Nixon, McLarty & Eastland on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Southern Strategy

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Senator, how are you?

I'm fine.

This pretty girl you have here.

I don't know.

Nice to meet you.

What part of this interview are you from?

I'm from Anchorage.

That's right.

Senator Daniel A. Mr. President, I'd like to mention...

I'd like to mention the tweet that I gave to Nancy Pageant.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Why don't you sit on the other side?

I'm going to go to the next Senate.

We have a vote on a national event.

We have to make higher decisions.

Those folks had so much spirit.

I'm going to come down and then I'm going to come down again.

How are we going to do it?

Yeah, I can sit here all night.

Your mission is to have every program of our law in the United States in 50 states.

Right.

I'm glad that you got it.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Well, we're proud of our, of your participation.

Thank you.

We're doing a really good job.

I'm going to do it different.

Right.

Our motto is don't wait until you're grown and be great.

Be a great teenager.

Now that's great.

I think that's our speech.

You wrote that down for us.

Yes, sir.

Don't wait until you're grown and be great.

Be a great teenager.

I think that's what sets this page apart is our speech and what's right about America.

Give us a chance.

I don't want to do that.

Thank you.

Oh, yeah.

How old are you?

Fourteen.

Fourteen?

Gee whiz.

You said you have a letter.

What did you do?

You wrote to me.

Of course, I read all the egos.

Congratulations.

The Senator is born, right buddy?

You're not very old.

What's your recommendation?

I have a picture from Mayer Black, though.

And this is basically to your wife.

And here's the other part of the KMA.

This is the car I want.

This is Mayer Black.

What is this?

A car?

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

There's a very famous one out here.

By the way, how do you catch it?

How do you catch it?

I don't know if you can.

Can you stay here?

If it's about center, the only question is, is it 80% of the water or 90% of the sky?

I don't know about things, but I'd like to talk to someone.

And your picture, I think, is...

You heard of the thing that you put out at Fayetteville?

Oh, yeah.

We have one of those.

It's down the line.

That's what I need.

Thank you.

Appreciate it a lot.

Bye.

You got it?

Yeah.

Come on, Dr. Jack.

Get in the microphone.

Oh, sure.

I don't want to hear it.

No, I... Let me tell you, I'm not going to... Well, we tried to get him out, but you notice what Edwin said.

My daughter... We can't go to...

And the attorney general has just been down with the chairman down in Mississippi.

I think it's very important for .

And some of these northern states, it's an altogether different matter.

Well, as far as Southern Congress, I think it's generally only 55 of them that I have met.

That's about right, yes, sir.

But we are not writing any letters to their opponents.

We are writing, but even, for example, in the northern states, Jim, where our guy is running against a left-winger, has no chance of my having to write him a letter because we've got to draw the line this time.

I mean, I do think it's a good time to draw the line.

Don't you think so, David?

NBC, Time and News, which have got their candidate.

He stands for everything they believe in, right?

He's for amnesty, he's for pot, he's for cutting the fence, and all the rest.

And they're for that.

So we don't have to campaign with them.

Oh yes, sure, I'll get around, right?

What do you think I should do?

Well, I think it's two things.

I'm going to go to Atlanta next Thursday for a board meeting, and I'm going to meet with the regional meeting of all of our chairmen and the rest.

But I think if we don't do something, Jim, they're going to think that I'm sitting here afraid, complacent, and the rest.

I don't know what your answer is to that.

John Connolly.

John Connolly and John Mitchell are the two I talk most about.

Thank you.

They both want me to do it.

A motorcade is not your reason to eat yours, even though Kennedy was shot at the motorcade.

You know, that was a miracle.

It's a nightmare miracle to shoot at a moving target, you know, particularly the way the Secret Service covered it.

So I'm not going to be afraid of motorcading, like I'll motorcade and laugh and go to the hotel and meet with people.

I won't speak.

I will speak inside the hotel to our people there, but I'm not going to be outside before I'm on the big crowd, because that, I think, is a

he ever did something wrong in his country, he didn't do anything.

Now he's a big danger in Alabama.

Why does that turn his crowd with him?

The day he had you, Jackson was sick.

Why is somebody like a free Democratic congressman

and also the Nansen shot.

I mean, good God, I mean, if people went, because if you shoot somebody else, the canopies and the rest, it's so agonizing.

If you don't want any coffee, we'll cut them out.

No, we pass it then, we pass it then.

But we're going to, I'll continue to, I'll do it, I better continue to make some radio talks.

This is a close race to California.

Very close.

They're going to make a great effort there, but we're doing pretty well there.

The main reason I think we're doing well is we're doing well in Orange County and Los Angeles County, which we are pulling very

he said right now

Well, I didn't know that.

Yeah, they, well, he didn't used to be, you know, those three parts of that same fight, you know, Jimmy's in the middle, and then there's Westman, and then, of course, the Republican part of East, but Baker and Conner together, because we'll carry Tennessee big.

And 75% is, Tennessee is one of my better, has always been one of my better states.

That's right.

Let me say one thing that I particularly can't get across to you.

We want to try to develop a way to work with the leaders of those states in the future.

Again, looking at, I talked to John Conner about this, but that's a great part of me.

you think about this false man

by Dick Russell, John Sparkman, John McCollum, John Stence, and I would say if you were to take the Nixon voting record and stand on issues, and likely take the EDA voting record, that Nevada would be about 10%, and New Paltz would be about 75%, correct?

That shows you the difference.

And they go better than some Republicans.

I pointed out in talking about the budget, I said that I don't say this in the smartest sense because I said there are plenty of big spenders in both parties.

That's true.

We got our share.

I put the votes right at both of them, and then I said the problem is really the makeup of the Congress.

Nobody really has responsibility for putting the lid on this.

Because, you know, when you really come down to it, you talk about the big spending, where the hell do we put Percy?

When has Percy, for example, along with the friends of the rest, stood with us?

You tell me.

Consumers and all the rest of it.

I mean on any other domestic issue.

When's the Senate going to get out, Mr. Chairman?

For sure, you think?

Let's see.

All right.

What is this?

Is this the Irvin's indicating something about the investigation or something?

I saw that last night.

That's your commission?

Yeah, it's a commission.

What's the matter with you?

Is it the court movement in Massachusetts?

I've stayed miles away from it.

Hell, if the clerk wants to move tomorrow, let me put the baskets in jail.

Now, but I honestly have always taken a position.

There's been no investigation as long as my court's opposition.

That's always been his position.

I say I'm getting over it.

So he's changing it.

I told him to check the old sign.

I did this one time and keep over it.

The full committee can turn around the subpoenas.

I made a frankly move in Denver after I'd been in California about a couple of years ago.

This fellow Manson, you know, he just killed himself, killed all those people, you know, and so forth.

And so I made a, he'd been indicted.

So I happened to mention in another context, I was there addressing a law enforcement group, and I said,

media ought to give more attention to these five law enforcement officials and lessen the attention to somebody like Manson, who's in charge of the study of, well, the old gentleman, because I commented on his case still.

And I said, well, you know, I was abusing on that.

But I said, you need to remember that two years ago, I made a mistake commenting on a case when I met Mr. Manson.

And you, members of the press, took the need to ask very properly for it.

I don't want to make that mistake again.

And I know with your insistence on a single standard, you wouldn't want to make a comment on this case.

Every so often, Paul, Paul will be approved.

We all get to talk.

We have to.

You know what I mean?

It might mean losing the case.

Frankly, if I were the defense,

Nixon, McLarty & Eastland on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Southern Strategy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 9, 1972

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