Nixon, Connally & Haldeman on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Senate Elections

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I just wanted to, I could have really done it at the moment, but I thought it would be better to just talk to you briefly about it.

I had an interesting moment when I was at the funeral today.

First, a couple of sidelights.

Could you admit the Congressman Wagner of Louisiana, Joe Wagner?

I told him, I said, I got there, I said, you know, I'm one of the first men.

I said, you know, I'm one of the first men.

I didn't know that I'm calling you.

And I said, you know, he's a man, says, well, I'm standing for the capital.

And I said, I just want to convey to you his very high regard, fortune, I'm going to tell you that if you do this, if you appoint him, that he certainly is not going to do anything to hurt you.

There's chances that he's going to try everything he knows how to figure out someone else to help him.

Uh, he said, but I suspect from, see, Eleanor had a hell of a race of attendance.

Could have lost, could have lost as Johnson.

As Johnson, as a matter of fact, great people told, told me they thought Eleanor was to be a B.

Uh, I don't know that that's true, but in any event, he had a race of attendance.

Because this guy just lost the governor to this Johnson.

by a very slim margin.

So I'm sure that Joe Fito said he can't take up this much time.

He'd have to run as an independent against this guy Johnson.

Now here's the Democratic nomination.

They opened it up.

Well, he didn't tell you.

Hello.

Uh, Joe, if you've got a minute, I'll just, uh, chat with John here, and, uh, could he talk to you on the phone?

Fine.

Uncle Joe, what are you doing?

Well, I just couldn't be better, I guess, unless I was rich.

You know, the rich folks got by pretty well, didn't they?

He said, Edwards had made a very cursory request.

He said, are you interested?

And he said, I responded by saying, well, I might be under certain circumstances.

But he said, we didn't discuss it.

I didn't.

It wasn't awkward.

He said, it wasn't any offer.

It wasn't even appropriate to a serious discussion.

We didn't have a serious discussion.

He said, they're messing everything up.

He said, under the statute, he said, they got an attorney general's opinion signing.

And under that opinion, they can reopen.

They can postpone the election and reopen the qualifications or to new qualifiers because the conditions of the statute

cannot be met, and that means that the Secretary of State has to certify that he can't get Eleanor's name off of the ballot and a new name on.

And if that happens within 30 days prior to the election, then the Central Committee has already postponed it.

But he said that, according to the newspaper accounts, the Central Committee is not going to meet until the 12th of August, which is one week before the primary.

That's August the 19th.

And he said

He said, the courts are going to hold that this is dilatory.

And he said, this is just always a first.

And he said, Eleanor died 23 days before the primary.

He said, if they wait until one week before the primary or the election to have the Senate committee and reopen qualifications, Johnson's going to go to court and said, I don't blame him.

He said, all the Senate is going to be on his side.

But he said it.

Edwards, the governor, told Pascoe, and one or two other people said they wanted a third party.

Here's the thing, he said, he told Pascoe at another point, why?

And he said, if he does, it will be a terrible mistake.

But one other thing that he said was, he said, of course, I'm not going to put myself in a position of being a sucker for the job,

Edwards knows that I didn't support him.

And he said, I was for Jocelyn as far as he is.

I said, I was voting my district.

And he said, Jocelyn's from my district.

And he carried my district overwhelmingly.

And he said, if I hadn't voted for him, he would have taken me along.

He said, frankly, I was voting my district and my very selfish interests.

He knows that, sir.

He's not supposed to be shy to two-fold count as far as I'm concerned.

And so that's about the situation.

About two-and-a-half.

And what would you do?

Probably as good as anything.

That's where they get Johnson.

This government's a damn fool to fight his wife.

That'd be more ridiculous than anything that ever happened.

Really?

They'd rid him of the light.

Yeah, they really would.

What the hell?

Even if she's in the Senate for only six months, or four months, or whatever it is, you get a certain thing for retirement.

I don't know if that's not a hell of a lot.

But it's just a goddamn thing.

Well, that's the way they certainly are.

He's quite a great fellow.

But he has made it so that one other thing I should report to you about, and I talked to McClellan, of course.

McClellan.

You know, I was supposed to prank her, and he said that he was sort of, and he had a Republican opponent.

It was the first time he ever had money.

He said, I don't know about Republican money.

He said, well, the Rockefeller had told him that he, Rockefeller, was not going to give him any more money.

And he said, you know, I'm going to call him.

He said, get that fellow out of there.

He says, I mean, he says, head up the Democrats.

Now, we'll save it, though.

I mean, I think we'll call him this year.

So what I indicated is that I thought that John Mitchell should take a crack at the thing and see whether he can do it.

Because he knows how to do it.

And they ought to get the clown out of the damn race.

And McClellan's now the chairman of Appropriations.

He's a terribly important man to us.

We should run a Republican against him.

But I thought you should know that that's in the New Orleans.

If you've got any other thoughts on that, I don't know what we can do about the damn Republican.

I don't know who he is.

I don't know either.

I'll find out.

Jay Jacobson has a lot of contacts in Arkansas.

So I'll find out.

Scott was, Scott heard a little bit when they were talking.

Scott said, we shouldn't do this.

You never know what the hell Scott will have to do.

Would you mind, if you think one of you might give John Mitchell a call and say, let's get this on the brakes, because we're calling him for us.

I don't think he'll win.

And I mean, that's not bad.

No.

I thought I missed him.

I didn't want him to come out, because he probably was running to risk of kicking him off his...

championship, but well.

Well, we get his campaign chairman.

Jackson.

Who's already agreed to come on this.

Is that right?

And my god, you get all his friends and all his fire officers.

He says 90% of my apprentices are your friends.

Well, the beauty of it would be that if the Republican is

more or less a token candidate.

Now that McClellan has become chairman of the appropriations, he gives them a perfect excuse, just a second, right?

And so he's chairman, and I wouldn't want to deny him my stay until he's finally elected.

One thing that's got a big drop in the conversation, probably almost facetious of it, which does occur to me, and you might mention Mitchell, look at the fall down, and get my job, and stuff like that.

Let's just give him a job.

He's a lawyer or something like that.

I think Mitchell should take a run at it.

That's on the Republican side, and let's get the hell out of the race.

Well, we've got it in front.

Yeah, all right.

The call just came up a couple days ago.

The call just finally came through IRS.

My mind came through on the use.

How much is it, Bill Bryan?

I don't know, but it's there.

All right.

If you don't want anything to get at service, don't report us now.

We don't care.

We've got the data.

It was there in 1952.

They cut my income.

I couldn't show God that thing, but they put it all out, and we're going to do that again.

Just start your apology right now.

They've got him too.

All right.

They've got him.

IRS.

Yes, sir.

All right.

They've got a real... Claude is dead.

And they've got Hubert's son.

What do you mean?

Hubert is... Now, we're not going to... We want Joe to follow up and check it because that's where the money came from.

The IRS has got it.

No, but... Joe didn't follow up on his public relations.

I don't believe it.

All right.

Very well.

All right.

We got a real problem there.

They can't undo the indictment on Jacobs.

And it'll be, it comes down apparently Thursday.

That's for us to see, you know.

I don't know.

John knows the story.

He just said that, well, apparently because it ran a jury, that was the whole thing.

And because it's six investigators and it's not one, it's past the point of no return.

We'll get to work right away with him.

get to work right away.

You understand what I meant?

John Connelly has got to sit down, whoever works on this thing, so this doesn't slap him in the face.

We can afford to lose Jacobson, but we can't afford to lose Connelly.

You see?

So, how can you work?

Who does?

Are you sure that there's a nice, so you have everything you can on this or not?

Thank you.

I have to ask John himself.

He had plenty of sin today.

I think it's going to be imperative.

Just delay, that's the main thing.

I said it could possibly be delayed a week, but no more than that.

And maybe not that.

I didn't know about this, which is why I didn't, but I didn't think I would have raised it with John here.

I didn't know what Mr. Hugh and Irving, how much to get John Irving to really come to riot terribly hard in this.

I told him that I raised it with Irving.

He was going to raise it with the client.

I told him that the client had raised it directly with the client in Chelsea.

Well, then, yeah, calling these two arguments together, this is terribly important.

Even like, like if you can't even deny it.

Because I don't think John is, John can, you see, he's got Jacobson working with him.

You know, you can't have a guy under indictment doing this thing.

Well, he'd have to move Jacobson out first.

I mean, he doesn't have the public with him yet.

No, no, no.

He's not going to make a public announcement at this point.

He's ready to.

What do you do right now?

Should I get it in or not?

I can't really get it in.

John would know.

I think maybe you ought to ask John because I don't know what the story is on it.

What's the job?

John had climbed East End today, but he's away on vacation.

He hadn't come down for the commute today.

That's a hell of a problem.

Because he doesn't have anybody else.

Well, it's got to be a second week.

He's sort of ventilated.

He just realized.

Well, I think the thing to do is for Earl to go over and tell him that you told him to get it taken care of.

And then he called the attorney general and gone through it.

And here's where it stands.

And there's nothing he can do.

I'm asking him what the hell he's going to say.

That's right.

All right.

Nixon, Connally & Haldeman on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Senate Elections

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on July 31, 1972

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Nixon, Connally & Haldeman on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Senate Elections

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on July 31, 1972

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Cite this conversation