Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Camp David and U.S.-Soviet Relations

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Ziegler is out of the building, sir.

Good.

If you'd like to see Colson, he's, uh...

Uh, well, if I do, I'll see him at the EOB.

He's around.

Yes, sir.

I just went in and checked with the secretary of defense.

Ah, he's here.

Uh, Alex, on the thing tonight, what, uh, what is the situation about where everybody's staying this year?

Are you working on it?

Oh, sir, yes, sir.

They'll bring in...

Rogers and, uh, I, I think of it.

Rockets.

I'm just trying to, well, it's near another cabin officer.

That's not studying.

I do it at the cabin officers for the elderly.

Well, they're coming back.

They don't want to spend years in the bus and three Russian.

We're going to have to use them there.

Why doesn't it make any damn difference?

Well, it's easy to shift because it's just making it better.

I thought, Bert, just because it's a little bit more detached.

More detached.

Yeah.

Good.

It might be.

Good.

It might be a lot better.

Good.

Let's do that.

I can put kissing you where?

Maple.

The Americans go home.

Jerry Porter went home.

That's what I'm looking at.

It's just, I didn't want to bother you guys.

Cecil and Les and Peter, they got an autopsy.

Jerry Rush was in the chopper and then back after dinner.

It makes it a little more special for the guy who said, I agree, I agree.

You shouldn't have the whole gang out there.

What the hell does it mean to them?

It would mean something to them.

But it means less to Gromito if you have all of his crowds.

I agree.

8 o'clock breakfast at Laurel for them, and 9 o'clock departure.

Get here at 10.15.

I mean, 9 o'clock, get here at 9.40, and then they go back to the embassy.

They should be prepared to go right into the ceremony.

Well, I hope it's a day like this.

It was the most beautiful lab all the way.

I never saw it.

It was just great.

Of course, this is the person who follows my sacrifice.

Well, that covers me pretty well.

You know, we really got this ambassador thing down about Pete.

We did eight of those people in 30 minutes.

Well, let's see, if you're going to do it, you sure as hell should do it at that rate.

And that's about it.

The thing to do also is to do about eight at a time, rather than doing three and give it a day and a half.

You see, by the time I walk over and come back and screw around and set it up and the band and all the rest, hell, I've been looking for two.

and said, no, you shouldn't do it.

I know he's, doesn't, why he had the exposure.

Well, he's reacting, actually, to it.

But it's just, no, I'm not reacting.

I decided, as a matter of fact, I made a post on it over the weekend on my own because of the fact

They just got to have something to write about.

That's the problem.

We've given them stuff.

What do they want?

What do they do?

What do they want?

They want me in the ring.

They want to have someone to cover him, right?

That's not going to happen.

That's the curious thing.

They never called on Johnson to bring a gold letter to me.

Never.

Not one.

Of course, Johnson had some at the beginning.

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

They didn't call it Johnson.

I know the question, Thomas.

So the jury, tax, debate, whatever, yeah.

I got it.

Great.

Thank you.

I'm not going to write Eastman's opponent.

I'm not going to write McCaul's opponent.

Vice President covered Eastman pretty thoroughly.

He endorsed it, in fact.

He refused to endorse the Republican and said he would not, could not be in a position of opposing, of supporting an opponent to Senator Eastman who had been such a strong supporter of the Presidents and the administration.

And Clark Reed played a few.

would get the nomination, which would have been a disaster.

And I told him he could expect no.

He is running at my urging.

But I told him he would have no support from the administration.

getting back to the rest.

The letters sound good to me, don't they, to you?

Yeah.

The other point that I was going to make, and I was going to talk to John earlier about it later today, or tomorrow, perhaps.

The strategy in this $250 million debt limit is one of the ten suggestions.

I write a letter to each member of Congress urging his support.

I told John this morning it just sounded too gimmicky to me, particularly if I'm going to write support letters and all the rest, great.

I just wonder what you think about it.

I think I can indicate support for it.

I mean, a letter to each member of the Congress, to the Democrats, Christ, I think that's, I think it gives them a chance, each of them, to respond to the letter and make news about it, a lengthy exposition of why this sort of thing is a power of wrong.

It makes a lot of news and that sort of thing.

The Republicans don't need it.

John said, well, you've got to show presidential leadership.

I said, Scott, damn it.

John, I said, what does an 830 meeting in the morning mean?

What does sending all my people down mean?

John, why do you have to go out and say, isn't that leadership?

What in the name of God?

I don't know.

Maybe I might use the story, I guess.

I'm not going to send a letter.

I don't think you should.

I like the achievement.

You can show leadership, by the way.

Maybe you should call some Democrats in.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's just a grandstand play.

I could make a few call-in calls.

I still wouldn't install them for us.

the dire Republicans and everybody else are going crazy hell about the Jews.

I just, what I did, and that's okay, the bill said, well, it's perfect, we're out of the issue, we should back what we're supposed to do.

I said, if the Jews want to make America fall in policy hostage to that, I said, they can do it.

I said, but they're playing a very dangerous game.

I was reading the analysis of the Jewish support that you're making.

I can't remember whose it was.

I'm very confident, which is that, and it's basically what you've been saying, the Jewish support that you're getting, the increased Jewish support, that is based in focus.

The leadership has to do with this.

In focus, it has nothing to do with...

I thought it was great.

It was a great picture.

It frankly irritated me terribly in the beginning

Yeah.

I thought, oh Christ, it's like those World War II movies.

But as you got through, you had a market that was great.

But the point is, you see Fiddler on the Roof.

If I were to choose right after Exit is, because I just have a network, right?

Fiddler on the Roof, like the Rand Love Story, let the whole country see the son of a bitch.

You see, because it gets everybody to remember about Jews.

Yeah.

But is it ever that we say,

made that picture about Ukrainian Catholic men and about Lithuanians, about Estonians, about hundreds of millions of poor sons and bitches living in Russia.

And music wouldn't have been as good.

That Jewish music is great.

What's your analysis of the Jewish world?

Well, that they say, and this would apply to the exit pieces too.

They can, if they went the other way, that isn't what they care about.

What they care about is their personal

pocketbook, safety, and community position problems.

And their position in the community, their personal safety of their lives, and the protection of their pocketbook all push them to you.

The first two because of race, and the third because of the, and there's a strong belief in the religious culture for passing, you know,

White hat on the floor.

the Democrats would seize it.

They're going to try to say that we're soft on the Russians.

We should have insisted that the Russians let the Jews out and so forth.

It's really so kind of hypocritical.

We don't like some geocrats and these others who are so soft on the Russians.

Are they slower in the age?

No.

How old are you?

I'm in an enormous college.

So this is a period of 55?

Yeah.

I'm in an enormous college.

I'm going to be close to what you would raise taxes on.

Well, they do a good job after your meeting this morning.

I've seen them.

Thank you.

On this, do you agree more with the position of Nixon or more with the position of government?

And we don't have the breakdowns, but when you take the total, I don't have the specific issues, but when you take the total, it's 49-22, Nixon and government.

And which position do you agree with?

And on the second most important issue, they did the same thing.

It's 37-19.

44 on the second, much harder to decide on as the

reports the issue goes down.

The third is 1710, with 73 on the side.

On the grain deal, was this a good thing or not?

We asked, you know, in Iowa, we asked the same questions here.

In Iowa, this approval, 5918, nationally, it's 4929, while the registered voter is 5128.

So it's

Call it a 50-30.

Do you think the charge on the deal is true or untrue?

38 true, 16 untrue, 47 no-no.

And then the FBI should investigate 83% say no.

And if this makes you less likely to vote,

Of the two presidential candidates, whose policies do you believe provide our POWs with the best chance of being returned to the U.S.?

We tried to hit that because it was POW week.

Nixon, 46, McGovern, 28.

Do you agree or disagree with the charge made by Senator McGovern's administration's actions in recent release that the POWs delayed their release and will endanger the release of other POWs?

16 agree, 50 disagree.

our POWs, but is sacrificing their freedom in order to keep South Vietnamese president too in power.

Do you agree or disagree?

39 have been heard.

Do you agree or disagree with this proposal made by Senator McGovern?

We should cut our defense budget by 32 billion even if it puts us behind the Soviet Union military's training.

We asked that in July of the 19th.

and answer it.

But it shows the POW thing didn't do us any harm.

The weak deal with us is making much difference, and the men are saying it's still hurting them.

You're right as your voter to be able to hear, and you say Gallup, was his last poll right as your voter?

Well, that's that would add up to, this is total, Gallup at 61.33, which is a closer spread.

This is a 31 point spread, right?

Ours is a 31 point spread.

That's 31 inches 28.

and also the fact of the taking up and also the fact that they're using this totally away from the issues that we want to address.

Absolutely.

If you start, people are going to be there every day and say, Bob, what's the latest one?

I don't listen to Gallop and Harris.

Even in using it, we just say we've got a bullet from somewhere or we saw something.

Yeah.

We want to use it.

But I don't think we did.

You know, I don't use any of that.

I want to know about the trade.

You did get the question, but I don't know whether or not we should put it in the next week.

Trade deal.

Yeah.

A trade deal as to whether the Jews...

Except Jews, the Soviet Union charges exes for Jews who want to leave the country.

Some members of Congress feel that the United States has a trade agreement, not providing for race trade.

And all of the agreements of the United States don't say trade.

So the people who trade aren't controlled and so forth.

But we have to sell it.

I hope we can find it.

There aren't very many people who care.

Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Camp David and U.S.-Soviet Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 2, 1972

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