Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on Vietnam negotiations and Public opinion polling

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Sign the last bill in 90 seconds.

Yes, there you go.

Like I said, it was Rocky's defense of the president's family.

Got a good hand.

Like he would sign.

So he got the right of way.

Well, with that, let's look at what Rocky did.

I'll say, well, folks were pleased with the damage.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure .

The interesting thing is the American people don't want peace in France.

They don't want peace of surrender.

They don't think they do.

The majority of the people 30% of them do.

30% of them do.

They're going to vote against you.

And they, those were people who were getting a lot of other things too.

They were the same types of people there for everything from the POT, the Parking Lot Welfare Program, and the Embassy for the Draft Dungeons, and the Intermissive Judges, yeah.

The reason for the whole thing was the POT.

They helped with the budgeting and kept the government bigger, you know.

Well, that sort of wraps it up pretty good, I think.

I think what we ought to figure is basically a format of the outside 15-minute talk in each place.

And I'm just thinking, like in Chicago, I'd have to go 15.

If I go 10, they'd think it's just a little too little.

15 is easy.

By the time I mention that goddamn old university, you know, and all the congressmen.

I won't mention all the congressmen.

whatever my means and so forth, the importance of it, and express my concern about the tragedy.

You know, but at that time, he's dead, and he's got nothing to lose.

A little about peace without surrender.

Yep.

Okay, if you can see how this does balance this thing.

Got it.

All balanced.

The whole business of the building up and all that down.

Only, like my office secretary said, the building is maybe that big.

It looks like it is.

It looks as if it isn't that big.

We haven't got all those massive reactions.

What I'm doing, I found that we've got a ride on another pole.

And rather than doing it this weekend, which we feel it's absolutely no good to find out on Monday where things were, and I'll run it tonight and tomorrow night, we'll get it Thursday night.

We can get basically the same answers.

But get a quick reading on the water.

This is of Harris.

No, it's not in some of our overseas rounds.

They've got the lines set for people there, and it doesn't cost us anything to do it, so we don't care what it costs.

But it does, so we might as well do it.

It's set to do for the weekend, and there's no point in doing it on the weekend.

We can always do it again.

I would do it Tuesday and Wednesday night.

First of all, we can verify whether that drop that it showed holds or not, or whether that was valid.

And we get a reading on the reaction to the peace thing after it's had a little time to settle down, and to the corruption thing after it's had

See, yeah, except you know whether you have a problem on the peace thing, for instance, or Thursday night, or what you're saying on Friday and Saturday on the road.

You can't do anything about the corruption thing.

I don't think I'm going to say anything different.

But we've got our guys worrying about the corruption thing.

I don't think we should be.

I don't think we can do anything about it.

We're on the peace thing.

I don't know that.

I don't think we are on the polls or anything.

Oh.

We are.

It's all right.

Whatever.

I'd like to verify that.

If there's been a shift, is that thing indicated?

I'd like to see if we've got a reading as to why.

It's so weird.

Yeah, it's...

It's inevitable.

It's not expected at all before now.

Fortunately.

If there was a shift, though...

Most of you could attribute it to an extent to a government-intensive campaign.

I'm not so sure it is .

Something happened.

I mean, among the people that you speak about, you said that you shouldn't be.

and also I must say that

Massive frustration.

The other thing is the continued harping on big business interventions.

So both those kinds of stuff would make a big impact.

In fact, that manual order of guidance isn't going to try and scrounge around on the consultant.

I'm going to announce Friday to Chicago at the airport and to Oklahoma, but I understand there's a hold on Providence, Rhode Island.

Announce Rhode Island.

Announce Rhode Island, but not Providence.

Right.

details.

And then Ron, if the question arises, well, we had these .

We decided not to order cages in Chicago because the president

We'll take another look at it.

We'll take another look at how to finish off the final beds and this is it.

There'll be more tomorrow.

Yeah.

I feel that the president also is making up his work on the schedule for Saturday.

Right.

We'll have another announcement tomorrow.

And probably more details on the calendar for you.

Right.

Details on Friday and our plans for Saturday we'll give you tomorrow.

Right.

Okay.

And it's going to have to get a lot of smarts.

It's going to have to get a lot of smarts.

And the wires are moving.

We're not going to be stampeded in the deadline of this weekend or deadline for the election because the President's primary objective is to achieve a peace that will last and will provide, will assure the people of South Vietnam the right to determine their future.

I suppose the line, to the other side of the line.

That's like a peaceful stage.

We're not going to make one.

I said, the only deadline that we're negotiating is one that will bring Alaska to peace.

I said, the President has insisted that the United States in the negotiation be meticulous, nailing down a few outstanding issues that we need to be discussing.

They're raised again.

There's no misunderstanding.

And I made the point.

I said that

Too often in the past, agreements have been entered into before the details were nailed down, and they have not resolved it in peace.

And then the wires picked up in 1968, I understand.

But obviously, that wasn't true in this day and age.

But he's not taking anything for granted.

And it's just that candidate.

You can also say, what I was saying, he is secretary.

Right.

And he's not writing it off.

He's sort of playing it out.

OK. That's a nice touch.

OK.

The same will be true that you could say tomorrow .

Go ahead.

OK.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think all we do now is simply worry ourselves and so forth by grabbing on to one point.

Then I just don't believe it's going to change.

Well, you're going to change something a bunch.

There really isn't, unless you show us that there's more there than we're

There's not a thing we can do about the lawsuit.

Cannot do anything about the corruption issue.

That's all there is to it.

Who's going to be writing that?

The economy.

And there's nothing we can do on that except write that.

The economy is going to do the right thing.

I just wonder if any of you are involved in this.

I am.

I'm saying I'll do that.

So suppose it shows that we let out two points.

What difference does that make?

I suppose it goes to the boundary.

So all that would show you, if it goes up, it would show you the other one was an aberration, which could be.

If it goes down, it would show that there was some movement down.

And you could get the reading as to what's causing it.

So whether it was Vietnam or the other thing.

the post says.

I still have a feeling they've got something more to come.

I can't imagine that they blocked everything last week.

But everything isn't what they thought it might be at the present time.

It's just awfully minuscule.

It is.

One.

Added on in there a little twist on it.

where do you think the rest of the other people who have a background in the press and so forth?

Don't be so goddamn honest.

That's really the problem, you know.

The bench has that problem sometimes, you know.

Honestly, it's so expensive, Stu.

But I mean, don't lie.

Don't be dishonest.

That's right.

My point is you don't have to go in and say, and the guy asks the question, what do you think?

Well, maybe that's true.

It makes you look good.

But not so good, I'd say.

That's what they all think.

They're all trying to prove that they're fair and objective.

Now, that's what elections are about.

It's not about being objective.

It's your story across, sir.

How about being objective?

You're going to be objective.

You're going to be just about your evidence.

Every one of these persons, these people are an advocate.

They're not supposed to be high on money, people's symbol of the battle.

Judge on that, we could have done it better.

Anyway.

You're all alone.

I guess we've got less of this kind.

Let's see if we can get you to the museum.

That was part of the price that was picking up.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on Vietnam negotiations and Public opinion polling

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 31, 1972

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