Nixon, Haldeman & Butterfield on Vietnam War and 1972 Presidential Campaign

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The way it'll work is a combination of Schultz and Koch.

Ken Cole will work that out, which is really what they're doing now.

He said, that can work out.

But anyway, when we were through it all, as we were walking down, he was doing his meeting, he said, allow me to say that this does not come as unwelcome news at all.

And he said, now the other thing is, how does this relate to the campaign itself?

Because I feel that there's a need for some understanding in the campaign planning of some of the things that fit together here.

And I said, well, you had not mentioned in the memo here, but that you had talked with me on the weekend about the need for setting up a daily campaign, you know, political unit of him and Mitchell and Colson.

I do have Ted Schultz, and I still want to ponder that one.

I'm not sure whether that's good or not.

It may be.

Well, Colson, you, hurry.

That's the question.

Also, you can come back to the campaign, the preparation speeches, the answer desk, for example.

Things of that sort.

Yeah, you're talking about, did you get to talk about my idea of putting up a big charter?

No, no.

I know you've done that a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot.

I wanted to tell you that for, as you guessed, we've been working all day long on this problem.

But now we're, here's the overriding point.

The policy recently now ceases to be effective.

We've got to take some costs from it.

We've got to play the game out the other way.

Now that, for that reason, you can schedule tomorrow for anything that's important to you and me.

Uh, I think they're an important thing to, um, also schedule, you know, next year.

There you go.

Well, maybe we can clean up the third cell a little bit, which maybe this is going to do.

Yeah, we might as well.

We can move some of that over to what you have, so that when we're done now, we can finish.

Do you want to take this out?

Sure.

Thursday, we've got the Scott Mansfield meeting, which you've got to do before they go to town this week.

Yeah, we could move that up earlier.

Secretary Peterson meeting.

Right.

The Arthur Burns-Wood family meeting.

That's all we have.

Well, I'll say the same thing, but you have to leave Thursday at 6 p.m.

They were fine a lot.

I didn't need this as well, not to have a family day all scheduled.

Sometimes you better lighten Thursday and put more other into it.

Well, as I say, you could move some of them to Tuesday and get these guys out of the way.

Now you're up and having a leaders' meeting, wouldn't be well if you had a damn leaders' meeting off sometime this week.

Well, we put it off because it wasn't the original program.

And because at this point, we were keeping clear of the press conference and all that.

I may be dead, but we have one on for next week.

Maybe we ought to schedule one for this week so that you don't have to have one next week.

Well, since this week is dead, we may as well have one.

It's too late to have one tomorrow morning, I think, now that we could have one Wednesday morning.

Wednesday morning, yeah.

I think it's just a good thing to have a group.

I suppose it would be .

Well, they, it wouldn't be, you've got to do it early in any event because they have a meeting or a conference or something at either 10, 30, or 11.

I want to go that way all the way over there.

Okay.

i don't think you have to have breakfast tomorrow

And then the Conley thing, if we could allow a little time, he has some things he does want to talk over with you, so.

Well, we can do Arthur at 3 and then Conley right after.

You know, Conley's got to be here for the argument.

And then the argument is only supposed to be a few minutes, because it's only on that point.

And is anybody working on the, who is working on this?

I mean, I know that it's Connelly's bad, but he knows the terrible importance of it.

We've got to, you know, share it with him.

It's got to be Connelly, but we've got to sell him one somehow.

Why don't you tell us?

I'd like to have that as one of the subjects tomorrow, if you would.

You're coming home.

No, there was some indication that there was a reason for one next week, but I have yet to see what the reason is.

I don't know.

Well, I'm pushing for that.

I'm going to be goddamn loose this week, though.

As I said, I'm ready to do these things.

Now, I could do that, uh, if the timing is a good timing.

I didn't move where I could get that damn picture out of the way that time.

Do you want to just wait and see whether... Oh, he is in town.

No, we have to order him.

Order him down, but we... Well, what I'm getting at is, since I am not having a hold of time for the preparation of the papers, I can't have a speech.

So we can do it Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how these other things fall in.

So there isn't time here.

Let's see.

I want to approach it and make sure that it's very interesting.

Yeah, I'll get it.

Together over here.

I don't want to see it until I see what he concerns.

I think moving the hospital isn't too bad an idea.

Having Thursday a bit more clear.

Well that's, you may want the time by Thursday.

You get some other minutes back up and you have to leave for Canada Thursday night.

Yeah, so I see somebody else.

Yeah.

The other thing you had talked about was that getting the political group done this week and we dropped that.

I don't think that's necessary.

I don't think we're ready for that.

I don't know.

I've been thinking about whether or not I forgot to mention it.

I don't believe I will go to Florida this next weekend.

Because that campaign would be quite nice.

I wouldn't mind having a political meeting there, but it cannot be in my residence.

Now, which we can determine that?

Oh, good.

Nothing to do with that?

No.

It's the last big chance then.

It's the last big chance.

It's not a good time to go.

It's a good time to be here.

I don't want to be on top of things.

We do.

We might have a political meeting there, too.

You see what I'm saying?

What I'm thinking is you ought to shoot for the political meeting that weekend.

And I'll go either Friday or Saturday, see?

And I won't be with dinner and all that business.

I think what we'll do is I'll just be available for a couple hours.

If my schedule permits, maybe we'll have dinner.

If not, we won't.

Or it can't be, but we won't have dinner.

Well, it might be better not to.

Not to do it away from here, because if you haul... See, Mitchell ought to be there, and if you bring Mitchell away, you put a focus on the fact that he's there.

And it may be worse just having him in here if the light isn't supposed to.

Mitchell could go there without a problem.

Yeah.

I think so.

I think he'd go there without it being known.

I don't think we're not ready for it this week.

I think that's where I'm probably looking this week.

We can get everything sort of lined up.

We've got some things to push around and get it put together.

I want to see who's going to be on first.

John understands, of course, what we're talking about.

I hope I made it clear.

Actually, he wanted to invite some of my staff to confess to me.

That's very clear.

It's very clear to me.

It's what other people can do.

I don't know how much to be done.

So he probably ought to get out a list of our main speakers and how they sort of produce.

And he can also be in those terms of where the fraud is concerned, where they can't get over help.

The same as the Julie Christian in the past business, because now, like she's going on and on and on, that's the best bad thing that can happen.

They could say, oh, I'd rather be killed than be dead.

I don't want to be killed.

I'm not going to be killed.

Correct.

Absolutely.

And that's very good.

John agrees with the question.

I thought he'd be very pleased with any of these reasons .

Sure does.

And he thinks the other's going to do the rest of the job too, doesn't he?

Yeah, he said there are one or two things that he's in and he's got to get them.

stay with for nine days and get a family.

That's fine.

I would prefer I was making his focus.

I would prefer not to hear it in the non-politics, I'm sure, for the next couple of weeks.

All right.

Maybe that's just as well.

I mean, his political thing might be here.

Well, and if I'm at Camp David, I just may as well fly out of all this.

There's no reason why John can't come up for a campaign.

That's right.

That's where I'll probably end up.

I agree with you both more.

They can't pay the fine.

The crisis is coming up there.

They're social.

Would you consider following them?

No, you can't.

No, I can't.

I'm going to Texas.

Yeah, but not until Sunday.

You could go to Florida the following Thursday night.

I'll be there Friday, Saturday.

Oh, well.

Then I'll come back here to pick up Pat.

I can't take it.

It's particularly nice right now.

I mean, Florida, that Camp David, Camp David at this time, I mean, that's already coming up.

I've got the swimming pool, all the time, and walks.

That's about all I want to be making, you see.

I appreciate it.

I mean, that's... Yeah.

Are you thinking still of the possibility of the televised press conference next week, or Vietnam speech next week?

The speech?

Probably a press conference.

What we may end up with is...

We just have to put, right now, we have to not be concerned about the traditional readers.

I've gone over all the PR aspects of it, and we're going to get a list of things, and you know what I mean.

Scallop hands it in the morning, and get that out to him, and then he's going to, he says that he's telling the grader to get a few more.

Hawks say, give them a little line so they'll help you out.

And in the meantime, but I don't think my time is just like this, because the main thing now is to do the right thing.

And there's no way to win anything.

A speech now would help on that one.

It would help some domestically.

I haven't heard of any.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know any about domestically.

Well, I don't know where all that would end.

And I think, I said earlier, the problem here is, of course, domestically, we have to realize that people take some nutrition.

That's the other main political entity subject, which is tax.

People can stay out of war and all that sort of thing.

And we've got to weigh the fact that that attrition may encourage, and it may encourage Moscow.

On the latter part, he says, in all, he says that Moscow has tremendous mission to provide with regard to the Trump Treaty.

And we've already got to that line hanging in briefs on that.

Because Henry has laid it straight out that we will not support the Trump Treaty in place for us.

So I worry about that.

The second part is .

They never had .

The other, on the other hand, the foreign policy area is what really .

Basically,

The trouble is that I work less on it myself.

There is no way that I can make a speech.

You see, what all the boys around here want from me is that what's happening is that we deserve a country that no Americans are involved in, that we're not escalating, and that we really want peace, and that we miss that kind of thing.

And that's all the wrong stuff.

Then they were on to the hand-off, see.

But the hand-off, we're moving those goddamn destroyers in there, we're moving our B-2's in there, we just hit the north of the B-2's, and you know what I mean?

And they got a crazy man to deal with there, naked.

And he's nothing bigger.

And I put it all the way, they shot across the bow.

Yeah, but the thing this morning, as I did, as you said, Henry made the suggestion for that.

And the main thing on this is whether it comes out.

You see what we really face now is if Saigon collapses.

We don't think it will, if it does.

The Russian game will collapse for the reason that I and him not go and will not go to Russia in a lead bargaining position.

We have to blame the Russians and not the others.

And that will mean, of course, that we are, from a political standpoint, putting everything on the line that we could be right now.

And that person resigned to that.

The important thing here is that we've got to put all the chips in the pot and try to win it if we win it.

You never know.

It just...

There's no way this could be safe.

There's no way.

This office is not going to be worried about anyone, whoever is president, because the United States will no longer encroach on foreign policy.

And that is the God's truth.

If we can't stop the Russians, and never ever, through indirect means, to take over South Vietnam, the United States will not have a credible foreign policy in the Middle East.

It will not have one in Europe.

It will not have one in the world.

That's what's wrong.

That's what he's got and does.

I don't understand.

So, we're going to have to do that.

We're going to play this string out with the best of our ability.

That's what we're taking risks.

It's a curious thing.

I don't think, I'm afraid that there's nobody in the cabinet who understands that it would be possible, possible, well, sure, I'm sure you understand, with the exception of Cotman, you'd understand.

Uh, the writer doesn't play against them.

They just do what they're told.

But the writers, you know, play a usual game, wait and see what's happening, hoping that it's good, and so forth and so on.

But that's really the kind of thing you try to see.

But I've thought it all through, and I know it's a thing to do.

And, uh,

It's a rough decision, but we have to do it this way.

We cannot play it.

You see, you can't go on.

It's not safe.

The guns of April have been answered.

It's irrelevant.

It's facetious.

It's like when boyish.

It's, uh, it plays with things.

It's funny because I started to read that draft and I got through the first couple of pages and that's a big mark.

But there's no, there's no, there's no fall bills.

But we do not have anybody on the staff.

You can write for a policy structure.

What I'm here to say this morning is true.

It is not my thing.

I was a great genius at it, but I just, I worked no more than 15 nights.

Now I work for the last time.

I think there are two comments on that today.

There's a 15 minutes last night event.

Thank you very much.

Well, that's the word.

It's still in the remarks, which is practically great, because it's pure.

Yeah.

You know, about pastor and all that bullshit.

Well, I do a little of that.

You've got the thing, but now we can fight disease.

A little.

But the main thrust of my remarks is far more fundamental than Myers' control of those many pieces.

It's not an end in itself.

But that's directly contrary to what the Jerry Smiths and the others and the Chabot Watchers, they always look upon arms control as an end in itself.

That's the Soviet mind.

It is not an end in itself.

The purpose of arms control is in the end to control the world.

Well, what I think of that is that we just haven't got people around here, God, that are

I think there are two reasons.

One is that I'm the only one around here, except for Hay, who understands me.

as far as the others i mean you can't just say well why don't you can't well the trouble is we can't totally relax the sophistication people have to wear boring russians you know

So there's a lot of sophistication there.

I wouldn't use a bunch of other people around this county.

That's the times.

If you go to your street traffic staff, you can't have them.

I mean, Price and Sapphire and Hayden and all the rest of them.

You know, it always comes out of Bowie, you know, to save people.

It's good.

Regents, most of them, I mean, they would not agree with that because that's the national name of this awful crowd.

Right now, if it's what's right in this thing, we're going to see the damn thing true.

And we're not going to be worried about politics.

Let's get holes in tribal needs.

Let us get bullshit.

Let us be must not and must not be in it.

I'm not going to be able to talk to our domestic people about their problems.

I've got to keep my mind absolutely clear and unfettered for what could be critical decisions.

I want you to hold hands with all the other.

I want you to get in.

Colson and McGregor.

McGregor, I want from that group.

Yeah, I want you to get to me and say, look, for the next three weeks, the decisions that are made are going to decide the whole damn future of this country.

And I just want to listen to you.

I'm going to do it.

It's always true.

They want to do it.

They just going to have to handle it.

I didn't intend to watch that too closely anyway right now.

But getting back to domestic, what you were saying, domestically, supposedly, as far as evictions concerned, let it come.

Let it come.

What will they determine?

This is whether we win.

We won at Laos, and we won.

Do you remember when we were in?

Yeah.

That one weekend, yeah.

And it looked like we were in.

And then the shit hit the fan, and they started pumping on the side.

Side on and hold on.

That's exactly right.

And this one is even more so than the last, because it'll be more clear cut.

oh sure everything's on the line i know you know what you've got here you've got everything committed and uh you lose a few northern villages

It won't hurt the message because they prepared for that.

They prepared for that, except for these carcass and screw the carcass.

I don't care about them.

If they want to run this country, they'll have this country lose.

They can't.

They're more than afraid that something's going to win.

Sure.

And that you'll benefit from it.

That's probably the greater fear, isn't it?

Just like they're afraid the economy will come up, or the unemployment will go down.

Yeah.

Well, the prices, they really are the prices.

Yeah.

The retail sales reports tend to be .

Well, the most important thing was because that won't be reflected .

But it will not phase out next month, you know, when there's a separate price.

Because the CDI, CDI this month, maybe another day, I think we just take the time.

I think the fact that those, and if we make it up, but here's where early, where somebody's got to get up and see that they follow up every goddamn day.

Food prices went down last month in Olson.

Food prices went down.

They shouldn't go down to the supermarkets.

You know, it's amusing to see Mansfield say, we were trying to make the farmer to go and ship it.

That's where I would go to if you wanted to write me an email.

Yeah.

That's my line.

How can I get away with that?

He isn't going to get away with it, because that might be hit pretty hard.

We've got to stay with it.

We've got to keep getting it every day.

That's right.

Excuse me, Mr. President, did you want to hear his parents shout, they are not the same?

I'll just be a second.

Is there anything you can comment on?

Oh, let me see.

Wait a minute.

He's the first one.

What did he say?

I don't think his parents received anything from Mr. Crescent, but they were here once.

They were here once.

I wish there was a way to get him more involved.

No, he loves it.

Accept it.

I do not want to talk about Paul Fincher.

He's good.

I mean, just...

All he'll do is, you know, naturally, as he should, raises all the questions and the problems and what the hell we're going to do.

Now, I must not be thinking of that.

I will not do it right if I do it otherwise.

And he's got to give you justice.

You see, you've got to take this people out of that in another way, or I am going to have to talk to them about it.

He's got to, and he knows he's got to, but make the point.

Just say, talk to John Mitchell and Bob Hoffman about that.

Or I wish you would give Mitchell and Holman the benefit of your counsel on these things.

Or just Mitchell, if you want to take that.

I think he likes to feel he's getting an engineer, too.

Well, you do traffic parking for a few years.

Oh, yeah, about 12 years.

Yeah, more than every week.

And I can make the point of going beyond that with a...

There's a thing they say, you know, if he's got the time, why don't you set up a time zone?

And you try to see him once a week or something like that.

Go over there.

I do?

That's time.

A lot of guys go over here.

Thank you.

It's funny, you know, if you think the guy would want you to come to his office, they'd like to settle it before I have to go over it.

Yeah, I think that's true.

Well, anyway, that's the way they do it now.

You have to figure it out now.

It's bad.

If you make a bail here, nobody will make it to you.

Whatever.

You turn around to John, in whom you have confidence.

Thank you.

I think it's amazing that we're getting this good so far.

If they start making a negative pitch, it will hurt.

But it hasn't certainly gone right.

At least it doesn't seem to have.

Don't worry about it.

The main thing is, no.

Don't go around and pull it out of town.

I don't want you to pull it out of town.

I don't want to get anybody that's as hard as, let's say, a person that may be having a surgery.

You see, this is what Joe Johnson told me.

In fact, in the very, you know, later times, he says, the whole show we're going out and so he's, he's policy.

I don't want to give a damn about the polls.

You understand?

I don't want to hear a damn.

I don't want to hear anything about it.

That's why I was concerned about that thing with Bob Semple's piece.

He does have contacts in the Texas White House, and I was a little worried about that.

Nobody here should tell him that.

He had to get that from somebody, but I wouldn't think so.

I don't know who the hell would.

Did he?

Roussell?

Roussell did.

Price?

Price did.

They honestly, the government did.

I mean, that group of people, there's a whole syndrome of that bunch.

Could you perhaps get all that stuff in and let Henry talk to him?

Henry's the one who talked to him.

No, I think he maybe is on this.

Well, he is at the Senate meeting tomorrow morning.

They're all going to say, now, let's be firm.

We're doing the right thing.

The president's being courageous.

Let's have not a peep out of here.

It's necessary to have total discipline.

Don't talk to any president.

It's a very good energy to do that, because then they'll rally to their toes.

I know they want to do the right thing.

They're going to say that we're doing the right thing.

And it's just a courageous act, a damn lonely act without any support of the son of a bitch in the cabinet.

Well, the captain didn't know any better.

Laird did what he was told, and Rodgers was the one who played through it again, but at least the stage wasn't crumbling yet.

You know what?

They gave you the proof.

I think that's probably right.

It's right.

Kind of like it.

Nixon, Haldeman & Butterfield on Vietnam War and 1972 Presidential Campaign

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 10, 1972

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