Nixon, Ehrlichman & Volpe on Second term reorganization

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He mentioned the same other year, you know.

finally subsided, I think, when I explained the reorganization to him that he got on the point.

But he said, well, OK, I will just let the president take the lead in the conversation.

And we'll see what opportunity there might be.

And I said, now, the fact that he didn't send you, he'd have ideas for your department for the future of your country or anything like that.

Let's have a meeting at some later time.

That's right.

Let's get our plans set for now.

He's got a song and dance about how many important things he's done on the fire.

Why do you agree?

Because I agree.

Should I change the name?

That must be it.

By the way, I should take a hard one.

Yes, absolutely.

That you had made this as a general determination, and also that you had said the same thing to another four-year man, and you couldn't go back on it.

Why don't you sit down here?

We're going to get this president out of the way.

I don't know.

All right.

He said, yes.

Oh, nothing like that.

Sometimes he wants more excuses than I do.

But I mean, you're in the dead.

I used to make the decisions.

I used to, anybody that sits a lot, there's usually a kind of anxiety.

At your age, it will always happen.

I had it all my life.

At least three times.

Well, I couldn't, uh, I just don't know, John.

Yes, I got out.

I know.

And I'm too about this when I got out of that position.

I know.

John, John, you gotta, I wish, uh, what you was right with when you came down.

There's maybe a correction in there.

That's up to you.

It will encourage rock and roller music, sir.

He's a Rockefeller doctor.

He's a doctor for USC.

He is the greatest in this world.

He doesn't need justice.

And me.

Because the point is, once he works that thing over, you see what it is, probably, is that it's down on the bird.

There is probably one of those just a little bit off or locked.

You get that unlocked, and it is the muscle that's that.

They rub the muscle.

That's the wrong thing.

I brought the doctor with me, too.

But Jason's having a little more.

He comes down.

He'll be up here this week, but he's out next week on Wednesday, if you want.

You know, it turns out we were worried about him because he was in the flesh.

Turns out he had the eight leading Mexican doctors and the president of Mexico sent his own people down and really took care of him.

So he was a good candidate.

I should say he had really went all out and done good.

You know, he's, that fellow has been so gracious in his first overrun, but he, when he gets up here, you know, he went around facing other strange remarks.

He did not do anything different from what he had made a conference like down there.

He's got some stretch now, I'm sure.

He said, thank you, sir.

He used more or less the same line.

The reason I got the second shot was I was able to be one week on the Virgin Islands before I went to Mexico.

But then he changed his plan.

Instead of addressing the closing date of the plan, he decided to address it on the opening day.

So I had to go with pain and all.

I had been to the Virgin Islands hospital.

uh, to Mexico, and, uh, I went to the Open Conference, and they had a luncheon that he stayed for.

I had to pay for that, but then, you know, he was told about my visit.

He got the Director General of all the hospitals in Mexico to take me over the hospital, really, you know, to give me service, you know what I'm saying?

And as a matter of fact, they gave me the right service, because when I got out of bed, they wouldn't let me out of bed for three days.

I said, no, you go back.

No, I didn't go back.

But when I got out, they built a special hospital for me.

And, you know, I was just expecting to, you know, get off the deck, get in this team.

And obviously, it wasn't that good.

And so, and sitting down, I just had to take it a little gingerly for the next three or four days after in Venezuela.

I might just say to you, President, if I may just quickly, and I would like to report to you in more detail on this trip, because I think that

They're proud.

They're very proud.

I think Brazil was special.

All of you present, by the way.

I met with both Mexico and those from the area.

You can go there.

He's a really wonderful, warm-hearted woman.

Very, very nice.

And, of course, nice to meet you.

I spent 45 minutes with the embassy, you know.

You've got 35, you've got about 30 more people.

That's all I know.

Any questions?

I'm back to our left, and the ambassador said we have 31.

Medici is the most important to all of us, as far as Brazil, Brazil is accomplished almost all by America, John.

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please.

Or in Australia.

Brazil has got this whole range.

I just, uh, told John that I wanted to leave on 93, chapter 23.

And he said, that's, that's a big time down the line.

And he went, we really had a hell of a good time.

I said, you're good.

We're running around the world like this.

Anyway, you've got to wait for it.

But, I can't tell you that, that, uh, I hear you.

I know what I said.

The first hope he had was trying to reach out to us to leave.

I thought that the Trans Amazon, I tell you, two years ago, just wasteland, a jungle, and I thought it was just about nothing but a little dole through there, a dead road, yes, but, you know, a solid road, and all the office opportunities for us that we have through

The military says we come out the window.

hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business that is going in other countries right now.

And I think through some culmination we can expand, including some military sales in Europe and France.

This is exactly what we get.

And now those with military sales that haven't gone to France, this has been almost, just almost national, but that's why you make the contact.

It's a good sale to minimize when you just turn it up.

What I decided and why I want to do something.

I can understand with all the balls you've got in the air and transportation, we've got such a complicated job that you'd not like to wind some of it up before passing it on to a successor.

And as a matter of fact, that's true in other departments too.

But I've got to make, I've got to go, in order that we have no, we have no situation.

And all this whole domestic people who are having massive reorganization,

uh, is essential that, uh,

all the four-year people be moved to other positions.

If they desire to stay in government, it might sound like George Romney does not.

He's an indicator he wants to leave, to be moved to other positions.

Or I might have a situation where I'm not getting the new approach firmly on my own.

with the Department of Transportation under our new scheme.

It is just fair to say that the Secretary of Transportation will be downgraded, and the Secretary of Cabinet will be downgraded.

It is fair to say that the Secretary of the HCD will be upgraded in the sense that he will have general planning and authority and so forth for a long reorganization scheme, which we unfortunately have not been able to do now.

that he thinks you have confidence about another fellow who's not a four-acre man.

But who, because of this, because of this relationship, I have asked him to consider something else.

Peterson.

Peterson is an excellent secretary of commerce.

He's particularly good at this international deal, perhaps.

But with Schultz, who can do as he must, you've got to have one lead horse, so it cannot be Congress, and it cannot be later.

And it cannot be safe under opposition, so it's got to be Tracy.

So you put that in that.

And then you can't tell Pete Peterson, the Secretary of Congress, with all of your international expertise,

that he also will be the counselor on the general economic matter.

He just couldn't do it.

And so we're talking to Pete about a very exciting thing.

He's here from Sunday over Monday.

He's here very much and wants to do it because it's a, I don't discuss what it is, but it's a very, very, now, I thought about your situation.

Let me say two or three things first.

I talked to Colson the other day.

I really think looking, analyzing the evolution of breakthrough and the so-called advent was the most significant thing that happened.

Well, several significant things happened.

One, the total breakthrough of the sun, which we built for three years.

The breakthrough in labor, which we can give a lot of credit to our own science.

Third, the breakthrough in what, for lack of a better word, call that next.

Basically, it's more of a question, when you really get down to people, is the biggest breakthrough we made in terms of groups as attack groups.

by far, more than Poles.

Poles are pretty good.

Irish, pretty good in Irish.

But a lot of them, like in, say, like Massachusetts State, would kind of be very bleak.

But the Italian thing is a masterpiece.

And if there's any questions about the town, you know, we know it.

But that's the politics aside.

I want you to know that I appreciate it.

And that I'm aware of it.

When I write my book about the campaign, it's going to be up there, authoritative, and we're going to find out that you came three years ago.

Remember, when you brought in the 92 kilometers, it sounds a little bit like it took you about a star to get up there.

It all paid off, didn't it?

Remember when we got over to that Joe, that Bosco deader?

We got him to the picnic out in Mount Maryland.

That was a hell of a signal.

It was fun, too.

I like people.

I like the advantage of the war-hearted people who are on our side.

I'm glad, I'm glad he tried to stop us on our side.

So I said, I remember asking about it, and so I said, well, he was with Kennedy, he was a jet setter, and I said, what the heck, he wants to be a forest monitor.

He said, well, here, you know, this is a question.

All right, but now, let me say this.

It's a thing that I, that I, that I, that I want to do.

And it's not that I want to do it a year, a year ago.

I couldn't do it a year, didn't ask to do it a year ago because I didn't want to go in the midst of a governmental crisis.

There, of course, if you have the government in it, it always has a crisis, unfortunately.

I'll say, like, it's fun running like that.

There was, like, it's fun running like that.

Got it.

But what I've had is, in the present time at least, it isn't quite as on the crisis as it was.

I've got a great partner, one of the best career board of service guys that we've got.

He does an excellent job, they tell me, working with everybody over there.

But I have talked to some Italian friends, very, I mean, I have friends from Italy who have come in to see me.

Basically,

They say that we need a combination of somebody who will know the politics just as well as Greg, who will work just as well on the substance, but one who, frankly, has the mocks and the balls and the heart.

Now, we need you there.

You need to take it.

It is, in my opinion, if I were making a motion here, the best approach.

The other thing I should say, and I have to go on to say a thing about this, is that we have a very delicate arrangement, you know, with our arrangements with the vote.

Where if we have it set, they don't like it when it's fine.

And if you know, the embassy has a third secretary, and that's why we have laws making sure that, well, that has to change now.

And it's all a little crazy.

It cannot be.

We have to be quite candid on that.

It cannot be.

The Italian government would resent having the ambassador go.

But on the other hand, it is my view that what we ought to do, and I would take your advice on this, because I think we've got to have a special record.

But if we have a special record, I want to be your man.

And then you can control it.

Now, let me say what I, as I, as I would see it, your relationship with the voter code, right?

Yeah.

Well, the point is that, as I see it, you could accomplish several purposes.

One, you could, uh, I would vote against the Italians so that they don't go too far into that.

In other words, you'd be a hell of a politician.

Second, you could help us domestically in the United States by coming back and talking a little about it.

Third, you could...

You could do your personal, and I'm not talking about the people on the calendar, the people on the secretariat.

I mean, personally, you could get us the lines and the values that are very important.

Now, we don't, fortunately, we don't need it for election purposes.

But, John, basically, the bag.

has gotten a good turn of life.

The band has gotten to start recognizing that the church in Latin America and many other places in the world is raising hell with these institutions.

I want the church to be right.

I mean, to be on the far right.

I want it to be like Cardinal Crow.

I want it to be like Cardinal Cook.

Would you agree?

Absolutely.

Now, we need to work.

Let me say that I think it's the right thing to do.

I know that John said that you would like to stay on and finish up some things over the next year.

But I want to start with realizing this new team.

I want to start it all fresh with new people.

We want your recommendations and so forth to go out and be kept in confidence, which I want you to give John to meet us, if you don't mean, and I'll work it out.

But, oh, one other thing I should say, I don't know what I'm going to mention.

We're setting up the embassies, the major embassies in a different way.

I'm appointing all the investment, I don't have quite the name.

You as ambassador to Italy are my ambassador.

Boulder, Ann Arbor has that status.

And whoever we get for France will have that status.

Germany will have that status.

And Japan will have that status.

There will be a couple of others depending on the trouble spots in the world.

But more will be of us than that teams.

In other words, you will have what we call a back-channel to the White House.

If you.

If you do take this, and I pray that you do, I want to talk to Claire Luce.

Because Claire Luce can give you a bloody story about how these people, you know, even when she goes back to how she was, how they ran services and so forth and so on.

Because we want you to be the ambassador, and we do not want the State Department to be our ambassador.

Now, they're good people, they're directors.

But use them, and don't let them use you.

That's what we'd like for you to do.

And I'd like you to, I'd like for you to consider if you could, as a matter of fact, if you don't want to move into it now, okay, Martin, there's no, no strength, but you may want to, I mean, for that matter, because he's been there three years.

He can't lean on any of that.

But, but I, but time's a-wasting.

I'd like for you to get there with your energy and your balls, frankly.

uh uh uh uh

But I think overall, we have moved a young fledgling department who is only 19 months, 20 months old, trying to build a bad reputation secretary into a department that now

The world knows we have a department that's- What's that?

And you also have- And you also have, they say you've got a lot of scribes and what do you call it, those other things, high-tech.

Yeah, that's something which I- I'm not sure.

I'm not sure I'm as popular a table as we know we are.

That's right.

It has been very, very challenging, and we are in the midst of, as I just told John and I, I'm impressed with what he told us.

In addition to the fact that there are three or four things, especially the cracking open of this highway crosswalk, which I think is a must, absolute must.

We're going to get the kind of public transportation which you have declared a public response to.

It's got to be a great trip there.

And because of my special relationships as, you know, Congress, I kind of felt that if I was able to stay on for a year or so, that I was going to be able to maybe come to be here.

Well, this is something I think you need to be very aware of.

Let me say, however, with your guidance, the new man,

uh can also be damned that they can't do this let me say highway trust one i couldn't feel much but unfortunately we have congressional action there

Yes, oh absolutely.

And we would have wanted last time it wasn't a procedural report.

John, we had another report on that.

Where did that stand?

I'm not sure that he knows all of it.

What was his term?

That's parliamentary business.

In the House.

In the House, the Parliamentary.

That's okay.

Hold on.

the day before this was to come before the Congress, that the subject of the motion that I was to make to approve the Muskie Amendment was to remain to the question of what counts.

He didn't tell me.

He told Eddie Baldwin, who's a respected member of the General Order of Congress, and a good and direct, good, clean, honorable guy.

I'm very undermined for the last, like, 25 years.

This is the day before.

At 11 o'clock the day that a vote was going to be taken, Parliament, Parliamentarian Joseph, changed his mind.

And it was not good.

So then we had to fight, you know, on the floor for rules, you know, that was not to sustain, uh, uh, to be able to do this.

I went to Wilbur Mills about an hour before the vote was taken.

I had no room to leave.

You know, see, my recommendation is, you know, to withdraw that, you know, motion, you know, that 37th night votes, you know, on your right, public, and I, you know, we'll work this out next year.

And so it was, it was just too far from it.

I've just got to fight for it.

We're losing, we're losing about 200 bombs.

I'm with a friend on it.

We went in there, we got 168 bombs, took 200.

Yet Tip O'Neill and the other bombs have been there.

We have made them, and we don't want to see them go.

Yeah, because they're so important.

Well, there is a bunch of them that were both my side.

I know.

And they have at least a half dozen of them, both of these middle twos.

That's what I'm saying.

But if we had not had the procedure question on the merits, we would have won, Mr. President.

On the merits, you know, on the vote, we would have put it at that kind of a vote because a lot of people, if I tell a vote, it's...

Here we are, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, you have a kind of a vote.

My vote is, Mr. President...

You have to try again.

I will put it there.

I think there's some modifications that we might make that will be more helpful.

I've already talked to the heads of the American Health Works Association, the truckers.

I've talked to the president of the other companies that are twisting the American road business, surprisingly enough.

A week after this happened, I had the very first note that was called me.

I passed me a good friend of mine who used to be a former chief of the U.S. Air Force, Dr. Alan Peltier.

And this gentleman, I just called up my... What's his wife's name?

Alan Peltier, D-E-L-T-I-N-E-R. What's his...

He's an engineering...

He's an engineering firm.

He's president of the federal and pastoral office of St. Louis.

He said .

But the designs, you know, and so forth, and they all play between the contractor and .

Well, he was in the government, you know, as the chief of bureau .

But this guy said that he had just called his executive vice president and told him, he said, you guys have to lay off.

And let me tell you right now, he says, President, you're not going to continue to be, you know, kind of

He's a strong man.

He's a strong man, and he's a good man.

He's very, very, he's been very impressive now.

The American Civil Engineering is, which is a very high honor.

And now he's President of the American Civil Engineering, although he gets all retired.

He's retired as Chief of the Bureau of...

Oh, it must be 10 years ago.

He said, well, I would say that he's 658, somewhere in there.

Possibly close to that segment.

I'm not sure.

But he's big.

He's, you know, he's one of the best.

But he's already...

When I said he was 80s,

i wasn't seeing you for three years

It will be the deadliest thieves and the most lovable thieves of the service.

Well, aside from that, as the President tells us on the highway, I know that there are a three or four million people who will be subtracted, which in general will recommend their love.

And as I say, it would be unusual for me not to want to feel that, you know.

Well, you see, I have a problem.

I have a problem.

You must have bought it, because people have been mentioning it for a long time.

You've talked to people about it for six months, if I remember.

Right.

From Vandis, you know, being up at the function that night.

Yeah.

And you mentioned it, you know, please.

So I stand to testify about it.

I don't have to tell you that.

Bill Rogers is all for it, too.

So...

But the point is, John, that your luck is to have an opportunity.

I mean, this is a... You don't have all that.

It's a terrific post.

You love it.

And I'm doing a great job.

Well, and also, if you serve the other nurses, and I think that then this thing about the Vatican thing, frankly, the Vatican, well, you can have a son.

There's a very son.

My God, you see, the way I look to it, Larry,

is to get, get those people, uh, to get to the secretary.

We've never had that, you see, John.

We've always had the third secretary try to stay out of camp and go to work and spend a bit of money.

This is quite a way to do it now.

Do you agree?

When I was there, well, that was the U.S. and it rolled around.

November 69, when I spent, gosh, I said that a long time ago.

He was the first one we sent.

I spent one hour with him, and if you remember, some of the children I came back with at that time, you know, you were unaware of, and he said, tell the president if you remember, on Vietnam, to just keep going the way he's going, and he's doing just right.

He's speaking across those troops out there right now.

He said they'll be the biggest luck behind the world this afternoon.

Now, you know, this is the kind of information which is desirable for you to have.

In the face of the pandemic, you know, we have, you know, our local police, you know, panelists.

And so, you know, we say, stop it, stop it, stop it.

And yet, just the vote on himself, recognizing that what the president has done is maintain, even though we feel some voices, but just think in terms of what could have happened had we just withdrawn and said that, oh, no, you're on your own.

You would have been.

He's right.

well mr president i'd like to feel that because of my

I don't have a background in the field of things that I...

I think I've given a present to John, as a matter of fact.

There's a question.

I told you about this present a year ago, when I visited this place.

I set 18 guys up in a room.

including Mariana Rubio, the former free boyar, Julio Andriarte, who is now free.

There are a lot of political guys, and then about a dozen industrialists.

I know you guys are going to drive this country into darkness.

And unless you Christian Democrats, these are all Christian Democrats.

See, Martin doesn't talk to us.

Greg?

Oh, Greg, what is it?

One or all of the years that Greg would not lay his mind to the government.

So I just don't want to talk unless you pull a stop, you know, with the left faction, you know, the right faction of the Christian Democrat Party.

You see, there's another thing to the advantage of this.

Well, I hate Martin, because I met him in Thailand years ago.

And I believe, candidly, that I heard this hearing when he was an Undersecretary or Assistant Secretary of State.

Your appointment together would be a hell of a signal.

And it reminds me that you and I have been friends and political associates for 20 years.

You see, and we need that kind of a man today.

I've got one name, you see.

I don't have anybody in France right now at the moment.

And that's hard.

I don't have anybody in Germany, but in the Italians, I think it has a very, very simple list.

Well, because I have a friend, you know.

You see, not only that, but you have to remember the offensive will have, even though the effect of having a member of the president's cabinet on the 10th and 11th Street over the second time was a great, great, you know, federal cabinet on the 10th and 11th Street.

But let me tell you, this is not going to be lost on America's history as far as bringing them into the Republican fold, not just for a one-time proposition.

But to continue.

But to get them to continue, and from that post, and after all, I suppose I can't get back, no.

Well, that's fine.

That's all we want to do.

We call you to council.

Well, yeah, we thought about it.

No, no, that's right.

We want to go over the Italian business situation, or you want to come home and give us a report and vote or something like that.

And if you come back, you don't have to say what you're coming back for.

You just have to come back and figure out how to make the use of it.

That's the way to use it.

That's the way the Democrats did it.

Let me make sense.

It's cold.

uh, you know, uh, as a council, yeah, to, uh, to Warsaw, in Krakow and in Warsaw much.

He was back there making speeches to the polls.

Now, for a fact, you do, I want you to, you take the students, John, oh, but gee, I want both of you back here making speeches to the majority, you know, really tell them, tell them this, you'll hear what can happen, and, uh, and we don't, uh, you know, uh, I think it's very important.

Do you know, Mr. President, what the concept of me as an individual to serve?

Not post.

Italy.

I'm sorry to say, I do not think Italy has distinguished England as very expensive and Paris very expensive.

But Martin has no money.

Well, Mackley didn't have any money.

Carter had.

And he subsisted there very well.

I think Italy does not consider to be a post.

I don't know why this is.

because you have one hell of a lot of visitors, but mentally it's not considered to be a poster, it requires, frankly, a fortune.

So that was a fun time, plus a few dollars.

He was there at the time that I first made that decision.

South Europe.

And he told me that I asked him about it.

And as a matter of fact, because he was this population of residents.

Oh, yes, sir.

I was there.

I was there with 1947. Who was the ambassador?

Jimmy Dunn.

Oh, Dunn.

Yes, he was the prime minister.

He was the last great attorney.

He was.

Just one last question.

If for whatever reasons, family or otherwise, have found that

I would feel that I could be home for six months or a year.

What would you like?

I'll hold it for you.

I anticipated that.

As a matter of fact, I told John earlier, I'm telling you, I told John that if you raise the subject,

that I am perfectly satisfied with Mark in Italy unless I get you pregnant because I don't want to.

And I haven't.

I told Morris Sands that it was closed because I've made it.

And I told Maureen, the only one I told at the conference, Maureen said, well, we've got several guys who want to go to Italy and live it up.

I said, Maureen, I said, we've got some here who they listen in and work.

And I said, Maureen, I want you to know what I thought Maureen told me, because we wanted him to go.

And he said, well, he said he'd be great.

And he's not crazy.

I'll tell you what I would like to do.

I'll hold it for a year, if you like.

I mean, I just mean a year to the day.

But you've got the whole 1972.

If you could take another degree.

But it's six months from now.

If you work on it, it'll be great.

But for a year, it's your view.

The big deal is yours.

And you can do what you want.

See, because I could only be marked there four years.

After four years, he walked me up.

It's not that I'd like to, but if you can't say a year from now and said, look, and you put this job down so you can say, look, I can't do it right now because I've got the surgery, but I can do it six months from now.

I'll hold it another six months.

Well, it's not a problem.

I just wanted you to think that I was saying that out of your mind.

Yeah.

You and I have a relationship.

You can tell me what, right now, we will say.

You have an offer now.

You can do what you want.

You can take it later.

I would prefer doing it now.

I think it would be a nice touch, particularly with our community here, if it were said that the Secretary will be, this is the leading, the Secretary of Transportation, as you said in the President's request, to go get it.

Uh, I think, uh, I think it would be good if that could be done.

That's my, my, my argument.

I would, uh, I don't have any time to express my opinion, but if the time won't work out, let me say, we'll come back to it later.

The only other question would be, uh, is there anything, uh, that I could do for you in the interim, aside from secondary education?

Well, let's get to the doctor and I'd like to...

The one thought that comes to my mind... You have a thought.

My thought only is, I don't know what decision you have, what was sent to close that door, but...

Your relations with the Congress...

I think this is an area that needs some caution and attention and someone who can really

But John, I tell you, I think that would be, if I may say so, I think that would be downgrading it too much.

I mean, for you to come from a cabinet officer to the, you know, there would be rational relations.

I mean, I know this town, and I think they'd say, well, but I don't think it was on, I was thinking of if there were, say, something,

the National Commission or something of that sort.

You know, where you can stay here, I see what you can do.

I don't know if that's as little developed as, let's let John think over, you know what John has to have and see what Flanagan has and all those agency things.

He's definitely got a lot of things around here.

Again, those are almost everything we have in relation to either the cabinet or an ambassadorial rank would be a, would be a step down, that's the problem.

But, uh, if, if, given that, we could probably, uh... Take cabinet and alternate?

Take cabinet to major embassies, not a step down, it's a step sideways.

Cabinet to pilot status, step down.

And, uh, and, uh, cabinet to, uh,

I think can't let the conditions do what it's like now.

There's got to be amnesty.

There's got to be amnesty, John, if you've got to be an ambassador.

And that's why there are a couple of your colleagues, as I said, that have expressed amnesty in other areas.

It's both ambassadorial, so this is a pattern that's got to be developed, which is a very healthy approach.

Because we need direct ambassadors.

Well, because the relationship, which, uh, and I'm told that this has been said to me by, uh, some of my time friends, you know, it would be great if that company had a really trusty relationship.

President, President.

Well, look, who the hell is who I sent?

First of all, I can send somebody else over there that, uh, well, uh, Bob Payne, or she's been a bad guy over in Durham, or something, that's under government.

But, but Bob, that's just the right man to go in.

See my point?

He's a goal scorer.

We, we, you and I are in a different situation.

Everybody knows, they figure what the heck they know.

We can't hang together.

Yes, sir.

We lost the other team.

The other team.

You lose that second game.

62.

You didn't lose it much.

This is fine.

Yeah, I don't know.

That's the one goal.

Precinct.

Yeah, I was teaching Massachusetts though.

There hasn't been a Republican Party since you're here.

I saw a column in the Hearst paper by John Roach about Massachusetts.

And he said, you know, everybody says, why you lost Massachusetts?

He said, well, there were several reasons.

One, the Kennedy business.

And second, the fact that there's so many students and all that sort of thing.

And he said, third, when you say that Massachusetts is that much more liberal than Connecticut,

or Rhode Island.

He says that really isn't quite the case.

He says the fourth reason is that basically the Republican organization, what it was in Massachusetts, was all for its own, each man for himself, and didn't do a damn thing for the President.

And they said, this same name, he said, Brooke, Sergeant.

I said, I'm not making this charge.

This is a real charge.

But I had a second thought.

John and Popey had been there as governor at this time.

He had carried them.

How did you lose?

How did you carry 49 statesmen from Massachusetts, John?

How the hell can't you?

That's not it.

I was willing to go down.

They said, no, no, no.

They said, look, I think Sergeant or S-Bone probably would have heard Brooke from Christy Evans by 65 years.

They are all.

Those guys aren't.

I mean, that is the president.

Am I right about this?

You are absolutely right.

Chuck Colson told me.

Chuck Colson said there is no Republican organization in Massachusetts.

It has been since the days we left together.

Do you know why not?

In January of this year, I'm going to try to get First John Mitchell to appoint a statewide chamber of Massachusetts outside the state.

And I tried for three or four months.

I couldn't get one.

I gave up two names.

And, you know, and then, you know, I had to talk to various men.

I met one man who said, you know, the French side, you know, is really going to town.

And I said to myself, oh, my God, he's a good man.

He was my old friend.

Yeah, well, he said he was a different man.

He's certainly not having a mission for us.

He's got a very good job.

Uh, no, wait a minute.

Was that the time in 52?

Where was 52?

That big dinner?

I mean, uh, no, no, no, it was a dinner, a hundred-hour dinner.

I can't do it as a senator.

Oh, as a senator?

Yeah, as a senator.

And then you came, the first official visit you made, where you and I really became very much, when it was, the day I was asked to be your host as Deputy Chairman of the State Department.

I was the 15th of May City Assumption.

I shall never forget that day.

What's your response in that morning when we went to East Plus?

I don't know.

I don't know until this thing came along.

I wish you could try it.

You'll never have it again.

You're afraid of it.

He had a bad diagnosis then.

Virgin Islands.

Okay.

Don't bother with it.

I can't get along.

John, consider it.

It would be better if we could announce your coming.

Even if you could say...

John, would it be possible to announce that he was going to be named ambassador later?

Yeah, we've done that before.

And not send a nominee a confirmation.

We could do that.

We could see, I think there's something lost.

We don't grab it now.

We could do that then later.

You could say, I regret that I can't take her.

I want you to tune in.

But we could say that John Mulpey is going to have to take it.

you could say that uh

Senator Boeke has agreed to undertake a major assignment in the international field at a later time.

How's that sound?

That would be good.

But if you decide it sooner, it's better.

Well, I agree with you on the sentence.

But I understand it personally.

If you don't decide it sooner, it won't end up that way.

If we were, and then we can decide then whether you want to take the

And I said, what is that major?

He said, I did that with Conley.

I remember when he left, I said Conley would undertake several assignments.

Well, I put him on the FIA, the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

And I was the president of Brazil, by the way.

I did.

So I can say that to you that if you agree to take an assignment at the International that will be announced at a later date.

So what are you going to do?

You say well I haven't decided yet.

Six months from now, we can decide.

How's that sound to you?

That sounds good.

That gives you your option.

That's right.

Either be to go now, which I'd rather do, or go off until later, and then I'll just keep Martin there.

And, uh, do you have no objection to keep Martin there?

Oh, no, no, no, no.

My, my was doing a good job.

Yeah.

The only thing that I could hope on this is that, you know, he couldn't stop at 6 o'clock.

He's not, you know, I'm a socialite.

You know, I like him for that surprise.

You know, I'll do all right.

But, you know, you're like some of the candidates.

You're the worst one you can have.

You know, for us to win by 60%, 61%, and then not carry the Congress and having the candidates, but did you see some of the candidates for the House around the country?

And they said they weren't gone.

But what this just done, and the President, you know, frankly, they weren't impressed if they didn't have it.

And I have to say that, like you, you do it.

Ben and I, you know, aren't out doing it, but I do it too.

I, frankly, Andy doesn't do it as well as he ought to.

But I've heard, I mean, even as President, with all the security,

I never go to a airport.

I never get out of a car without going to that fence.

Even though I'm not part of it, I think I just, I think I don't know what to do with it.

I don't know if you can get up to a point now where you better be high up.

You never know.

You've got to feel people.

It isn't just shape.

You've got to look into their eyes.

You let, you let...

And really feel it, not just, you know.

And look at our eyes, too.

Not just with the next one.

That's one thing that I've learned very early on.

And sometimes when you're not paying attention, you just take a person's hand and look at them.

If you're not careful, you look at the next guy, why are you still shaking hands with this guy?

That's kind of whistling in the window.

You've got to look at him behind the wall.

Even the farmers get the same, don't you?

You've got to look for one inch.

Look.

There you go.

Look.

When you're out there, we'll leave it this way, and you get, you, in a few days, you let John know what you want, and we'll work our way through this.

Now, I'd like to go back, and I have, as I told John, I have to get some, uh,

and I would like to be able to put these thoughts together probably in the next ten days, and then also inspire these possibilities for my successor.

Do you want me to go down?

Yeah, you would.

You would.

We've got three or four names.

You, uh, the rest of the...

Throw the admiral's name into that, right?

I don't even know that.

Yeah, the agency has eight-year department.

Oh, I know that.

But throw the admiral's name into it.

First time down, right?

I just like the sound of it.

You think he's about to start research?

I would say he can't be closer to Section 58, I'm sorry, Section 10.

Oh, he's amazing.

He's a very gross major in construction.

He's on an engineering firm.

He's well known across the nation.

He'd be highly respected as a...

As a matter of fact, he's a recognized name.

And Pelletier is a French name I did, Mr. President.

And let me tell you, although a lot of people think that the French, you know, feel that they're out and not related at all, they're not.

He doesn't have to be a Catholic, does he?

Is he?

No.

No, he's serious.

Yes, why not?

He's a civil engineer.

Nixon, Ehrlichman & Volpe on Second term reorganization

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 24, 1972

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