Nixon, Ehrlichman & Bull on HR 1 and Veto strategy

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I don't want to read this.

Maybe one more time to be sure that I'm correct.

It's blunt.

Somebody says, fellas, you see that he's filming me banging on HR1.

We're getting a lot of pressure on HR1.

You're going to be hit tonight by Cooper and both of them have been banging on us.

Our strategy...

is bury it with nine other vetoes.

Well, I mean, to the extent we can.

And to put those out today, put the signings out tomorrow.

So the story that arrives today is, bury these vetoes to keep taxes down.

Now, when you go to Kentucky tonight, it would be great handwriting by John Sherman Cooper.

And he called Ben Meyer for half an hour yesterday about this.

Rockford called yesterday to say that he's resigning because he says New York ends up $200 million a year ahead of the state.

George Meany has wired urgent assignment with a lot of candidates, one for one, on behalf of the Senior Citizens Organization of Alabama.

A lot of these guys are getting pretty gross to grandstand on behalf of some interest group or another.

But before we went any farther with this, I wanted you to get a feel for the pressures.

Right, right.

And I didn't want it to be a surprise that it bumped some of these other boundaries.

Sure, of course.

Well, we've got

The easy, let's say, well, there are times to do a job.

The water thing, that was certainly the right decision.

I haven't found anybody.

It's simple to see that political problems are going to arise in terms of the answers that are going to have to be given and so on.

But everybody's looking at the dollars and at the 74 crunch and there isn't any question of what it is.

It's very heavy.

Well, the payroll taxes helped to liquidate the thing.

That's my point.

I said the payroll taxes bought me in terms of if the thing were liquidated for the future, I don't give a damn about the payroll taxes.

The bill just came down here yesterday.

We had 10 days on it yesterday.

The pressures will build and build and build.

Yeah, it will build.

That way, if you want to think about, though, before you get this big veto message, whether or not you want those parties to build and build and build, because it's not... Or have the veto, and now I'm having an issue for ten days.

You see my point?

Absolutely.

My point is that I would not include it in the package.

That doesn't mean you can't have much of a veto message.

It's weak.

Now what I might do to beef it up, I might go with the nine relatively small vetoes and include the 10 or 12 signers.

I think what we ought to do is to take the time and let the president build a bit.

Let me say this in terms of political terms, John.

I don't believe that I've had a chance to assess it totally.

I don't also believe that you can get away with it.

I mean, with the water thing, we're so closely related to Germany, the Congress, for instance, got away with it.

It also isn't a gun issue.

People see the stinking water in Colombia, it's a lot of different things.

Well, I have a complete reason not to announce it today, that we just got it last night.

When are you going to be the last person to announce it?

The day before the election.

Well, you've got at least a goddamn education in H-E-W things in the service today.

That'll be the flagship of this.

I thought that'd be the flagship today.

Give me a few more, please.

Let some of which hang up.

They're going to hang up very quick.

That's a little bit.

No white crunch next year.

That's right.

Because of the payroll.

There is a white crunch.

Let me get you the numbers on that.

What I'd like to do is work up a paper for you on this and give you all of it.

I don't want to put this on my burger.

Oh, no, no.

I can put it all up.

I've got a half a page for you.

You know, I don't mind the length.

I just don't want to have all the arguments that everybody wants to create.

No, no, no.

I'll just give you this.

Let's take a look at it.

Meat is a coconut.

We've done a damn little, basically, except for veterans.

Is that job coordinated?

Which, incidentally, I'm for.

It's one of those things that I just happen to, I mean, I very seldom, I go to the Great Society, and I spend anything that will get kids to the woods.

In fact, I've got a conversation with one of them that's working.

I agree with that.

You know, that's $1,200 a head.

That was what was really appealing to me.

Well, and that $1,200 in the store would cost the rehabilitate that kid if he went wrong.

Yeah, well, I spoke to my old neighbor boy.

He called the poor the same thing I was.

He died of a heart attack.

Right after the election.

I understand.

He used to read a lot.

I mean, he wasn't very smart, but he was trying.

And I asked him, and he always used to ask me to meet back up with him.

He said he'd never been out of New York State.

He said he'd come to the time he went to Oregon and to NY and CCC.

And I thought it was a wonderful thing when I got to work together.

He did remember some of the good stories in the parking lot.

Well, Paul wanted me to miss away, but that's social workers.

I'm not talking too much about this.

I agree.

And the leadership and this kind of thing are force to do.

People with the eyes, they're not involved.

That's it.

No, I mean, you're right.

Well, on this, why do I do this?

I must say, I must say, the older person is the reason for it.

Yeah.

Also the person.

You know what I mean?

You see all the assholes around and get the money.

We've got until 11.

Why don't I try and have something for you to read by the time you're clear of these movies.

Well, I can bother today.

Let's not go there.

Well, all right.

You're firm on that?

Yeah.

I've got to do some work.

He hasn't decided a separate part.

Okay.

All right.

Now, what do I have to say?

Well, he says, because of federalizing some of these adult categories, the blind and so on,

that it takes a load off the states.

He says, it's like revenue sharing.

And he says, this would help my budget by about $280 million a year.

So he says, naturally, I'm for it.

But he says, you guys have been so damn good about other things.

He says, I'm not going to make a big thing out of it.

I just wanted you to realize there was that feature.

And he says, there's another provision in there that lets us control hospital costs.

He says, if you veto the bill, then we can't control hospital costs in Medicaid.

And the hospitals can charge whatever the traffic will bear.

He said, that's going to make a problem for us.

So he said, there are those two little features that he said you might have missed.

And he said, they're good.

I said, thanks for calling, Governor.

Right.

He says, I think you're great and all that money.

And hung up.

All right.

Good.

What's the argument of Nunn and those people?

Well, Nunn and Cooper.

I can't say for none.

Cooper's argument is, here's a chance for the president to indicate that he cares about old people.

It's compassionate.

It's a kind of an aspect that we really need at this stage of the campaign.

He's coming across as cold and efficient and practical, but he said this would really add a dimension.

The problem that concerns me about the veto is this.

I think if you veto an education bill, I think if you veto a water control bill, those happen to be not getting anything.

You can veto anything for the welfare and so on.

Yeah.

But all those blind people, you see, basically, interestingly enough, they are our constituents here at the moment.

They're the good people.

Well, the hell of this one is that a lot of these things are things we advocate and put up there on the Hill.

And then the bastards passed that 20% increase, and they really spent the money.

I think you could do this.

Well, you could argue this, that this thing has heavy payroll tax implications.

Payroll taxes are cruel.

They're regressive.

They land on the little guys.

So I'm going to sign this because of the things that are important in here, but at the same time, early in the next Congress, I'm going to propose a different method of financing this.

We're removing the payroll tax to the general fund.

One percent.

One of my ideas is a... Fair market tax.

It's not a debit cash.

It's a one percent clean water tax.

I got that in the works over at Treasury.

And the 1% tax for a 1% tax for the way they get the value added, well, it's called that.

They don't manufacture tax.

Yeah.

It may be what the Congress did over the life of it.

You could sign it.

I'm just thinking out loud.

Sure.

You could sign it in terms of the next year and say, well, it doesn't have a tax on it.

It does.

You could even say this is a self-liquidating.

It is for the next year, but it isn't after that.

That's right.

Well, then it starts to take a bite out of the general fund.

That, of course, is the reason everybody around here is against the damn thing.

Nobody sees where that money is coming from.

How will it be interpreted?

Probably be interpreted as a political decision in the week before the election.

The president caught between his pledge not to raise taxes on the one hand and the interest of a significant voting bloc on the other.

That would be the crass.

Why don't you say this and I can request to Congress because it is a pay-as-you-go for the period.

And I shall request the Congress to put up the money for the second year or something like that.

All right, that's one possibility.

The other thing you could do, you could say, I've studied this.

These are all things I propose.

I consider them much more important than some other activities of the federal government.

In my upcoming review, I will therefore cut existing federal expenditures by a concomitant amount in order to maintain our $250 billion level.

It's an approach.

It's a question of priorities.

It's a buy-off argument and we get it every time we turn around.

That's what, that's what Cooper was playing on.

Well, it certainly gives him something to get you over the head with.

There's no question about that.

Well, let me get you something to read and

Let's just talk about it.

I don't want to have a meeting.

Fair enough.

Agreed.

Okay.

Well, actually let me know when you're ready to talk.

Well, I'm ready to talk as soon as you are.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I get something.

You know the political argument.

I sure do.

I would like to let him do this because not that his judgment is all that good, but he is pretty good with the tax price thing.

I want you to get the arguments in.

I don't want you in any conversation.

I appreciate that.

He's too emotional.

You sit down and talk to Colson about it.

I just talked to him about it.

He thinks we all think that we're out of hand, but I've talked to him some more.

I've written a copy of his paper.

He wants you to talk to him some more.

He makes sense.

He's talking into the argument.

He says it's bad to eat away.

And he says the stronger the way is, it's the taxing.

But let me get him a copy of this paper, and I'll talk to him some more about it.

And then, um, yeah, it's been hard already.

Well, also, let him see the, uh, the alternative to cutting other things.

Alright.

I'm trying to figure out a pretty goddamn good excuse for cutting other things.

Yeah, water bill at first, you decided to use two.

That's right.

In fact, we don't have any choice on that.

We're going to have to, you know, um, kind of talk to your closest accountant, basically, to a conclusion that, frankly, I didn't.

Well, the education thing is easy.

I mean, I just think a hell of a lot of that money does it worthwhile.

This one is harder than it really is.

This is why you've got to do it hard.

This is just politics.

You deserve the money.

I'll be back, Dave.

You know, uh, uh, uh, that lady for you is called, uh, called, uh, American.

What her name?

What's her name?

I'm sorry.

It'll be all right.

Wait, it's a secretary.

I don't know.

I don't think a lot of people read the editorial page.

I think the sheer numbers, when you get them like this, and when they get carried on television as they are, you get the television commentators saying, when Dorsen's quarter is now, you know, 600 to 30 or whatever it is.

That's like any other poll or anything of that kind.

Little Roscoe Drummond didn't see me yesterday.

He's a good little guy.

It's going to be so exciting for you guys.

It's really, really fun.

We'd like to talk to you sometime, whenever it's easy for you.

You can do a series on time.

Yeah, we've got a lot of them.

Well, frankly, half the spell.

I was talking around yesterday, I'd love to see us just jerk their accreditation, just keep them alive.

I don't know.

He says not.

He says it'd be a major scandal and all that.

Well, I do think you can virtually jerk your accreditation in two ways.

One, I will not recognize it in press conferences.

That's it.

I just stare around.

And two, they were never talking to the men's office.

Three, their calls are never returned.

Four, all people in the White House staff have an absolute order not to let them talk to the captain members individually, that they are the new captain, that they are not to talk to the Washington Post.

That's an order.

If they are, they have to choose because of their libel to the former captain.

That would be the word.

And the other thing, socially I'm calm.

By having them.

Never having them at the wine house.

Never going to the Christmas parties or any of that crap.

They like no other crap.

The other thing, socially, I'm calified.

Just playing the star like hell.

And in the East Wing, too.

You know, on a women's team.

Well, you've got to get somebody to try that out.

Yeah, but I mean, it's this...

Well, let's get back to the... the sort of... What does it look like?

What does he say, though, about this?

About how you're going to get the money?

Well, let's actually ask him as a physical conservative, God damn it, where the hell is the money?

I want to know.

He said, put it all down.

And for 74, we're going to take a wage tax.

That's all he wants to do.

How about doing it this way?

How about saying, Elliot, you're going to have to eat this money in ATW.

What programs can be cut?

Right.

In 74.

Right.

But that's where it is.

The president says he's going to take that out of ATW.

And we would like to have that understanding in advance if this is going to be signed.

Well, let's at least have his recommendation as to the direction we go.

That's 4% of his budget, right?

Well, we could just start, frankly,

I guess some of his people think on checks, but you could start with a 10% cut of his personnel that was not involved in writing checks and things and are not nurses.

Yeah.

I am obsessed with the bubble with the personal cuts.

I really am.

I'm obsessed with them around here, John.

I've got too many people.

I know.

We have got too many people.

There are too many over in our research bed.

There are too many people in the press office.

And there really are.

There are just people all over the goddamn place right in the middle of each other.

And we're, I mean, this is, and we're just an example.

We're better than everybody else.

And I don't mean, some don't work too hard than others.

But the point is, there's just too goddamn many people.

I'm sorry, brother.

The government's gotta be arranged so that everything doesn't end up here.

That's right.

Coming back to this, though, the...

It doesn't make any difference if you sign this on a bench.

whether they get the so-called fiscal conservative line where this is an election year and they want the hell out of it.

We propose the damn things.

And they ain't going to be from a government.

See what I mean?

You're not going to lose anybody.

Well, politically we should sign it.

You're not going to change your $250,000 limit.

That's a fiscal 73 number.

And that doesn't change.

And your pledge doesn't change.

This adds to your problems.

But that's nothing new.

The Congress added to your problems the other day in overriding your veto.

We didn't take this up.

This will be for your problems when the Congress is overriding your veto.

That's the question.

It's like that.

Thank you.

People like that, who are hard on themselves.

I want you to point out to him, me, people like Jotter, coming in here.

So he'll get a little bit better feel of what the hell we're running into.

I know this.

I know there shouldn't be veto today.

I'm not going to give these bastards 12 days to kick us out of this.

12 days is a hell of an indication by them.

You veto the bill if they're blind, and they're old, and they're asking, I don't care about the money.

We cannot afford to take care of the blind people and the old people.

Do you have a point, John?

Yes, sir.

Sure, they get their 20% checks.

I realize that that's... What is your view, I've asked Baldwin this, as to why the quotient on both Colson and Baldwin would rest up?

that frankly they had not really checked out i mean that is i understand i understand and i don't i don't think we're we're here and i can of course this whole business about sabotage is ridiculous because it's

is a very proper political movement.

What in the Christ do they think is happening?

When Trisha, for example, who goes down to do something for the handicapped, I think Sparks or someone on that, that little cut, that was 150 people shot on Saturday.

Now, what in the name of God do they call that?

Do they think that wasn't planned?

I mean, they think those 250 came on the bus left, John, talking about the bus and talking about the double standard.

But,

Do you know that they made the San Francisco done out of their headquarters?

Los Angeles was done out of their headquarters.

I'm interrupting.

There's natural liberty for you there.

Yes, sir.

Do you think that wasn't planned?

Of course it was planned.

You were right.

That wasn't planned.

Don't you think that they worked it out?

Right.

Do you think it's worked out?

These little boys sit down in their caves.

And all those organized clacks on that motorcade the other day all bunched up.

Sure.

No question about it.

This has been happening to us for years.

We had our microphones cut.

We had, you know, I can remember...

But I told the people here, I said, for Christ's sake, let's find out what the others are doing so that we can have intelligence.

I didn't figure, I guess Chapin kind of likes little beings, so he's running around doing this and that kind of thing.

Actually, as near as I can tell from what Dean's checking shows, Chapin never programmed this guy.

He recruited him, he sent him over to do this kind of thing, to do disruption.

But Dwight never programmed him, never told him what to do, never told him where to go.

Only took reports from him a couple times and then in a kind of a humorous offhand way, because he just didn't report to him.

I think that...

Cold.

And I think what happened is that they've been under terrible pressure from this editor, Bradley, to get something on one...

I think so.

I think, well, here, we traced back.

And here's what they were doing.

They were calling the U.S. attorney, for instance, who's prosecuting the Watergate case.

And they were saying, now listen, we've got some leads from the FBI, and we just want to verify it with you.

And he was saying, no, I can't talk to you.

Then they were calling the FBI and saying, listen, we've been talking to the U.S. attorney.

And he's given us these leads.

And all we need from you fellows is the verification.

And they were playing one off against the other.

And they never could make the case.

They were trying for all of them, Mitchell or me.

And they worked every which way to try and make it.

And finally, I think, Bradley just kept some pressure on them.

They decided to go with it.

I don't hear one thing.

I know it all.

I've kind of listened to cases.

And he used the word young journalist.

I said, John, how old is he?

He's got all we use, the phrase that people are familiar with.

You may remember in the 1930s, you know, the New York Times, you're going to have to send it to the yellow journalist.

Yep.

Yeah, how about that?

It's very interesting.

The post today places denial.

It's crazy.

Why?

You know, I was just looking here.

He almost said McGovern.

What the hell does it mean?

Nothing.

You look at the spread that he ends up with.

59.6.

The cover is the best.

I think some of this is crap.

Playing for Post played the denial straight for two reasons.

One, I think they were a little stunned at the viciousness of Ziegler's attack.

Do you think he was right to do it?

Oh, absolutely.

We programmed him to do it.

I believe very firmly he was right.

But second, I think they wanted a day's breath.

They wanted a little breathing room.

And by playing it straight, it gives them a day to regroup.

And I imagine they've got their little, little guys out in the woodwork all over trying to rebuild that case.

And I think we'll see over the weekend another, another onslaught.

Well I think they'll come back to Bob.

I know they're doing a, they're doing a column for the Sunday paper that they have one of their women out.

contacting all his friends, his neighbors, and all that.

What was he?

That kind of stuff.

What did he say?

All of it's not a household thing.

You're his background, and that's good.

He's got the background.

That's right.

We have to hang around here so that you do a lot of that.

That's right.

That's true.

He's an anonymous following.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

Anyway.

Well, at least it kept them out for a day.

That's right.

And neutralized the television pretty well last night.

On the very day of McGovern's big corruption speech, knocked the blocks out from under that pretty well.

Because the denial

And so the ad hominem on the post carried along with it, so it didn't ride alone.

In fact, McGovern's corruption charges were an inside story.

The post, where Ziegler had not come back strong,

It would have been the front page lead, in my opinion.

I would have to be my guess, but I wouldn't enter today's story.

Dolan McGregor rode well on television last night.

I know there's some fellow at the Chicago Tribune, Starr, did you see that?

Yeah, I saw that.

I made a note to try and get a hold of him.

Well, is he, would you just give him a whole bundle of... Oh, yeah, yeah, I did.

It might be a matter of fact that... Can you give us a little explanation of this, Frank?

Yeah.

Well, they've been very involved in burglaries, I mean, that's a lot of different things.

But you must go on and see if they just went to the Tribune to get him.

How many?

All the radios?

Oh, absolutely.

It was a whole lot of them.

So you must have missed something when you started.

See what I mean?

Yeah, I marked that.

I've never heard it yet.

I don't know it.

I must say, they were really screaming.

trying to build it.

Nothing much.

Sorry.

You don't need a terrible importance of a word to understand it.

Oh, absolutely.

I had Rodney who shot it here.

How many of us have shot it?

How could you get that on camera?

Yeah, he shot his water pretty well.

Well, I mean, he did great, but he copped out on that break.

Well, he's not going to get another run out of it.

But Dole, I think, is probably the guy.

He's going to be playing this game right straight through.

We'll get that to him.

He's...

Well, I've talked to Roscoe since Ziegler's denial.

He feels that's cleared the air a lot.

His angle there is that there ought to be a fresh pace on the administration in the second term.

That's what he's building toward.

I got her hitting on me.

She said she's been more than one now.

This is Sons.

Carol says the traveling crisis is the one we've got her hit every time.

And he misses the other one, which is they don't want to be very honest.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The idea of my having an office press conference, let me tell you the reason I did it.

It doesn't have to do with the scandals on the coach or whatever.

But the thing is, Vietnam is so tenuous at the present time.

I can't even sneeze.

And that's more important than all the rest.

But you agree that's a good reason?

Sure is.

And I think we ought to get that around.

Well, because I have a life that I have to do.

It would be an impression.

I mean, these office things are not all that difficult.

I mean, I can do it when I can handle it.

And that's there.

It's a price competition.

Absolutely.

Well, do you see any disadvantage in our mentioning that?

Absolutely.

No problems at all with that.

The radio this morning said it sounds like the North Vietnamese are just talking their heads off.

At the Paris negotiation, apparently, they ran sand.

I don't know.

I haven't seen it.

I haven't seen it in time.

I think he criticized trying to co-democrats, super patriots who have never been in their lives.

Obviously, that's of course, one of the great war writers.

Well, he also took off on you.

I'm not so sure.

I think he may be taking off on you.

Because I noticed in the morning paper, he said something about how George McGovern was out there dropping those bombs.

He was playing poker on some island.

So, this must be common.

This must be common.

I'm 31.

routine, more dangerous than most.

I think it was good to have this thing jogged for the reason that I voted for it.

I don't like to have a smack around here.

We are afraid of the issue and also we were involved in it.

We can't believe it.

It is just not going to win the election.

I guess did that seem to get through to, did, was Roscoe pleased that we take it on?

He was.

He said, prior to today, he said he just looked like he was running away from this.

And I said, well, Roscoe, you know, there's a time to stand and fight.

I said, here was a situation where their story rested on three premises, every one of which was false.

And I said, I think we're much stronger for having waited to nail them.

Well, I'm clear.

See, that's my opinion.

They're back to the time of the fun broadcast, which is just right.

And they are going to be home.

They later get to leave.

But the point is that you got them all out on the land.

You saw them.

But you've got to be sure you're going to see the right ground.

And you grabbed them there when you got them.

Well, we got a lot of breaks yesterday.

Sloan just happened to be caught by the cameras as he was going into a deposition.

And his eternity was just beautiful.

Couldn't have been better.

I saw that.

Mr. Sloan never mentioned Mr. Hollywood.

We were unequivocal about this.

And then of course, the record is very plain.

Haldeman's never been asked to give information to the FBI.

Never gave any.

Bang.

And then we got this secret fund thing out of the way as a byproduct of that.

So it just all fell into place by 11 o'clock, and the liberals and shit go out there and bang it.

And so the starters were all in their right houses right then.

And then, of course, Dole and McGregor had previously scheduled a press conference to pull the teeth of what they knew McGovern was going to do that night.

So then they hit it again.

And so we got a double jump.

Now we've got to figure out where we go from there.

We're getting a piece out for our service.

And we'll just use this story, all of these stories,

Absolutely.

Sure.

They understand that I'm going to have to take the bus, which is going to sound beautiful.

Well, I know that, but they don't have an appointment.

Yes, sir.

There isn't, but I've done it, but I want you to know that.

You see what I mean?

I just want to be confident and have a conversation with him.

Right, sir.

That's why we have Senator Boggs.

Boggs out there with me now, sir.

Okay, how does it work?

And then I can walk outside.

No, sir.

It's all right in the office.

How would it be if I talked to Red and tell him that we have his wire and then you?

Would you do that?

Sure.

I'll accept the license.

Every wire should run up on the track with me.

That goes back in.

Nixon, Ehrlichman & Bull on HR 1 and Veto strategy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 26, 1972

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