkey.

bury the big stuff someplace and not report it, which is, I'm sure, what the other people are doing.

And then go put out some names.

Yeah, put out the stuff that people don't mind releasing, because we've got a lot of contributions that people don't care.

There's a hell of a problem with this reporting law, though.

You're going to have a tough time getting this record set up.

I just talked to Moore.

They did get another hundred strikes.

Oh, did he just call you?

He said 200.

He told me in the phone.

He said we had a record.

They got more of them.

He said maybe there was more price in them.

That's when I said don't buy those strikes just for the sake of time.

Yeah, they got another hundred of them.

And they apparently did slide by the 180 and top of that is the P3 area.

We are really churning them up now.

We must be doing far better than we think.

Mr. President, I think... Of course, Orr has made a great point about what worried me when he said, you know, we got through with cloud cover, told me the same thing, and knocked down the bridge, we got three tanks.

Jesus Christ, there are 50 tanks.

That's three tanks.

Well, Mr. President, I said...

I don't know what happened.

What do you think?

I think we're going to have to go one way or the other.

And we're not going to do it the other.

I don't see, after what we're going to do to these guys, if they don't make it now.

We've got them.

I mean, I've got the word.

Yes, I've got it.

Thank you.

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Public Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 4, 1972

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