Nixon, Haldeman & Winchester on White House Christmas events

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Oh, you come on in now.

That's what I'm talking about.

Listen.

Hi, how are you?

How are you?

Merry Christmas.

This is what they're talking about.

Merry Christmas.

would you like us to start

The Press Walkthrough, which Mrs. Nixon will conduct.

Mrs. Nixon will conduct the Press Walkthrough of the Decorated House on Monday, Monday, Friday, and Saturday.

On Monday, Monday, and Saturday, we'll be done.

How?

Just for the writing purposes.

Television press also.

They bring the cameras.

Fine.

Do that.

All right.

The Washington Post is not going to be included.

It's in the morning.

Do you hear me?

The Washington Post is not going to be included.

All right, sir.

Now, go ahead.

All right, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, you just have to invite a certain number.

I mean, just invite the people that have many people come, currently writing for us, maybe have somebody else come in.

One portion.

No, anyway, go on.

Go ahead.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, those three, two receptions in Blair House dinners.

Right.

Your participation would be...

to receive a guest after they've had a tour of the house.

On what day?

This would be on Tuesday.

At what time?

What time of the day?

It would be roughly 7 o'clock.

So they'll have a tour of the house and an opportunity to hear music and so forth and listen to that.

She'll know that she knows about these Asian political groups that we're meeting.

All right.

And that's all set as far as she's concerned.

Yes, sir.

Good.

All right.

I think, what, 5 and 6 is probably the best days.

I would suggest inviting them at 6.30 because of the traffic problem, and the house will be more attractive.

Yeah, it has to be dark.

It has to be around 6.30 or 5.00.

It takes the tour of the house to indicate, but 7.00 is fine.

I think as I get to their dinner, though, that's what we'd like by a reasonable time.

So I think they ought to be out, so they should take their tour and be crewed so that they're over to that dinner by 7.00.

There ought to be cocktails then.

Yes.

It's probably unnecessary for you to speak with these people as long as you're going to shake hands with them.

Right.

In the group room, we've got a very small, 40 to 60 people.

How do you say a word to each other?

Where do you have that room?

Where are you going to have them?

Straight back.

You could receive them into the state dining room after they've seen the house and have a word with each one if they go into the state dining room.

They'd like to have cocktails.

and have their tour be received yet?

Well, we're working on that.

If you want to speak to him, you can speak to him.

After you can't get him to see me, you can't get him to see me.

Okay, got it.

On Friday the 15th?

Yes, the 15th.

Christmas tree lighting, and there would be 1,000 people invited, 500 of which would come early.

That way we can have 500 in the early days and have 500 if we can't put 1,000 in the house at one time, in my opinion.

So you have 500 before the lighting and 500 after.

Is there any problem with that?

You might like to consider having all 1,000 at once.

The house could take them, I believe.

We could get them in better.

The traffic is just a...

Terrible problem on that day.

No one can move in the area.

That's all right.

Fine with me.

I just said $1,000 one time.

We don't have to talk about that, do we?

You could consider speaking to them just over the public.

You might consider speaking to them over the public address system.

Yeah, well, thank you very much for your talk.

We really don't even need to do that.

I think we just ought to shake their hand.

It's a precious reception.

What is this group?

This is the political group.

You know, I'm honest.

I can if I want to.

Just one other point, Mr. President.

If you work on a secret, then I'm not going to consider not shaking hands with you.

If there is no, no, no, no, I'm shaking hands with you.

That's what I'm going to do.

On Saturday the 16th will be the day that we hold a new cabinet.

This will also include the Eisenhower cabinet and their wives or widows.

And a list is being prepared right now.

I want to see the list before anything is done on that.

And we include in that, too, the former national champion.

So I don't know if we're going to do that, but OK.

Okay.

The answer on Sunday, which is the day right after the dinner, is the worship service at the White House.

This will be mostly new American majority types included.

And it will also include the past and present RNC chairman and their wives.

No children at all with this.

The minister is either Cardinal Carolla or Cook, depending on which one he is not participating in the inauguration.

The problem there, the one Lucy would have there, is the logistic problem of a church service in the morning after a dinner.

The only problem would be the noise inconvenience to the Nixon-Farber hammering town that was going on that night.

After the dinner.

Taking down the platform, shooting, rearranging.

To expect which can't be met will cost about $500.

the problem in having a dinner Saturday night in the church service on the morning shift, especially if you have entertainment while you have to, you know, read the Bible and all that that night.

Now, what you could do is have the cabinet dinner Monday night, the 18th, and the surrogate reception Tuesday evening, the 19th.

No?

Monday, the 18th, Mrs. Nixon's invitation has gone out for a diplomatic children's party.

That's the afternoon, isn't it?

Yes.

There's a problem with getting the house opened up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so you do the reception on Tuesday rather than Monday, right?

The service reception on Tuesday the 19th.

This is a reception from Tuesday the 19th for the top campaign personnel and surrogates and some top young voters for the president.

This is one in which you thank these people in the east room and receive them in the center hall.

Well, let's see whether or not there's a group that it's worth doing it for.

I haven't yet.

All of these, we've got to check to see whether that group is worth it or whether there's so much duplication in it.

We won't do any duplication.

If we go into duplication, we won't do it.

The surgeons are working for the reason that they're working.

Many of the surgeons are wives of other people.

So I want to check to see what the situation is there.

Okay.

That's the only, that is the last event in which you would be participating.

And what about the others?

What about the others?

I don't know.

What about the diplomatic children?

What about the congressional events?

You'll have candlelight tours on the other evenings.

And you will invite the congressional people to the candlelight tour.

That's on a Monday.

What's that?

Monday the 18th.

No, there's not an act on the 18th that period that we have to participate in.

No, sir.

There would be an open house at the White House, yeah.

Yeah, but that's the 19th.

Well, I think that's the 21st or 22nd.

The press party is what day is the press party?

The 23rd.

The 23rd and the 24th, I understand.

And then after Christmas, as much as possible, all these candlelight tours.

Sure, sure.

Does that seem like something viable that will work over there?

But my point is that the press thing and the White House faculty will come after.

Presumably we may be gone.

We may be gone at that time.

That's perfectly all right.

We'll keep open the search and see whether it's worth doing or whether it's something that

We're putting this list together.

Good.

Good luck.

Thank you.

I don't know whether

I got Henry's message.

No, well, okay, that's one point.

The other point is that this motor is out of the country.

Yeah.

And so I can't assume that it's not.

Correct.

And they don't think they should have anything else to do with it.

That's right.

I agree.

They also said that this message from Henry indicates that problem is well in hand anyway.

What he said was that the problem is well in hand.

I still believe, however, that precisely because we are in a critical culture, we will need a person to address why you are confused.

I think it is imperative that you talk freely to the agenda for a few minutes with calmness, reason, and determination.

I will then follow up next day with the details of the record.

You don't want to be dead, but I agree with you that you're an evil, you're nothing other than a panic of speech, and at first you could explain why the negotiations did not exceed in October.

At the moment of culmination, when we were consulting Saigon, I said, I want to turn you by a negotiation statement, so we began.

At the moment of culmination, we were in Saigon, and I put out public information, i.e., banned, bombed, objected, and loosed, and missecured from the political profession of your coalition here.

We sought conclusive evidence of Hanoi's obstructions to its forces, and made a major military offensive precisely to plan the ceasefire at the moment of these actions, plus a general requirement to take our allies' concerns into account.

meant that we needed another agreement with the R.D.N.R.

to be cleared up at the N.P.Q.

agreement.

The purpose of this additional round were as follows.

To get international machinery in place so the ceasefire could be effected and the agreement not break down.

To make it clear to the agreement, but, and I have repeatedly emphasized, the name of the National Council was not a coalition government.

While we were not insisting on mutual control, we've always maintained the principle that N.R.

did not have an unlimited right to keep the forces of the Sun.

These were the provisions we had never drawn, which was clarified to the D.P.

Goodwill, these questions should have been resolved.

We made an honor of severance.

We gave her a contract at Saigon, where we had no legal.

We ran into a total of infractions.

After greatest of approvals in the text class, we were there for the proceedings.

Dr. O'Grady was on file.

I know I didn't account for the basis.

They gave us the choice of returning to Dr. O'Jackson, checking the worst of vision.

We refused to use the correct translation for the phrase that ministering instructions for the state themselves had given us in English.

They totally refused a whole series of formulations we offered in order to establish the principle that they do not have the right to keep their horses themselves indefinitely.

The more we tried to elaborate principles agreed upon in October, the more we told them the noise was going to start in the night.

Thus, the negotiation did not break down because of Saigon's objections.

We never got to that point because of Ion's unreasonableness.

If we'd gotten the minimum changes, we would have proceeded to sign the agreement despite the Saigon situation.

Du Bois said that if you do the duty on action, you change the spot.

And I said that you did not give us this thing in the car.

Therefore, we would charge you with a return on it.

The U.S. and the maximum American could arrange a comprehensive settlement for an abuse to all parties.

We have heard that this is a causal negotiation.

Cease fire on both sides.

We have possession of insufficient time.

We are therefore prepared to disengage, including the manuscript of the military settlement.

I start with the fact that we will step apart from the trade actions until we achieve the same remaining objective.

These are issues American people can reach national, but Harris called on Congress to even rally them once again to be clear that we need a maximum merit.

Having failed at this effort, having brought up enough time to give 100,000 or 100 million taxes to a firm policy, we get our man back, and this is an issue that I honor.

I believe, he said, I believe we can convey this message in clear and simple terms in a 10 to 15 minute speech.

I will then follow up with the specifics, and we will take aggressive action to hold the election.

What's your reaction?

I still think he's missing the point.

I don't... What he's having me do, though, is to go on and say, I regret to say that I want to tell the American people why the negotiations are broken down.

It was their fault, not ours.

I'm very, very sorry about this, and so we're going to continue to do everything we can to get our people back.

I don't know.

I guess it's a loser.

I do, too.

I want you to do two things.

I want you...

and have a post-it read that's you and close to people.

Now, don't go beyond this.

I just want you to go beyond it.

The other one I want you to read with Conly.

Read both of them.

There is your message, you know, which you don't have a copy of, but it's in my briefcase over there on top of my briefcase.

Let Conly read that.

He's writing a treat.

And maybe before that, I'll find out.

I can even go to that first, but you can do that.

So you'd like to go over and get his judgment on it.

Incredibly, but he's usually the one that comes out and says, well, I'm charging.

He may say, well, sure.

God, I just have a feeling that he's totally wrong on this.

Look at it in terms of headliners.

If peace talks fail, not Carson, if peace talks break down, it's going to be Kissinger failed.

You understand?

That's what you're involved in this thing to a great extent.

It doesn't sound sticky what you need.

We ought to make sure you get the credit for it.

You've got to face the fact that in the event this breaks, it's going to be Kissinger's failure.

And this is going to be me there, basically just taking the blame for the whole goddamn thing, which I've got to watch for at this point.

Particularly if it's not really good.

That's the point.

Now, what the hell good does this do?

I mean, what's your opinion on this?

Wow.

See, the argument he's making is all wrong, probably the people and all that.

The argument that might be right, trying to play the side of it for a minute, isn't all right.

Better than that.

is Hanoi and in the hope of taking this, of maintaining the strongest possible position so that you are in a better shape to negotiate or whatever with it.

And with the Congress on the basis of trying to rally the support so that you can continue the military action and all that without getting into a big cutoff type of program.

That's the recurrence here, the recurrence.

Do we have a question about that?

There is a question.

And in the future, as I said, no questions from people like this.

Just that is an outlet.

See, I mean, there's nothing to be gained by a record here.

The question would be to be briefed in this instance.

And I'll give you another question in a second.

I'm trying to think clearly about it tonight.

Well, it may be.

What if this happens?

You run a string on it.

You don't, but Henry comes back and he explains in a backgrounder, and there's a current briefing, and it just leaves an answer.

And there's a big thing in the paper that says that the reason the talks broke up is because of all these technical details.

That's right.

And now that we're going to, what are we going to do about it?

We're going to try and work out these details with them.

We're ready to talk with them.

Right.

We'll talk to them on time.

We're ready any time they are.

What are we doing, military?

As we've said all along, we will continue the military actions until the settlement is reached.

Right.

That's, you keep it on the, as we've said all along, basis instead of making it a new development basis.

Right.

And what does the Congress do?

They come back and say it wasn't making it.

The government comes out and says, see, there wasn't any settlement.

And the dose is .

Yeah.

That's one thing you can do.

And you give them the full dose.

And they go out and leave all the stuff and all that.

And do a little .

That's right.

But then the reaction is, well, we were .

Well, he's got to answer that in the briefings.

And .

So what are we going to do?

We're going to continue military operations in the form of bombing in Miami.

Restriction of destruction.

We will continue the withdrawal of our troops on an orderly basis.

You're going to have to pledge something.

See, the other thing is if you go on, it's going to look like an acceleration where people are going to think of, oh, justice, we're going back in and they can vote again.

That's right.

And also, we're going to stir up the opposition more.

I think so.

The opposition is not going to be stirred up in the press in any of that.

Now, we know that.

The same old critics.

Well, in terms of that general mass of assholes out there,

They want to say, oh, Christ, the war is going on.

We're stirring up the war.

We're going back to bombing.

We're waiting for the day.

You see what I mean?

It is not there.

It's not there.

I have this feeling.

I have the feeling that you should send a message to Dissinger.

I mean, I think we've got to get him off this goddamn wicket before he comes back here, you know, all bumping around and so forth.

Because I think he's not seeing this through.

I think he's not seeing it through.

What do you think?

Captain said that he told them that, but that's so sure and deep that he didn't bother.

Well, the captain may not have told them as clearly as I do.

I can see it.

Yeah.

Why don't we wait until I talk to Tom and see if we can do that?

Well, you sure about that?

I mean, I told Tom again.

I said I'd be honest.

Go ahead.

Let me get a bottle of beer.

I don't feel strong.

With this, I don't think you don't have anybody comfortable here.

You don't have anybody coming around.

Is the drum set?

Yeah, that's right.

Nixon, Haldeman & Winchester on White House Christmas events

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 5, 1972

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