Nixon & Ehrlichman on H.R. 1 and Veto strategy

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Here's what's happened.

As I get it from our guys, ATW went to Stevenson.

Stevenson to offer an amendment that

so close to H.R.

1 with just a couple of little manes of effort with minor amendments.

And Richardson will be calling assing for a leave to support the Stevenson amendment.

Okay.

Oh, no.

We're right rock solid on H.R.

1.

That's the point.

Then it'll start to be more...

Okay.

I think W.W.

The trick here is not to get caught.

is on the water bill, the General, or the Office of Legal Counsel over here is now giving a written opinion that it's mandatory spending.

Where is it?

It is probably not going to come to you until the pocket veto period, assuming that they go out between the 14th and the 20th someplace in there.

In other words, it won't be there for another four or five days.

You have a whole range of options.

You can pocket-veto it.

That is probably the least desirable option, in my opinion.

If it is, in fact, mandatory spending.

And if you veto it because it's mandatory spending, and they rule you, then you've got to spend money.

So that's a good one.

I think you're right.

I don't know.

But I want to alert you to the problem, the guidance that I

Yes, it will be vetoed.

Now, we can put that out.

Well, it could be.

It could be.

Well, what I prefer to do is, we're not going to change anything.

Oh, we know that.

The word is out around that I have said, the word is not out that you've said yet, that veto is possible.

I like to believe it, as it is, in terms of what it's said.

Why don't you say that we're still trying to get to the point?

All right.

I agree.

I can see your point.

But when we do start, we do need to get to the point where we can get past the chance of the Congress overriding.

And we've got to deal with that.

Just say that we're still trying to get to the point.

In any event, here's what I think we probably ought to do.

Say that now.

Not say what the opinion is that we have.

Oh, no.

Keep it quiet.

Right.

But the point is, we've got this, but we also have another group working on it.

They know that.

They do have it.

We have a video on Jesus with the statue.

Then, hopefully, they will give us the option to get down here within a period of time when you have the option of sending a veto back up.

Yes, and it's in the works.

Well, the thing is, we've got a radio speech in process on spending and higher taxes.

We could put in a couple of paragraphs.

He's so helped out by the Congress that he then finds that he has to choose between his program and between the area of rights and taxes.

As much as he wants water, all of it.

Well, it's that he's basically a lead liberal.

It's that guys like Percy and others work on it.

And he's not a rock.

He's more of the willow type.

Waves in the wind.

You've got to get him out of the job.

He's got to do something else.

He's not good at that.

Well, he won't.

I don't know who could survive, who was involved, but I should change the agency.

But John, really, the thing is, Elliot's done a hell of a job of keeping the thing from blowing up off.

It would have killed Bench for this time.

That's right.

Well, that's part of it.

Bench would say these things.

Bench would be formed about it.

He'd say them.

But on this one, Elliot, the point is, you've got to realize that

first three titles, we can't approve because they're too expensive.

They run way, way over.

Plus the fact that it's a political decision that we stick on H.R.

1.

Our decision is to go on H.R.

1 and that any movement is going to actually be good.

As an L.A., do you figure we're going to have to come and beat you on that damn Social Security crap?

Those first three titles?

Yes, sir.

I think so.

Do you mean Mills will get that over with?

Probably what's going to happen here, as they say this morning, is that nothing is going to come out on Title IV.

The Senate finally will pass the first three titles, send them to conference.

Mills is vacillating now.

He's weakening.

He's caving.

conference to try and get the damn Congress to go home.

I understand.

Well, we're just fighting.

As you know, we went out on a spending limit yesterday and we said a vote for this is a vote against higher taxes.

So we got a little foundation and we keep pounding on that.

We'll get a vote this week on that in the House.

We've got a chance of winning that.

We can't lose it.

limitation if we lose it then we go out and say now we're down to two because here comes all this stuff I would just quote on that with the conferences he'll have to be for it and he still is pretty good as of last night

If we get the spending limit in the House, we've got a good chance of getting it in the Senate.

If we do that, we have some chance of getting it in the Senate.

Now, Humphrey has a long article in the Post this morning against it.

And he's making a partisan election issue

out of it.

It's the president arrogating power to himself.

It's talking golf on the domestic side in Atlanta.

So I would say with the amount of time that they have over in the Senate to mobilize opposition, they'll probably be able to beat it.

But we have a fighting chance over there.

Whether we get it or not, it is the vehicle for making clear your position on new taxes.

And I think...

you could very well find yourself in a PR position to veto titles 1, 2, and 3 on the ground of payroll taxes.

This adds umpteen dollars to the average working man's payroll taxes.

The old folks are already giving you credit.

They're going to lose time.

Yeah, but simultaneous with that veto, they're opening their Social Security check this month and finding a letter from you saying your check is 20% higher.

and it's interesting in the post piece this morning on the campaign you know that big wrap-up piece they're doing there's several comments they have direct quotes from the people they've interviewed several comments well he raised my social security so it's coming through so i think we can get away with it well john you're you're

Well, that's fine.

That makes my job very easy.

Just call me back.

I think he's fought a marvelous fight.

I appreciate it.

But I consider this a political government.

I'm going to have to veto.

I've decided that I'm going to have to veto the other bill anyway because of the other three titles.

And I don't want to fool around with this one.

I'd rather let it...

I don't want to try to improve it.

Put it that way.

That's my strategy.

That's the line.

Uh...

I'll do that subject to my talking to Ken Cole, who's had a meeting this morning with our legislative guys.

And I'm not up to date on what's happened.

That's what's going on while we were over there.

So let me find out what's happened.

Well, you use your judgment on this case.

I don't have anything to ask me, of course, if you haven't had it.

But we're on the same track.

Well, if he hadn't threatened to phone you,

Why clean this up?

You're going to get all four together.

That's right.

Screw it.

I don't want any better.

The other three titles are totally unacceptable.

God damn it.

Is he recommending signing the other three titles too?

I don't know.

John?

I don't know.

When is anybody going to start holding God damn on?

See, that thing, there he says.

How do you feel about your

It wasn't fine.

You bailed us out, you know, because you had Gromyko in there.

So they had to leave.

So we got across it.

We wanted to get it.

And then we got out.

We stayed another 15 years.

Well, that's interesting.

I thought the Vice President handled himself very well.

People told me he did better than the other fellow, than the other fellow's son.

But on the other hand, they are immediate problems.

Clearly, you know, they're rated in Christ's name.

I mean, they lived it up like Bill Heldman.

NBC killed us, you know.

NBC carried the government, did not carry the Vice President.

All the others carried both.

And by the way, you know, there's one difference, though.

cigarette.

And of course, he was the same client.

He'd never seen the problem.

Didn't realize what a hell of a shift we got in 68.

It was awful.

Yeah.

Six and seven went.

Three to one, maybe.

Yeah, for instance, they ran a piece on it.

Eleanor McGovern did it yesterday.

They must have run five minutes on CBS.

Hell, I thought the tag on it was going to be a paid political announcement.

You know, it was just...

I suppose they think, though, that they have run it.

This is fiction in Moscow.

This is fiction in Beijing.

Of course, I don't see how they can justify it.

They'll argue that their coverage of this today, here, has to be balanced by...

That's what Montgomery said.

Just, we should remind them that in 1964, did they ever try to abolish council?

Never, never, never.

Well, the best thing to do should be the suspension.

Oh, right.

Never forgive them.

There isn't anything Montgomery could do.

Daniel Webber's, oh God, this just kills me.

I don't think, I don't know what they'll play.

Yeah.

Well, it's a good thing, but, you know, they really, that deserves, that deserves buyouts, right?

Because you're a little younger, they can probably at least have what I said.

And then all the melons that are out of it.

They can talk about ADMs, and they can talk about the historic Senate battles, and all that stuff, and they can make a hell of a story.

A hell of a...

But getting back to it, do you think that we're getting about a three-to-one?

Oh, a six-to-one.

You remember in 68, we were thinking about going out and taking paid space to carry ourselves.

We're not saying what they want is for us to get to the right one.

Sure.

That's right.

Right.

Sure.

Because they want to.

First, they don't want to hurt us.

Second, they want to excite us.

Yeah.

And they're not going to get ahead of us.

That's the worst thing we can do.

He's acting like a god damn.

It's true.

The closer you get to an election, the wilder he's going to get.

It's just going to be hard to go wilder.

Well, he'll stretch up sometime, sure.

And that's fine.

probing press corps in the world.

He's also on the scrutiny of a hostile Congress that has full investigatory power.

That's a good point.

And he's also turned the FBI loose on the grain and the waterway things.

And he says, I won't apologize to anybody for the integrity of the Bureau.

Now, he said, anybody who tries to persuade you that there's hidden corruption in Washington, D.C. under those circumstances,

That guy was just disobedient.

He told Gray that he was paid.

The guy was speculating in stock on the side.

I just want to know.

What about what was the fellow here in Washington doing?

I don't know what that's all about at all.

I just want to be sure that Gray is firing the right people.

Not our friends.

Well, and I don't know if this guy in L.A. is friendly or not.

I don't know anything about him, but I did read

account of his stock transactions.

And if I were Greg, I would find enough cause there without any question.

I think I was... Oh, it's an interesting thing, though, John.

The great advantage we have, of course, is that we can't

Just part of the same thing.

Don't take mine three to one.

I agree with Matt at NBC blanking out the vice president last night, and then I want to cover it all over CBS.

It strikes a hell out of me.

But there isn't any question about it.

If we were out, do you realize, though, when they lose?

Let me tell you why.

It isn't because it's supposed to.

It isn't because they thirst the other person.

It's because they have liable two friends of ours.

They have liable men.

They have continual liable men.

And Bill Rogers should not have known that.

I think it's a hell of a thing for him to do.

I don't believe in doing things for...

It's a liable son of a bitch in the town.

No, but the staff, I don't want to handle any of them.

I mean, that's going to be one of them up there.

Anybody.

Okay, nobody.

I think the only one could be that fellow, what's his name?

Where's he from?

Closet.

He should go.

Closet.

Closet, I think, should go.

Probably not quite.

You have to see why.

Yeah, I don't want him to appear to be strong, but to be a man who's not aggressive.

and say, I've got another engagement.

Just regular.

But getting back to this, don't be concerned because you see, body of the way.

Oh, and I hope that that's the right safe side of what are we to do.

not appear to be, frankly, as reactionary, maybe, even as we are, if we are reactionary.

But, you know, they haven't been able to pin that, like the Social Security sign, if it's necessary.

Do you remember how close it was to the white letter they had to adopt that?

But we had to sign it.

And we liked along a few of those that are bringing babies out of the sleigh, you know, to keep the wolves off.

As they throw the babies out of the sleigh, they cut our head off.

The other thing that is so...

that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

to read this piece and see him trying to marshal negative arguments.

And that's funny.

He has a lot of trouble.

But this son of a thing keeps coming through, coming through, all the way through the end.

And that's where a lot of the swing works.

I'm inquiring to think that we have a tendency too often to be, ooh, part of the creationists.

Well, that's the thing I'd rather direct here.

Really?

Why don't you make some more statements on it?

Why don't you do that?

Why don't you get the rest?

You go out there to that goddamn...

there for a cut in the fence, and so forth.

And so, of course, they're going to be for McGovern.

We understand that very well.

Now, the way I would do this is with the press.

I'd say, yes, the press might not be that way.

Because basically, McGovern stands for exactly what they stood for.

for everything they stood for.

You go back and read their editorials criticizing us for standing up for these loony kids.

You read their editorials criticizing us for holding the line on Vietnam.

Realize they didn't read what they said about Cambodia, what they said about Haiti, what they said about every goddamn thing we've done, what they said about Amnesty, what they said about pot and all the rest of it.

It was a terrible thing.

They're on the wrong side of China.

The people are going to vote them down.

Their trick here at the present time is very clever.

They're going to try to blame the failure of their candidate, first of all, on us, that I have a candidate.

That won't work.

The other thing they're going to blame is blaming it on him.

Isn't it amazing the build-up of this asshole Schreiber?

I remember the Bill Muskie.

He is.

I don't think Schreiber.

He's down 11th.

Do you think so?

Do you notice the president?

But he really is on the edge.

Reverend Sharon Sykes, instead of Independence Hall, how would you like the funny old Philadelphia City Hall?

Well, I tell you, I thought a little about that.

I should have mentioned it earlier.

I'm afraid that it has to be shut.

Well, I thought I had a good idea.

I'd like to take another road and so forth, but I just haven't.

Bring them in here, let the parks come and want to.

Invite our friends and a couple of enemies.

And do it very much like you did this thing this morning.

Why not?

Except on this one, the way I would have it done is to come in.

I think that perhaps I could come in with the vice president.

Oh, I've got a scenario coming to you.

What I had in mind was then to say...

But what I have in mind, let me say, when I am a host, I virtually have to start, the way I have in mind, to say, ladies and gentlemen, we are here for the signing of the Registration.

Since the Vice President has had the primary responsibility for this administration, I've asked him to provide a discernment.

Mr. Vice President, okay.

And he says, this is very good.

And he says, I'd like to call on Governor Jobs.

I've got to call on Governor Jobs.

And he took them for a minute, right?

Let him on 8 or 10.

Well, let the goddamn thing go for 30 minutes.

We've got a pretty good lineup of six, plus you, plus the vice president.

And I would include you to have the last word with a very brief, yeah, say, well, this is due, this is a fine initiative, I don't need to deal with all of it.

Well, we've got a pretty good lineup.

Warren Hearns and Rockefeller.

We've got Mrs. Spellman, this lady county executive out here.

A couple of friendly mayors.

I forget who they are, though.

Now, there is a little bit of offbeat.

They're not the ones that are identified as being on your guys, but they'll be very strong for it.

Then we call the guest list.

It's a good guest list.

Extremely good.

It's got a lot of fat cats in it.

And the reason is that we have all these citizens' committees for revenue sharing all over the country.

So we're going to call in 50 state chairmen.

And I think we should do exactly what we did in this one.

We should go over and have a reception for everyone.

I would like to say

Let me ask you this.

What does that require in regard to our protection?

We're in the works.

When do you want it?

Well, I would like to have it perhaps two weeks before the election.

What should I say about it?

You should say it right now.

Just hold it.

Just say you haven't made any decisions.

What are you going to do before the election?

I don't know.

If it's ready.

If it's ready, yes.

That's what we've been saying all along.

I titillated them a little bit yesterday.

a meeting with him.

They said, well, is it possible that you can do anything about property taxes without raising federal taxes?

And I said, yes, it is possible.

And that's what we're looking for.

Good deal.

Nixon & Ehrlichman on H.R. 1 and Veto strategy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 3, 1972

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