Nixon, Ehrlichman & Bull on White House reorganization

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With Romney, uh, you're seeing how long before this?

About 15 months.

You know, it should be, uh, very, uh, you know, yes, either you or me, Isaac, George, uh, you can call our, you can call our conversation and so forth.

The President wants to talk to you about what would be the best way to work out the announcement.

I haven't heard that he has.

I think now he's leaking what he wants to do.

He's going to have a Republican-oriented civic organization like Common Cause.

He says on and on.

We've got to work it out here.

We are planning now to have all the announcements made by the 15th of December so that we can get the 15th in place.

And before the Congress gets here, get their nominations in.

So, whatever you would like to do, the President, the Director, remembers that you wanted to end on your second name.

And you could do it any time if you wanted to do it now.

So, you sit there and you know already,

I am going to raise with him something that he raised with me one time, which was that he is leaving in time for his undersecretary to have a brief recess appointment.

Well, I don't think we do.

What do you?

I'm perfectly, he wants to leave immediately.

I'll give him a recess appointment and then let the other ball come in as soon as he's confirmed.

Yep.

And maybe the other ball can come in and reapply.

He doesn't need to take over upon confirmation.

Sure.

Fine, fine.

Now there are going to be congressional hearings.

Another reason for the recess appointment.

There are going to be congressional hearings starting about the 10th of December.

Well, so if Andrews could be here for a minute and say that we'd like to do that, the President would like to do that if he wants.

It's up to you.

Who is his successor?

We haven't decided yet.

Right?

Right.

Although, we have two agreed major candidates.

They're all people he would like very much.

Well, uh, I read the paper this morning where he's going to come in and make some suggestions to you for succession.

And, uh, I thought you could just stay loose.

Yeah.

Say, well, I've got to decide.

He's a very important position to some of you, so... Now, on Volpe, I think, uh, I would...

Wait, Ronnie isn't, uh...

Uh, we're talking about Jim Landry, aren't we?

That doesn't make any difference.

We get any sort of signature from Calhoun, he's not successful.

That would be informed on Volpe.

Well, on Volpe, I think I'll just tell him that you've decided to take Calhoun either one way or the other.

And that's a challenge.

The change that he has in mind for you is to an ambassadorship.

Except for available.

Yep, or Bill Rogers, who has to stay on because of the Vietnam negotiations and the rest of that news.

Right.

And because of the Vietnam negotiations, it's hard to stay on for a while, right?

I don't need to tell you how long.

I'll just say that he's the exception.

I'm just going to stay on because I've seen some negotiations in which he's wrestling against, you know, Vietnam and maybe he's trying to say that they were changing, they decided to change the whole domestic team, all the four-year men.

And they are, some are leaving.

Are they?

No, I should stay on.

Well, that's right.

And you can be able to talk to her and say what you're trying to agree to leave.

Do you want to talk about any of the others?

Some of them are just knowing that some others are being asked to take other assignments.

Some are being asked to take other...

and offer other assignments and have them under very serious consideration.

And the assignment that I had wanted him for for some time, but I didn't feel he had been into it.

I thought that we ought not to do it before the election because it would use up paper.

But I think we need a ambassador who will really represent this country.

I think Greg Martin is a fine investor.

But he doesn't have the punch amongst the team that we have here on both behalf.

And he doesn't want to run a temple down the deep end.

He's talking privately about it.

And we want somebody who can really communicate with the attackers effectively.

that, uh, we, uh, that, uh, he is to, uh, well, he has a personal relationship with you.

That, uh, he doesn't only have a personal relationship with the president, third and second.

And, uh, we, uh,

But as I was saying, because it's so terribly important that we keep Italy from going over the brink of a left, and that we try to take a very discreet, subtle performance, he'll have, we want him to know how to release the president, maybe.

the key ambassadorial point is direct him so that he will be the president's ambassador here with direct, uh, with a direct channel, given that current, uh, which is true, of course, direct channel to the White House.

Doesn't, uh, because we want to be sure that, uh, the, uh, of course, within the state of our guidelines and so forth, uh, we want to be very sure of what we're wanting to do.

Why don't you get in his business about going over to the lab?

I think that's the kind of thing he could do.

But now he comes up and says, well, I'm terribly hurt, so forth and so on.

If he does, I would be saved.

gentlemen that's a great mistake everybody this is our reflection on you there we think you've done a great job you've done us and the president says that the cabinet members probably had yesterday more more comments on him than anybody we had you know so he thinks that the paper right there with the antagonist vote was uh uh we we believe indeed that's the main credit is he's just done a superb job

We also might have to throw in the other way, say, Chuck Colson, who's analyzed this and says both the emergencies were just fantastically effective.

And we're going to try to retain that comment.

We think that his move, like I said earlier, will enable him to hold on that score.

Okay.

And now, let's figure out our main plans if he moves in the other direction.

Probably the only two directions he can go, he can ask to stay, or he can ask to be relieved of all assignment.

Oh, my.

That's fair.

And my feeling is that he will take this as a graceful way out.

I think there's been enough preconditioning that... Do you have an idea that the LRB... Oh, yes.

It's all over.

And...

I don't think he will be at all surprised, and if he knows that all of the four-year men are being shifted, and if he knows he's got a face-saving way out, I think it'll be an absolute great moment.

I think he'll love it.

He'll just love it.

Yeah, he's been in that residence enough to know how he is in action.

Who is the best man for the job?

I guess we won't.

Everybody's...

I think I'm the best man except me and Dave.

So I'm not going to be... Nobody... Everybody does as likely to.

I'm going to...

I'll be done.

That's something to help.

If we do, we do take our promotion out.

That's what we really do.

We do the right thing.

So the great expectations have been built up here.

We don't have the options.

You see, every older member as well.

Otherwise, the country might be getting a better third, might be getting a handful, might be getting paid.

I think there's a, unless, unless they were up and two had just turned down and every two had, and Welch on their four buck over 80 degree, if they do that, we can say that they turned it down.

And now the hell with you or your mom, you bastards.

But if on the other hand, they say, well, you, they're just saying every two, and then choose the one.

It won't go to them.

Now that it's a matter of fact, we're now in a position where I'm going to have to

I think we can even survive it if he's amused right now.

But if two will go along, I think we just make our straight out deal with the army and get our prisoners.

We'll let our forces, and he'll come along.

If they start to do that, I would think he'd cave.

Well, he reads the messages.

I don't see how he can figure, but you know what it is, the point is he comes along.

or even in Susan.

He's down to two.

Sure.

Yes, he does.

Sure.

But you know the expectations have been built up.

And it's not like not misleading the public at all.

Yeah.

He told us three days before the election, we'll resume the talks and good things and so forth.

So it looks that way to Susan.

Yeah, but they hang himself at their October position.

The reason is that, part of the reason though is that, well being a perfect candidate, but you have to think, part of the reason is that they see that the, that we have said in the election we're gonna have a deal, and they think, well, maybe we gotta get a deal.

They know that we'd like to get a deal.

Sure, they figured we had a deadline.

They don't nip a corner on here or there.

No.

The, so you never even realize that making a deal before the election

was not in our interest politically, I kept trying to tell him that.

I said, forget it.

He did a left-right where it was, maybe a one-two-one, but what the hell.

I said, here, here, here.

Nevertheless, it was good enough, actually.

Who knows?

But the point is that Henry's a little, kind of, it's high profile.

over there has, has enormously escalated the expectations that got that picture and is smiling with Lee Doctoe.

You may not have thought of that, all that, but Jesus Christ, I mean, you know, he's sitting there and praying, well, Christ Almighty, people, amen, well, everything's going well.

And then it's going over, which he should never have done, to Brussels to see the Indonesian.

I think the general assumption around the country is it's just a matter of where you sign this one.

I think that the public now would generally approve dumping you, not dumping him, but forcing him to an agreement.

Well, we're not forcing him.

The problem is that they wouldn't get an ordinance.

What I may do is call Henry home for consultation, which is probably a bad idea.

In other words, I'd send him back over.

Have you had a chance to talk to Bob about the mode of announcement of the cabinet and so forth?

I think that's kicking this around for Ziegler a little bit.

And I wonder if he'd want to think about this.

Well, I was waiting two years ago.

One thought that Ron's had, and I'm inclined to think that there should be able to be said for it,

is that the announcement of at least the first group, but perhaps you want to think about announcing the whole group, from Camp David.

There's an identity or a symbolism there that is good.

How would you mean to bring the press up to the camp?

Bring the press up to the hangar.

And set up a briefing set up there.

Now we can consider how you want to do it, how you want to bring in the laurels.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Just so that they walk across from their little bunker there across the field of the hand.

And there'd be enough room in there.

But the idea would be that this is the Camp David cabinet, so to speak, which doesn't have too bad a flavor to it.

And it stands Camp David as a place of action.

What I should do is to go up and we're going to start, if we're ready to do it, is to go up to Camp David again Monday and continue the hike.

I would not have it either.

Well, now, it's obviously just one alternative, but I think Ronald's got a pretty good sense of that, so let's leave that at the beginning.

No, I just, how do I do it?

Do I get out and dig in my face and say, this is where you man is?

No, this is where you don't.

I don't think anybody thinks you should do that.

I just hope not.

Now, I never believe in trying to top anything.

The, or don't take the same, well, the handouts and the statements and even introductions of people

could be done there without your being involved in it at all.

Your presence is known.

Yeah.

And as a little...

I would hate to come over.

Well, you could if you wanted, for a perfunctory sort of introduction.

Say, ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce to you the new secretary of this, the new secretary of that.

Mr. Ziegler will handle the details and the biographies, and I can say nothing about it.

What I would like to do, if I do introduce them, I don't mind introducing them, because they'd like to have the picture.

And then I can see you have it all set up.

I want to introduce you to the new captain, the Secretary of State, Secretary Roberts, Secretary of Defense, Secretary Griggs, Secretary Sullivan.

They all walk up and they take their seats.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain.

Mr. Segler will...

Providing you with the background.

Would you have the members of the cabinet say it as well?

I think what you do is have each one say, I'm delighted.

Obviously, I can't answer questions or make any comments.

I'm delighted.

And they go by.

Then you host it.

And I introduce them.

You do.

You introduce them.

Then you host a lunch for them up there.

They'll have a lot.

Yeah.

And then that's the campaign with Kevin.

Good.

If that's done, I would buy.

Uh, that would be, uh, be a damn good television picture.

I could have a lunch afterwards and have all I need a picture.

That would be, uh... Don't need a greeting.

I would have it set up so that they could all just...

And that would give us a chance to work them over from a conflict of interest and confirmation standpoint while they're all up there.

Get them all in that conference room and tell them what's going to happen for lunch, for a quick lunch.

And say we're going to have lunch now.

We've got a very good time to get this and we're going to work you over.

And turn over the staff.

Do you think we can be ready to go?

Oh, I think so.

I think so.

We've got a little more work to do on this.

Some of these outsides fell out late in my life.

We've got to get to, we've got to get to work on it and have Scali, you know, uh, and, uh, I've got to force him around now.

I've got to force him.

You don't have an Italian for transportation yet, do you?

No.

I was out to touch yesterday.

I don't know what they may have turned up.

But, uh, not that I'm aware of.

Good idea.

Well, I think it's a good idea.

That does not require me to say something about him.

Right.

I don't think I should say something about this great captain.

I've done that once.

Right.

And he is qualified because he's been the chamber, you know what I mean?

I don't have, I shouldn't need the master of ceremonies anymore.

I think I should do that.

Well, it's a different game.

Whatever we do has to give you the option of being present for the picture.

That's right.

And I think Camp David does that in a way that almost no place else does.

Well, be out and present for the picture if you can't leave the captain sitting there.

Well, sure, you can leave him sitting there.

And he'll let each one of them stand up for his individual picture, saying to the press,

And I'm very appreciative of the President of Scotland, my day, and for me to introduce each and have them and say, now come each member of the cabinet in order.

Their presidents will say a word.

And I'm going to go put the lunch.

You get out, I guess, and say a word.

We're going to have lunch together.

Thank you very much.

Your next speaker will be back.

I think we should do it with one plan.

Yep.

One thing.

It's a much better thing to do because the base of the problem of doing the foreign, you see, I was thinking we could do the foreign affairs and then the domestic affairs.

The difficulty is the foreign affairs involves a mix of the domestic credit and the, you know.

Oh, you could still do that.

If you want to have it over three days, you could do it with a hangar formula and go out and introduce your layer to the system.

I think I would just...

I think we should get another secretary.

No, you wouldn't have to.

I think...

The U.N. thing.

Well, let's see if we can get that settled today.

Get the U.N. Yeah, well, you can't because Henry is parents.

Yeah, but Henry might be willing to sign off on the telephone.

I think so.

I mean, just say, look, here's the argument.

I say that because if you see Henry, check it out there.

I'll see Henry.

There you go.

Uh, we're taking, we want, we want to, we're really push on the U.N.

The President does not want a Foreign Service man there.

We want somebody that is in the White House, is working with you.

Now, we, uh, uh, with John Scali, we either keep him in the White House, that's where we think there's a problem, or put him up there.

directly under the White House and the State Department.

He'll be our man.

And if he wants to do it, he understands the game.

And also, I will lead to our integrity as he'll talk about that.

That's right.

I'd like to do it.

I assume he mentioned integrity.

to do that.

I think I agree about that.

I want to say we want to go on that.

The president feels that this is the best thing to do.

And so he'll rumble around about, well, we ought to do this or that.

I'll do that.

And see if it gets cleaned up today.

I have a question for the vice president this morning.

He's asked to talk to me some more about the realization and so forth.

If you have anything you want me to impress on him, he might be of some help on the Dole thing.

Do you want me to take that up with him?

I don't know where he's supposed to go.

I don't want to have the Dole gotten at you in a different way.

Okay.

All right.

The problem that I have, the thing that I have is that, you know, I'm keeping the hell out of Ferrari because he's supposed to be a candidate for president.

He, you know, has squirmed around about his relations with you.

He was telling me that Goldwater said to me, sir, did you know that Caleb Roe was on here?

Did you know that he wants to stay on the vice president?

Because he's got that cockeyed idea that he should be in charge of domestic policy.

John, I have a good talk with him.

He ain't going to be in charge of domestic policy or anything.

You know, he's just not going to be that way.

He's going to do special assignments.

He's asked for a fellow that's been on my staff, for Harper.

I was going to get rid of Harper anyway, and I could put him over there.

It might help some.

I'm going to tilt it a little bit more to the left, which is not bad.

You know, it'll make it more reasonable.

Some of it's, you know, Harper's a very creative fellow.

Well, and, uh, this is going to be very good.

Harper can be programmed, too.

Sure.

Tell Harper to go.

I'll tell him.

I expect he's got that lucky to have.

No, I'm not so sure of that, but, uh... Well, this is a better time.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

He is going to try and make some staff changes.

Well, he's going to make some staff changes.

Oh, yeah.

He has asked to get into this damn Indian thing.

And that's one of the things he's going to brace me, I know.

Just saying, just saying, you can talk to the president about it.

The president says that it is such a mess that he wants him to stay a country mile away from him.

It's a mess, but nobody can win him.

And we've got to have the thing handled at the Interior Department level, at the BIA level, and we're shaking it up like hell.

But I don't want him to get in such a mess.

I think he's going to get hurt right now that he's...

The president feels he's on a good plateau and I don't want him to do anything that's going to get him messed up.

I have an idea.

Let me try one more.

I'm the secretary of the Interior.

It's Bud Crowe.

Well, I think it's time to get out of here.

Yeah.

Also, you've got coal.

Yes, and we can get along without guys like that.

Well,

He would be a new bro.

He'd be a new bro.

And, you know, we were talking on the phone.

I think Hitt can do it, but it's going to be business as usual.

If we want to shake Raj up.

Yes, we could do that.

We could do that.

Well, if Malik goes in there, Hitt would be a nice complement.

Hitt would be fine, because he would smooth off Malik for a bit.

Unless Malik needs an expert.

That's the other thing.

No, I don't think so.

I think he'll find a...

He'll find an expert.

He'll find a Malik and pull experts in without any problem.

But it just occurred to me at the time.

I'd like to get, and Bob, frankly, from a personal standpoint, your thought of getting a friend, it's like getting Dedecker this.

Yeah, sure.

We should do things like that.

He's loyal, and Pat has been loyal.

Yep.

They sort of feel that, well, they shouldn't feel that they haven't done things for him.

Oh, they know you have.

They don't feel that at all.

I mean, Bob, perfectly content to go right along the way he is.

But I think that he could be a, I think, when the kids are coming over, he should be able to do it.

Well, if you made him an undersecretary, you could say to Martin, well, look, here's the reason we're taking him away from you.

You're going to give him a promotion.

So that would work.

Malik would feel that it is soft and ineffective and not his style and so on.

But a little mix like that, I don't think it hurts all that much.

Well, you could put it in your mouth, right?

Can't it be that he eats somebody who knows how to, frankly, smooth off, right?

Yeah.

So it's malicate.

That'd be very good.

That's right.

It's kind of a cold cover.

Yep.

You've got to have that rounded off.

And say malicate.

So you use it for...

Well, if we did that, then we could get some sort of an efficient button down guy to go in under Morton.

He's going to take this whole thing hard, I'm sure.

He thinks he's a good operator and these guys are all great and so on, and he knows we don't agree with that.

And so this is going to be one of the reasons.

I think he should.

That's right.

He must be kept.

I'm afraid I'd check that again.

And he's adequate.

And when this thing is over, we'll find a nice dead ship for him and he can go out.

Just where he is.

But what about that leader in general?

He's got to realize that we've got to get the new team if he's going to leave.

He's talked about a year, has he, John?

Not to me, he hasn't.

No, I don't know that.

Yeah, Bob said he picked that up from Mitchell or somebody.

Well, Mitchell just told us that he might take a note to Bob.

Mitchell probably ought to call him and say, Dick, you ought to get out at the end of that, at the middle of the year.

This is the best thing for you to do.

Don't wait here.

It'll be too late.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Well, actually, you know, the findings you're finding was a bad thing to do.

And it was a mistake.

We all realized at the time that Mitchell Sahar knows about it.

Yeah.

Because what a good time right then.

Yep.

That's right.

That's true.

Yep.

Well, we'll work it out.

But whether we can get this, we have to temporize it a bit.

Or do we have to temporize it?

Oh, please don't.

Please don't.

I don't know.

I don't know that.

But if you give Kleenex an inch, then we're in deep trouble, I'm afraid.

He's got to understand that it's a shell, that we're not filled.

But then we've got to change through, because we can't make exceptions.

Do you accept it?

Mr. President, with regard to the trips that you're getting up to, I'll just give you about five minutes after two if you want to be ready for the last time you're going to work.

And then the rest of the family will be buried right under the wall, and the rest of the world will be received, too.

So they're coming in for happiness.

That's what I'm saying.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, I can work on it.

That'll be fine.

Fine.

I'll work on it.

I'm going to work on it.

Well, maybe it is better if you go right over there.

Five minutes or two.

That's about it.

You can hear about it.

Of course, that's the truth.

That's the truth.

I'll go there and have the rest of them go uptown.

Is he coming to go right up with us?

Yes, sir.

Fine, that's good.

Fine, so we'll go there.

We'll leave in a quarter to approximately a quarter to twelve.

Oh, a quarter to one.

A quarter to one.

Because I've got to not have some time after these meetings to talk to you about papers.

I do have one thing.

I've got to tell you about the law firm in D.C.

I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

Acquisition of the library site and I want to work a trade-off.

So I appreciate if you did say anything, Alexander.

I would like to figure that out.

I just want to be studying it.

Well, I have been going and it occurs to me that when we talk to Abe there about figuring out that penalty property, we can work a trade-off here if indeed it is possible to make a permanent action.

I'm not sure what I want to do.

Nixon, Ehrlichman & Bull on White House reorganization

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

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