Nixon & Haldeman on Inauguration Planning and Vietnam War

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You got any sun out there?

You're low on that range, sir.

Mount France.

What was the matter?

Was it cold?

It was, uh...

I heard it was cold.

Fairly cold, but it was not bad for this time of year.

It was great.

A little wind down there.

Oh, we tried to keep you out of the lines of fire pretty much, but I hope that...

Uh, sure, appreciate it.

It didn't bother you.

He called a couple of times, and I said, what in the hell is the matter?

I said, you can handle that, sir.

Well, I mentioned Fort Warren and Cal State.

I said, I'll cut that out.

Well, Steve did pretty well, didn't he?

I checked with him a couple times sometimes.

He stayed with me.

He's a good man, but you've got to get people off for a little while.

When did you leave?

23rd.

Went west on the 26th.

We had a man in business.

I'm not sure.

You left when you were here in the office, so you got off on time.

At least I was gone for a period.

I was in the day after you left.

Oh, I see.

I was in Saturday.

No, that was in Saturday.

Coles were doing an excellent job while you were gone.

It was a horrible experience.

Yeah, it was.

I had some fairly difficult times, but that's the time of day that's why it was extremely...

strong and helpful in some ways.

Yeah.

Good job.

Got a little guts.

A little guts.

Well, he does.

He was telling me about the seance he had with George Shultz and John Rowe, the way they keep the skate.

They were saying, you know, we've got to get glory for him to be here.

So I said, Chuck, I said,

The war should have been ended before it started.

We always have our White House family.

We've got two people who really stand up on this.

We've got you and all of them.

That's basic.

The others mean well, but they are under enormous pressure, you know.

They're emotional.

They read the press.

They pay too much attention to the defense.

Well, they don't say, though.

They just never give any thought to the fact that we're doing the right thing.

I'm really rather surprised that after

You think if you can't go even after May 8th, you know, you've got a few things right, but some of them have a little more confidence.

The main thing is to keep our domestic people, like other people, they've got to keep their hands totally out of anything that's not in their ballpark because they're, you know, it's true, Rumsfeld and Finch and all the rest of them could ever contribute to games like this.

They never had any understanding of it.

That's it.

It's true of John.

It's true of George.

It's going to be true of Ash.

They should all stay totally out of it.

I mean, that's not a very good thing they're going to do.

I just can't.

And then, actually, there won't be any problem.

I don't think that they're only going to be sick.

Sigler, of course, has been strong.

It's a different world out there than it is in Washington, D.C. Oh, yeah.

A very different thing they were saying, how different the attitudes are there.

He said, you know, he said, they've been talking about the bomb, you know.

He said, they've been talking about the gate.

Some of them are talking about the landslide, right?

He said, they've got that.

He said, sure, people are worried about it.

Your friends, particularly.

Yeah, but their, their worry is in a, in a

different kind of, they're not obsessed with it.

It's a thing of, you know, gee, you know, in the past, it's kind of like the, they wish it would stop raining.

And, you know, it isn't, it isn't like it was in Cambodia.

It isn't like it was, it wasn't the horror or fright right after May 8th either, because here's a nuclear war and all that.

You know, they almost kind of made a nuclear war.

No, and it's interesting because it really, if you look at it, it was,

should have been on the merits it was worse than any of those in the sense of those are harder decisions that there was in many ways a harder decision and and the the costs in a way were high getting back to a few things uh let me ask you getting there who uh or do you have what are you doing right now

We've got the schedule pretty well under control.

You're going to have to, of course, be moving out.

I mean, at the highest level.

You're going to be screwed up on Friday, I'm saying, if all goes wrong.

I told you to do that.

I went out.

This is it for the leaders, though, I told Steve, for the leaders, and for everything else.

This is it before they get our number.

Yeah, we don't need any more.

And all John and George will be pushing hard to have a meeting with the quadriads.

They just don't understand.

I'm going to do some work on my speech, see.

And so I'm going to be busy on other things.

And let's just not clutter up the calendar, but if you agree.

Sure.

Absolutely.

There's been no, well, the only, they're talking about the question of what we do on reorganization, but you're covering that and the Friday morning meeting along with the wage and price thing.

We're covering it and we're having total leadership there.

Full leadership and...

Now that you've got to have government organization people too, then they're coming.

They're coming.

We've got to have all those people.

All those people that are not serving.

That's right.

And running everywhere else.

But we are not going to go over the whole reorganization.

That would be not the entire thing.

It's got to be over by 1030, so that means an hour and a half.

And I told the parents that I had to read one of those people through for once.

A real...

If you can cover the whole thing just on its...

uh cover the whole thing then you got it done then you don't have then you don't have to worry about reorganization from there on now it's already out really anyway so this if all of this is

If there's anything to be done, let's get John up there and carry the lead if we can.

Let George say a couple of things, you know, on Deacon, on these things.

He's fine person to person, but he's no good before the game.

He should not try to press, because when he does, he tries to be on the bat and he gets out of character.

John is very good.

That's the way we'll do that.

You see, we're getting everything out of the way in a sense, too.

Seeing the speaker today, and we saw Mark Mansfield, which I don't have the total leadership.

I've already talked to him.

He's got a few stuff.

They may squeal a little more.

I don't know how they're dealing with that.

But they should be invited to a full leadership meeting on the 22nd or the 23rd or whatever the day is.

They've got to get the new cabinet.

And, uh, I decided on 10 o'clock meetings for another reason.

I think it will, I think it will, particularly with the looters, I think an armistice could affect getting them the hell out by here at a reasonable time.

You see, they've got to get back to the Congress, the Hill, and also they've got to get out for the briefing.

They want to miss the briefing.

They just pant to get out there for that.

Otherwise, you come in at 8 o'clock in the afternoon, stand around until 8.30.

Well, they didn't get here on time either.

Well, they never ate.

10 o'clock and start on time.

That's the way it is.

So that's that.

Anything else on the schedule?

Yeah.

On the long haul, you got my memoranda that I wrote about the long haul?

Yeah.

We don't have a chance to study that.

We'll talk about that later this afternoon.

I want you to study it before we talk about it, because I had to give a lot of thought to those tonight.

I think we've got to sit down and hammer out a few things.

You're seeing the long haul, the long haul thing.

We've just got to get it under control.

What really brought it home to me, strikingly, was the Stans memory.

Did you ever count up the names?

Did you count up the names and the number of

We're going to add about 300 seats that are available, about that many.

So you see, you gave them all to the finance people.

So we're going to have to, I don't know what we're going to do.

Don't just explain it to them.

It's over the four years that you get about 1,000.

That's what's going to come out.

Well, we can use a majority.

Go ahead.

Well, we've got a, what is it, a February 1st and 2nd.

I want to start a new rule on that one White House person back there, which would be Kissinger, you see.

And then, you know, let's have the White House in the cabinet now.

For this year, limit to those that have to be there.

And then limit our party.

They do not have to be opposite.

that they're there, not to go down the opposite route between the NSC staff and the safety market staff.

Okay, the other one is King Hussain, who, well, you had agreed to see him on a fourth, he's got a private visit coming up, and he had asked for a 90-minute office appointment and either a luncheon or a dinner and stayed down to answer.

And, uh,

You had a stag dinner last time.

One stag lunch tied in.

And, uh, they told the king that, you know, they would have the meeting following your inauguration on February 1st.

They're recommending January 30th for February 7th.

I said, well, I don't see why not.

Now what you're saying, I cannot give you an answer.

You should not put her on the weekend.

Let's try to keep a weekend out.

Now, the 30th is a Tuesday.

Sorry.

And the, uh, February 6th, we said there'd be no dinner.

Is that clear?

Or luncheon dinner.

Never any luncheons.

And no dinners.

I don't want to be small working dinners under any circumstances.

No standing dinners.

Nothing.

Okay.

The other one is Goldie Mayer.

Now I can see her.

She's coming in, I know that's a lot of part of February for fundraising.

So being this asked, she's requested to see you.

All right, I'll see her, but again, that's all they're asking for.

Okay.

It's an office visit February 20th to 28th, somewhere in that period.

Okay.

Provided, provided, provided.

It's 11 on the income basis, you know.

Yeah.

Okay.

some of the minor details.

Well, they aren't minor.

They sure are details, but they're important.

They're proposing that on your drive to the Capitol, which this is minor in a sense, but it's obviously better that you depart from the South Portico instead of from the North Portico.

There's a TV of the empty stands and all.

It's a lousy picture.

Now, they've gone from the North before, but it'd be a hell of a lot better shot to go here and go up Constitution rather than going up Pennsylvania, where the empty streets are.

the chairman of the joint congressional committee rides with the president going up going up all right now there's two chairmen this year cook and cannon they can both drive with you and mrs nixon then it's normal that the vice president mrs edmund

Okay.

Then on introduction, they have gone different ways on how they bring people out.

But the suggestion is that Mrs. Nixon and Mrs. Agnew be introduced separately and escorted to their places separately, not together and not with you.

I agree.

Okay.

The musical selection there, they're suggesting the combined choirs of the military academies as the singing group, rather than, you know, a morgue and tavern.

Now, do you want to get into this religion thing?

We're into the, you know, what we do on the White House service now.

We've asked Graham, Cook, and Meaghan, and AIAP, that is,

That leaves you at the inaugural ceremony.

We do the Greek Orthodox.

She says, go along.

And we do, adieu, adieu.

Then the question is, which Catholic?

Which black?

Well, we can do a Protestant black.

And do this Dr. E.B.

Hill that Billy Graham recommended.

There's a guy from the California Baptist thing.

Billy says he will.

There's some other blacks, and then there's, you know, Huffman and people like that.

Huffman did get the church here in Alabama.

Louie Evans got in there.

Actually, Evans is in Philadelphia.

But he'll be very good.

He'll be very good.

I like him.

Well, do a black Protestant, and then all right, we'll do white.

Other things?

A black Protestant would be great.

Do Dr. Hill?

That's fine.

And then the Catholic feeling is that it should be a cardinal, and the first recommendation would be Cody from Chicago.

Oh, Christ.

That's the problem.

He is very solid.

Well, Boyle isn't either, is he?

I have Cook.

Have Cook again?

Have him twice?

Oh, no.

See, we're going to have Cook at the White House.

God or any other Catholic cardinal.

No, there's another way around this, which is at the White House.

Well, or not do the three.

Just do a black or something at the White House since you're doing the ecumenicals.

because nobody knows at the White House.

Well, at the White House, you don't have to have three.

Why have three at the White House?

Why have the Jew?

You could put the Jew on at the inaugural, but I want these two from L.A., which is not so good.

Who's the other one?

The Blacks.

It doesn't make any difference.

It doesn't make any difference at all.

Make it?

No.

Well, the other thought was to have Medeiros, the Archbishop of Boston.

Who?

Medeiros, who has been reasonably solid in his Spanish speaking.

Cook is the best one, obviously.

And maybe you think you just have Cook and not have a Catholic at the White House.

What about just having Billy Graham at the White House?

Okay, at the conventional luncheon.

people in 69 that you had invited, they can take 75 gas, we can cut it down.

I want that to be 50.

I want it to be as small as possible.

They had some year of handling at that moment.

You don't care about any of your handling.

I don't think, I think our family, I mean, it's easy to do the same thing.

Bob, the second inaugurated library that people have got to understand.

I've been through the second part of Eisenhower, and it's a pain in the neck.

You're just redoing it until you're on the third floor.

Now, they're basically, for us at least, basically have to cut all that out and get the bandwidth held back down there.

Now, let them fill the seats with the jackasses and the congressmen.

Unless you want your own

the Truman thing is concerned, the plan now would be to go right ahead with all the inaugural stuff under the normal thing.

I'll be sure they don't do it.

I'll just say nothing that should be done in the present plan will matter.

I'll just say that.

But they're not going to announce anything.

You see my point?

Yeah.

No, I should do it.

There's no need to do it.

There was some thought that maybe you should cancel the balls and stuff like that, but it just, you know, is...

Cancel the balls?

Yeah, because you're still in the 30-day warning period.

But the...

We've got to figure out

Parade is down, they say, to an hour and 45 minutes.

And they, it's a very good idea if they can get it down to that, instead of having that miserable four-hour parade.

I promised you it was bad, so we got away with it.

Nixon High School and Laredo.

And they'll play there.

Maybe you'll operate out of here.

Sure, rather than having to operate out of the hotel, it was the Mayflower.

I was the Mayflower guy who worked at the Mayflower.

No, this is...

But you know what it means.

It wasn't that you're on the ground.

and walk out to the parade and get out of here.

We don't need to do any of this stuff.

We don't need to get out of here.

We don't need to do any of this stuff.

We don't need to get out of here.

I think you hitting the balls is good anyway.

Those are from all over the country.

That's all right.

We'll have a chance to run the cheerleaders.

Yeah.

Who busted his ass?

Huh?

Who busted his ass?

Well, that's one of the things I...

But we're not gonna let them leave business practicing more around here.

That's all I'm... Well, Packard knows the feeling of the business, doesn't he?

Does he?

Yeah, I talked to him about it, and you put it more nicely than he did, but it's the same point.

We're just cool.

Yeah.

Nixon & Haldeman on Inauguration Planning and Vietnam War

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on January 3, 1973

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Nixon & Haldeman on Inauguration Planning and Vietnam War

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on January 3, 1973

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Cite this conversation