Nixon, Colson & Bull on Vietnam settlement and Public relations

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What I want you to do here is that.

I don't go to the hospital.

We've got to realize the importance of all the things I'm going to do.

Well, Bob and I talked last night at length about it.

I mean, honestly.

Since I'm leaving in the near future, that I wouldn't get in there.

Yeah, I understand.

Okay.

All right.

What I want you to do, Chuck, is get out and talk to the papers.

I think one very good thing to get out is the one that I mentioned.

I do that to assault all the press, basically.

It's a press turn.

It's crazy.

Because of this, I mean, all of a sudden, he said, I can't remember the name of one of them.

So I kind of heard it over here.

I don't know.

There is a way, certainly, if you can, that somebody can write a story from the press group, you know, where the press come in the morning and say, oh, an anchor talks about his colleagues, and that he's never seen Colin Thomas and all the rest of them, or disturbed, and so forth and so on, instead of saying, well, isn't it a great thing we're having peace, they were pitching, you know, they were saying that, and they called us on the best of the best, and so forth and so on.

Let me say, we missed the opportunity after November 3rd to follow up.

We missed the opportunity after the election to follow up.

We're all, yeah, we are trying to get done with all that sort of thing.

Now, the point is, if you're going to do anything, you've got to follow up and kick them in the balls.

I don't know if I'm going to follow up.

I'm just going to wait and see.

I just know that I don't want you to, I'm not saying this in terms of being, I'm just saying in terms of this is a battle, it's a war, we've got to do a naive thing.

Now, you toss someone or something, so maybe, and Baruti probably will understand.

Okay, there's two.

Beyond that, you haven't got a minute.

Quine will not understand the deal.

You've got to push him.

The reality will not understand that you can push him.

You've got to, you've got to, I want this, and I expect this push.

It's terribly important.

You've got to, you cannot allow people who are patriotic and so forth in the Congress, in the country,

And the people that we're going after are the McCloskeys, the Regals.

I think you have a lot of them in mind.

Well, I do.

It's just that it is important to kind of encourage people to get involved.

I'm not going to let the message get in the way of the others.

I'm afraid, though, that the rest of them will be boxed in on it.

They're told to do something right.

But it isn't going to make a difference if it happens to a drop there.

Nobody's paying attention to it.

That's that.

That's what the period is.

I'd like to just issue an absolute front burner for two weeks because it's during that period, you see, we can do a lot of things with feature stories and TV specials.

Well, of course, a lot of them are starting to, will start catching their breath and saying, well, this is going to work.

Well, there must be a period.

They're going to have a hell of a time.

Yeah, it must be Kirchwein.

But you know, the reading through, I don't know if you had a chance to read it.

I've already got it.

Well, it's...

I didn't read it, but I think I'm going to read it from the tap.

It's good.

There are two things here that you'd be interested in.

One is that in Chicago, the hockey game, several attack tests, they announced it on the loudspeaker, and the crowd stood up and sustained.

The same thing happened at Madison Square Garden.

18,000 mostly young people were contacted to hear a folk concert.

I just finished a song dedicated to G.I.

's Vietnam when he stood up and announced it, and the crowd stood and roared approval.

The announcement of the pro basketball all-star game in Chicago brought a long-standing ovation from 17,000 people.

I think, you know, I think the country, that's the folks, that's not the parents, etc.

I think you'll find that if they didn't, Mr. President, if they heard it at 11 o'clock, or they heard it at midnight when it was rerunning, when I saw it, it was 9 and a half minutes.

Yes, sir.

It was on the Today service morning.

Dan knew the whole speech.

I see.

the way that today shows like it.

And they re-plugged portions of the tower from last season, which is a marvelous job.

So now it's, it's there in all of the, I'm, I must say the prototype is supposed to explain, is accurate enough.

It makes the point that everybody's praising it.

And then he goes on to talk about the, some of the clocks that were coming out of the crates as the wires carried.

We've got a wire game now.

Yes, yes sir.

We have about, we have about 15 of them on here.

So we've got to... Do you realize that last movie had those stories on here, except for Goldwyn?

Oh, Goldwyn.

Goldwyn wouldn't either.

I wrote his and put it up for him.

So, I mean, he might just...

But you've got to stir up.

Well, we'll get more today.

Thursday we'll get more.

Listen, I'm not doing this to stir you up.

I just want you to know you have my full approval.

We have some big guns.

I think using the Vice President for a major speech when he's back is a great idea.

Yeah, his man tells me he'd like to do it.

Well, people have been in Vietnam.

He can say it was worth it.

And I have seen Americans be proud.

And that, yes, but his speech must come from the ship.

Well, if you say this, it will lead to advances in the military.

It is.

They've done a pact in New York Times.

That's CBS.

And they're not in a pact in the press.

They're not in any more pact.

See, just getting to listen.

And that do some effect.

But he'll also, he'll have some credibility when he comes back.

That'll make him, that'll make him do what he'll say.

And then we've got to get some long, in-depth pieces written.

By, by scholars who will, who will influence us.

Herman Conn, that's who I'm talking about.

And you've got to go to the manager.

Oh, yes.

Herman Conn, you say Herman Conn, I assume.

Well, Herman Conn, Glenn Campbell, Bob Kentner, and you've got...

It's a great problem here in Georgetown.

We've had to put the work on the ship.

Georgetown Center for International Studies.

I was confused.

Good night.

All of that would be helpful.

I'd like to see if you declared a peace.

Yes, sir.

Declared a peace.

And thanks to you, we can do that.

I think we need both.

Both the praise and you.

And this is the kind of issue that's going to get some praise from the president.

We did.

There's one thing here that's certainly right as a result of this thing.

Oh, it's you.

There's no question next to it.

And that's why Henry, you know, has said he did a hell of a job.

But his, you know, kind of moving around with all the brush and the craft.

made it appear that I was out there alone on this.

And so all right, that was all.

Now everybody's out.

We've got to get the hell out of here.

Is that clear?

Good.

And Laird, Laird said that he will stay if he's going to be here until Tuesday.

Yeah.

And I didn't say that.

If Laird can make a major speech, we'll get it done.

He will.

All right.

We do, we do, we do.

We heard him, Tom, Tom, that I had told you, I was so delighted that I was told it.

But I think it is, you know, like a fair run, you know, to cut the shit out of the critics.

You're right.

Yeah.

Well, let me say, it's a great accomplishment from your point of view.

I always do that really well.

Well, it's a good one to recognize here.

We still be doing some of this, too.

We've got an anchor club.

We need outside groups.

I pray for the RAs and the campers.

We sure do.

I heard about you getting a scouting company.

The two are absolutely the greatest in St. Louis.

Before that came out, someone, George Shultz, said, congratulations, great victory, and he came back and said it's a victory not for Republicans and not for the Republican Party.

I said I had just as much intent for those Republicans who wanted to scuttle around as the Democrats did.

And I said, I repent more.

And I said I also owe a great deal to the people who

stood by us.

I said, for example, Pete Brennan, I was a group of people that stood by us.

I said, thank God for the hard hats of America when the elitists were coming around and walking out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Scali mentioned that he didn't give it to me that well, but... Well, I don't know if that's the way I said it.

Brennan's the guy we need to put him to bed next week.

Hey, Brennan, I want to go over this.

Well, Brennan talked to any last night.

Any last night.

He said he wouldn't put a statement on it.

He talked to Brennan Thorne.

Yeah.

We really did.

That's the best.

Well, they were doing a great, great thing.

and the kind of speeches that I like.

I mean, Kennedy was great because Kennedy had historical significance in the last few years, generations.

And last night was great because it was the thing that American people have been, you know, just praying for for a long time.

So, even if you, you've done a few of that in your lives, or you've struggled, that was superb.

And it was Mrs. Kalani and, uh, Evelyn Grump, who, uh, Grump was the one who was kind of dead against, uh,

Yeah, my age was probably dead.

But they were just mindless, and they said have right to your word, and they agreed with everything in your speech.

And they didn't want to just get their husbands home.

They just wanted their husbands to sit down over there.

That was pretty good.

And they were, they were convicted.

Of course, before that son of a bitch, you had to re-double, back and fold.

Of course, that's, I don't know how to say it.

Of course, I'm a great friend of Tech.

But they didn't want to put that in a piece of honor.

They couldn't put that in a story.

Not in the first eight bars.

They couldn't put that in or anything.

It was a...

They're done.

I want you to be sure to get that across to Skelly and Kline on the first quarter.

Yes, sir.

And we'll get it started.

Do they know that's a poisonous pit out there?

You have to fight it out.

They'll think it's a pit.

Of course it's a poisonous pit.

I mean, even at this time?

That's fine.

You think the war's over?

War's over.

And they are.

Here it is.

Not one, not one of us.

Okay.

Nixon, Colson & Bull on Vietnam settlement and Public relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 24, 1973

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