Nixon, Bush & Cole on 1974 midterm elections and Republican National Committee

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It's looking great.

All right, cool.

Now let's see here.

You're the chairman, right?

Yes, sir.

If you're ready, Mr. President.

Well, then, let me say...

Yeah, sure, sure.

I guess I should just be the governor.

Well, I think you should be in the church.

I think Cole should bring it.

That's what I was getting at.

You got a wide angle lens.

You get it?

Yeah, that's true.

You get it, right?

You get everything.

It's just what you want.

It's not much stuff.

It's full of things.

It's a wide angle lens.

Det er inga farger i stedet.

Det går aldrig.

I don't know where it is.

You have an actual banner right back there.

Yes, sir.

Give me a few questions.

Well, Mr. President, we got together.

Before I want to show you my birth, I have a very good friend in New York.

He finally came up for the man who had the longest hair.

You said that man had an extra talent.

You have an extra talent?

Yeah.

Let me fix it on you.

Thank you.

Okay, fire away.

We had a chance to get together with the government every time.

We had a pretty good chat around about two hours.

Two basic concerns that the governors had were, first of all, the 1974 elections.

More governors and more Republican and congressional candidates.

I think that's good.

Yes.

And the other thing, first, is the subject of intergovernmental relations.

Right.

They've got some thoughts on that, too, which I don't think you should hear.

But I guess, Governor Holton, you want to kick it off and get into the 1974 election, and before that, George Bush is still with us.

We have talked several times about it, and I will tell you all that being in touch at this table, we can help you...

We would like very much to do it.

We think that we not only want to help the governors, we've got 34 or 36 coming up in the next couple of years.

But we think we can help get the majority of the public and the majority in the Congress and the Senate.

If we can get some way into the selection process.

I have talked about that stuff.

Yes, we had talked to George and several of us about how the field staff, the first suggestion was representing the Republican Governors Association with a field staff to go into the states, use the resources of people like Charlie Porter and those all over the country where desirable candidates are.

And then, consistent with what John Harlan said to me,

when he came down a couple of months ago about your desire to consolidate these various committees.

My suggestion, and I'll discuss with many of these daughters, was that we give the field people actively engaged in looking for candidates for all sorts of things.

In other words, you don't have to have to be in any kind of governors, or candidates for governor, or candidates for congress.

But they can be looking for all, and they can use governors, former Republican governors, other resources, people who know where the candidates are.

And I think, Mr. President, we can use you very effectively.

We should, I think.

But I think it's necessary that we strengthen the party, the two-party system, which means strengthening the first Republican party and the other party.

And you can say, here's an example of what can be done.

We can lose New Jersey this year, for example.

Because Bill may not run.

We should give him a call.

As president, if I might interrupt, sir, I'm Alan White.

I haven't had a chance to build a president, but we had a good meeting with Kay Hill here, and just in this room, I think Lenny Gunn,

Well, I think he's got that worked out.

I think now that he is, we'll have a chance to visit on it, but I have to canvass with him, and he's now gone on a two-week vacation, but he told me that he thought he would, and I think we're on top of that, but I couldn't agree more with the governor.

We can't afford to lose it, but...

He shifted his thinking and he now told me that I'm almost all but certain he's concerned about a primary thing, but we can fit it on that later.

Our priority up here at the committee is this, and other races, do you think, and...

We have a couple of things about the staff.

First, with regard to George's position.

We have a different situation now than we had previously.

First, he was a full-time chairman.

Second, he is a full-time politician, too.

And we have moved the political activities, basically, not putting it really out of the White House, but we moved George in.

So George is here, he attends all cabinet meetings, he attends...

It's generally, it's generally, they have been generally committed to spite the government, and all the rest, for the purpose of preserving incumbents, and temporarily forgetting new people.

And that's one of the things we all understand.

And there are incumbents, even though it's in the other place now.

That's a trade-off, a trade-off, a trade-off.

Now, the other thing is that we, what's going to happen here now, which Major George is discussing with me, but I am actually, let's keep, if you would, there's some sensitivities involved, but I say not even, it's really not going to happen.

Rob, you're leading the Senate campaign, and you're working, obviously.

Son of a, I spoke to Nelson, Father Nelson,

It looks like that he thought Brock was too conservative.

Brock is either conservative or I don't know what he is, but I think the main thing is Brock wants to win.

Rob is a guy who's trying to go out there and try to appeal to and get vigorous, electable guys to run all over the country.

Do you agree?

Yes, sir.

He does.

I mean, he's strong for liberals.

He knows that Massachusetts is a better place to live.

And in Alabama, he's a rather conservative, frankly.

He has voices for either end and people.

He's an enthusiast.

That's what he does.

Now, in the House...

There's a need there for a student body to help with, but I have to say that Bud Brown has already been appointed candidate to the election, and I think that Bud Brown will eventually have the job.

Now, Brown is another vigorous, non-ideological, strong fellow, some of you know him much.

His father is almost totally ideological.

And he had this in the same position many years ago in the Congress of the Republican Party.

But it's basically slightly from a ideological standpoint, slightly to the far-right's response.

He's rigid, but he is more pragmatic.

And from my thoughts, I haven't talked to him since this discussion.

What I think is important is that we don't have a lot of overbackers.

In New York, one of the reasons they do very well, at first they've got great party regulators, despite their conservative split, Rockefeller, nobody runs for anything in New York unless Rockefeller approves it.

And he's got some good candidates up there, you know, for the House, and he can get away with it.

But he runs it with an eye.

California, regular, on the other hand,

and approach it differently, but if that had a success, that the governors, the governor in California is very far away from the senators and congressmen.

There's a very good relationship in the government, but it's very close to each of your states.

What I hope is that the governors, the Republican governors, will be very close to their congressmen and senators, if the congressmen and senators will allow them.

And if you could, then you can get into the selection process, because a governor can exert much more power and influence on the kingmakers of a congressional district than can a senator or a congressman.

The only one that can exert more power, perhaps, when you've got the presidency, is this office.

But you see, if I get into the business, like if I ever got into the business of trying to pick a candidate, if you are a prosecutor, you know, it's a wall.

And in California, it might be too old.

Reagan needs some money to pick candidates.

You see?

We've got to talk quite candidly about it.

So what I want, what I would hope, and what I would hope that you would do, me and the church, is to set up a procedure in which

It doesn't set up competing empires, but where everybody's got a job, and we all work together to do it, and then you'll get all the cooperation you can get from here, and I'll cooperate the way I can, because I didn't have to be a candidate, I'm not a candidate, you see, I've got problems, and I respect them.

And I didn't do it very subtly, I didn't do it very subtly either, trying to get across to all other provincial candidates, just to see if somebody had something to comment on, I totally didn't.

Foolish story, to the effect that I have already heard.

I said, well, now my advice to all potential candidates for the president, if you want to be a president nominated, don't try to be until after the 74 elections, between now and 74.

Do exactly what I did, for example, before 66, work as hard as you can for the election of the candidates for the House and the Senate of the government.

And that's what all the others are cursing, et cetera, et cetera.

And don't have a fight for the nomination of 76 until after 74.

All you can always say is, if anybody comes around and says, look, I don't mind that period, don't let them do it.

Understand?

You can have it too soon, the end of the day.

My point is, oh, I don't mean to, you know, more or less something out of the table.

I've got it.

But what I want you to know is that I have to turn him over to George.

He has to run the White House.

and everybody over here who are going to go to politics, John is going to be out there, and we're going to pull in, you know, take folks like Clark and Greg, and John Mitchell and others, they're all going to be available to help out on a voluntary basis, and when it comes to financing, virtually everything, I just, I close my gift, I don't know what it is, it's just,

I think that the major problem we have as heads of defense, as I have shook hands with all of our candidates for the Congress this year, the candidates for the Congress, the major problem we have is, frankly, you can't be wrong.

You just can't run a turkey.

You can't do it anymore.

And when a guy, and we've got to talk candidly about the fact that even our own people are too old.

They've got to get out.

Because that's done now.

When I say too old, you know, some people are over 40, and others are not over 60, or whatever the case might be.

But we have some who probably should run next time.

The thing we're going to do is to decide to not get into the church murky thing.

There was no reason for murky.

It was even in 1970.

We had been around in California in 1970, and the United States after that.

And it was just Dan Woodland that murky ran it.

We all love her, and he knew that.

But we didn't speak up.

The party in California did not speak up.

I hear you think that we need stronger leadership from the governors.

I used to be on the rock floor at times.

And you're going to have to select these candidates, and don't say, well, let's all have a nice little fight in the primary, and we'll support the best man.

Forget it.

Have a fight.

You be sure you're on the side of one guy, and you put those other guys in, and include the other ones, that you don't want to win.

Because I really feel that when you're basically in a minority position in the party, in a primary fight, it's all the space.

Unless, unless you can use whoever's going to be a candidate for president in a way to help you.

So what I would, let's just use him.

Agnes, for example, can be a very potent guy in lots of places.

So you use him.

The point is, he should be used to help, you know, a lot of those candidates.

Rock and roll, same thing.

So on down the line.

That's what I would do.

Thank you very much.

We at the National Committee are going to do just exactly what the President said.

We've met with Governor Hogan, Governor Dunn, and the executive committee of this organization, too.

I would urge, when we do get together, that we keep in mind the President.

My problem is trying to pull them together, not to wipe out their identity, but to get them closer together.

Three, Mr. President, I have great confidence in their executive man, who's housed at the National Committee.

The governor?

Yes, he's a good man, a man that works for them, and we can work closely with him.

And the last thing I want to say is that, in keeping with the President's desire, I'm saying publicly that this National Committee is not going to tilt, it's not going to lean, it's not going to, in any way...

Exactly what he said, lean towards anybody in 76.

And I went up yesterday and had dinner last night with Nelson Rockefeller, who had the feeling that the National Committee staff was stacked again.

And I said, it's important, sir.

It's important.

Yeah, well, we've got to give you names, and if there's some problem, for how fair I'm telling you, the president doesn't want that committee to be this way.

It's not going to be.

We're hiring and firing.

He's giving me total leeway on this.

And if you have some evidence of anybody, and I say the same thing to any of you all, or any of the senators here,

And if you, one way or another, and if there's any tilt, it's going to be unintentional.

And if there's any appointment, and somebody says, you know, this guy's from the north, you're like, I want a Bill Snyder, this means you're selling out to the liberals.

I want a conservative to be a general counsel, maybe, and say, this means you're selling out.

It's not going to be that way in terms of the committee.

I want to have some balance, and it's got to stand for something.

But I just want to say that, sir, that it drives working, and what Preston says, in this White House, we're getting coding,

I just wanted to say this one thing, that is,

I think it would be much better if we made disjointed effort on our part to get it kind of right.

We've always been competitive with senators.

It's bad debate.

We want the next majority to be the Republican majority, and I think it's got to start with the governors.

And the money part of it is just a sense of greed.

Of course, I'm speaking as the governor, which is a state which exceeded by 200% its core fee, or financial assets.

So, I think that's important.

The money part of it is an important element.

We just can't avoid it.

I hope you leave this thing.

I always say, don't overlook those state legislators.

God damn it, we just went through many places where, like Reagan, I mean.

California is a tough state.

That, you think, you think there's a cross, that people stretch each other's backs, so the Senate and House, each other, the legislature of California, you actually know California, or around this gap, it's the Republicans, they're always, you know, paying off the Democrats, and vice versa.

Can I excuse myself?

Yes, sir.

I may have one question.

We talked about the approval of the candidates.

Should we look to you or to the senator on the phone when it comes to someone who's already incumbent that's going to run next time?

No, there are teams out there, Mr. President.

And he's never done anything for you.

He doesn't want to talk about impeachment to us.

He's absolutely appalled.

About what?

About impeachment.

He's that wild, and he considers himself an evangelist now.

And he's got to get a board for it.

But we need some research on him.

We need some people that will follow him.

We got the research.

I'm not sure it's good enough for testing it.

The National Committee has it.

Brock has been most cooperative on a truly non-ideological basis on letting us get these two things much, much closer together.

Again, I can't say the President could work it out so that the identity of these committees would disappear.

I can say, on that side, and I'm not happy, sir, on the House side yet, that we have the research capability.

We've got a great computer.

We're paying a hell of a lot of money for it.

And so anything you need on that, you go get it, sure, because he's just going to come to us and get it.

We're trying to accrue the facility.

It's pretty good.

I never used it.

I didn't realize what they had.

I'm getting some of these times, and you aren't, should I?

And it's a pretty good facility, Mr. President.

But we need to get it out to you.

So anything immediate, opponent research, we're supposed to be able to push a button.

Come down if it doesn't.

Opponent research, we are prepared to do that.

Well, you know, I don't think we can wait two years.

We need to recognize our Senate candidate.

Even a House candidate these days can run for two years.

All right, so let me know any specifics on that one.

Thank you, man.

All right.

Thank you all very much.

I theorize that when we don't have the White House to live, rather than having a national party, we have a confederation of state parties.

And we do have the White House, of course.

This office counts the party.

Nevertheless, it doesn't, in my opinion, diminish the way we talk about the job we need to do at the state level.

But we certainly need, in the case of mechanics here, we do need to have

Access and cooperation is part of the cloud that only you and this office can bring.

It's the kind of thing we need to do.

I'll set up a procedure here.

Like, for example, we don't have the dental history.

We will have, through the budget,

This would be...

Let me say a word about the coal operation.

I know some of you have expressed concern that we have moved that operation from the Vice President's office to the White House.

I'll tell you why.

It's basically just going to cut down one.

when a governor or a mayor, for example, gets a hold, wants something done here, it inevitably ends up in somewhere, it has to end up in the president's office, and that means, and it's usually, it's not before a policy deal, so it's a domestic deal.

And when we, when you have a situation where if you do it, say, you contact the national chairman, you contact him before the vice president, that's responsible in this.

So all that he does is, and all that he can do, because of the limited amount of time, he either gets a hold of the top of the president's office and says, well, we've got to have that airport in St. Louis County, other than this one, or one of his senators does that, so that's one way for me.

The best thing to do is to just, is to mainline it straight in.

Now, I set this thing up now whereby Ken, in his domestic council activities, is responsible for this.

And that means that when you or your representatives call him, whether it's on a matter of an appointment or something,

or whether it's where we have a whole procedure set up through the Office of Management and Budgeting, or whether it's on a matter of domestic, of a problem, it has to be with a budget problem, and the rest of it will be separate.

But if you just go directly, you can be sure that where it doesn't, you get to him, you're getting to him, he's in charge, he sends the paper, and you need to have no concern at all

Teksting av Nicolai Winther

I like to guess anti-war

And then, thirdly, anti-republicans.

The lines are really not tight enough where the old, for the long of it, are completely clear.

I can tell you what other guys with us were, but how the thing you can make a decision with all the input is whether or not this is what I should say or not.

But it seems very strange to me for in our states, and yet in the federal affairs states, and for these states where there are various states

They ran through our process.

I don't believe it.

We're moving now to get those things to run through our clearance procedure.

Where we have got other people that clear for other departments, we are tightening our clearance procedure so that the kinds of things that you're talking about shouldn't happen in the future.

I know some have happened in the past, over the past couple of years they've happened.

We're getting a rain on that, and I've gotten together with our personnel people and made it fairly clear to them that this clearance business is critical.

It's just crazy for you to read these things and not have had a chance to make it.

In some cases, we might have to say, you know, in this particular case, we can't.

But generally speaking, we want your thoughts on this.

As I said, we want them on policy as well.

We're moving on that front end of the problem system.

Where you have specifics, where you've got the president's name, I'd like to know what his name is.

We'll go see what we can do to get him out of this.

I don't think they just, a little bit tighter, four to nine times out there, I don't think they've ever said no to anybody that actually called and said, look, we're talking about putting Jim Hamer in with the president's business council.

What do you say?

I think, great.

Even though he may be a democrat, he's the type of democrat that the president wants on the team.

Actually, we do want you to be very tolerant in that respect.

Oh, we are.

We want to pick up all the, to what extent Democrats are willing to look at that, so we'd like to keep them on our side, Mr. President.

And each of us do that, Mr. President, in our own different way.

That's how you do it.

The problem is that we need a little forewarning, when these things are going to happen, that I haven't had in any particular case that I can think of.

But the communications is all that I think we're talking about there.

A little bit of a problem is very much possible, and I get the same...

...problems with the counties in Tennessee, you know.

I'm not a county chairman at all, but I think it's going to be a great asset to us here, because we do need to have my knowledge wherever we can, in position to touch whatever basically we can touch as long as we're able to.

And I know, too, that it's terribly difficult to do, even if we want to do what is next in our credit, and drive a lot of people.

Mayor, yes.

That's good.

There's no perfect answer to that.

There's not a, no, you're going to pay some people and have to do it.

But World War I is our greatest instrument of being able to handle that.

And if we have one, Mr. President, if we can, we're in a much better position to handle it.

Such as Lynn and I were together with Louis Dunn, and you advised us you had to veto the Appalachian Bill last year, if you recall.

You did give us some time.

We were able to turn that around, but information is really what we need in every one of our respective operations as it relates to the military.

I think if I may just add that that's one of the problems we found other than Mr. President's point, that the foreign programs, one of the things that's caused me more embarrassment than anything is that things happen.

The programs you've got, and the secretaries and what have you, so I'm defenseless because the press hit me, and I've never heard of these kinds of things.

And we've talked about it again, and I don't know if we need to spend a lot of time on it, but it is a very difficult problem for us, and we don't expect every time we see it faded altogether to check, but we know that's impossible.

But if there's something that pertains particularly to our area, we'd like to know just at least an hour ahead of time, if not more, so we can be supportive.

That'll be particularly necessary in this period when we are having an extracurricular activity.

I think we all understand that we're candidates after we have a legal perspective.

I understand why some candidates have to go far.

They've got to be for our age, too.

I see.

I hate you to be informed very often.

Then at least you're not running mute, what you say.

Let the candidate get out there and some of you will...

Most of them, yes, like the REAs, for example, there's a lot of flak on them.

But our people were prepared for it in the REAs.

Their problem, of course, is that they had to read about it in the newspaper.

They had to read the other side of it.

Then we have other problems, like lead funds.

Which, you know, I have a terrible time with, because we were geared up to support the environmental program that was supported by the funds of World America.

And we have a great program going.

It doesn't just affect farmers, it affects all of our citizens.

And our single biggest community problem is erosion of soil, which is not only the earth, but also the chemicals in it.

And we're going to spend millions and millions of dollars later on trying to scoop that out of our streams, when if we could just get the farm to contract with some terrorist thing or some tyrant, then it's just that you're not going to solve it first.

And we really had a movie, and out of that cut, we have just a terrible problem to explain that.

Now most of them, we can really live with them.

And we can defend that all of us and all of our constituents are as displeased as we can be, that some of the aid has been given to stop the spending.

And I think that works very well.

But we've got a program like REAP and the environment that's doing a good job.

And we don't know how to defend against it if we have to go with that stimulus.

Or if we just felt that we had some input, I think we can, by and large, we're going to get that chance.

If you would know what our thinking is, at least we'd feel good that that was considered too.

We get a feeling sometimes when we sit out there and think about the possible way that no one really knows what the problem is.

Mr. President, I explained to the Governor when we got together a couple of weeks ago that my role here, at least as I view it, and I think as you view it, is not to be deciding one way or the other, but to make sure that when you make the decisions, you've got all the input that you need to make, and that includes input from Governors on things that affect them, and from Mayors on things that affect them, so that when you're confronted with a decision,

You know the impact on the governors, and they've had a chance to get their input.

I also explained that you won't be able to go with them every time, and I think they understand that.

Let me say that I think the input thing is very important.

Perhaps almost even more important is the output, is to be sure that your office informs these folks whenever it's a matter that might affect their constituencies, because then they know you're not going to go with them.

And so that's your, can you staff that for me for now?

Yes, sir, I am.

I have Jim Falk, who is out now on the part of time, and he's kind of in charge of the day-to-day operations, and Marge Thompson, who is on the vice president's staff now, has been helping us, and we have a fellow identified that will be on board the first part of next week.

So between that and the other four or five fellows that we have who are working strictly on a policy basis, I believe that... You've also got it, I would suggest you've also got the way in,

who's very knowledgeable politically.

I mean, he's not a politician, but he knows he can do whatever he wants here.

And you could use that office, you know, so that most of this could go to the Bureau of the Budget.

We were talking about that office today, sir.

Oh, sorry.

The Bureau of the Budget.

Nash should play the game.

And you're responsible.

I mean, if you need one person who's responsible, he can remove you.

And you don't need to talk to, you don't need to talk to her other than, you don't need to talk to Captain Grace for our policy, or he's reporting on our policy when I've been there.

Just very good like that.

I think that's what it is.

It doesn't mean we can't talk to the others.

Certainly we can.

But they will, we're just centralizing all in one place, and he's on full time.

And it's very close, it's right upstairs here.

Mr. President, I am personally tremendously pleased that you set up this arrangement.

I think you make a tremendous difference to all of us to know that Ken Grohl is close to you, that this is his specific assignment, because no matter who the Vice President is,

It's just a little mess when you're overrun.

And also, it puts the vice president in a rather awkward position, where he has to talk to a staff member to see about the problem.

In other words, many times you've also hit the vice president when he's out making speeches and says, what the hell's the matter with these people, and so on.

He has to come back.

Obviously he can't come in and see me about why we didn't do something for the Indians in Arizona.

So maybe we have seen.

So then the vice president either tells his staff, which is the usual way.

So that's one, two, three, four.

Here, it's just sarcastic.

It doesn't mean you can't talk about it.

If it's general policy or something like that, you should talk to the vice president, to a senator.

I think really governors understand your problems far better than anybody in the Congress.

We have to occasionally point Democrats.

We have to cut back on funds that people want.

All that we really need

is to know, if we just know, for instance, I expect I'll be wanting a gas.

So, is that a war?

We haven't decided that yet.

And lots of times, even though I've talked before, I can't agree with you on certain things.

But if I know beforehand what you're going to do,

A lot of times I can.

I just think it's going to be so much better.

The Franklin governor said to me, House Rosen, about this too.

The information that's given to us, which is sort of a preemptive action, is why it is due six.

Right.

And just having it is a tremendous value to us.

You're going to turn them off, the first guy that pre-ends, and all of our people... Who knows that better than the governor?

You'd better do it at this point.

I'm so scared.

Governor Williams?

We may discuss one other matter, and I think with a new cap, this might be very helpful.

It hasn't happened to me, but it could.

And that is, we call, and this will prevent us from taking so much of Ken's time,

We call a cabinet member, secretary, and we can't get an answer back.

Can't even get an answer to the telephone.

No.

And it's embarrassing when somebody puts the pressure on you to get an answer back, and so I think it's interesting when it forms that where our priority is as governors.

In other words, if a governor calls, if a governor calls, you can get a cabinet officer, and...

And two of you, you know, you had a problem on it, like it was just terrible cold, and the cabin officer called me back, and I worried about that.

Some of the time, of course, as you know, there's some of the MRs and others, and likewise, there's a lot of money.

He, by the way, is very good at that.

But he'll fall back at the Biden-Seder problem.

But that can be, you should understand, that error I can do just to raise hell about it.

There's sort of the last step to it, and that is to press.

Because governors are so inaccessible, they think that every time we have a problem with the national government, they're going to call me and just pick up the phone and call the president.

Yeah, they don't understand how it works.

They don't understand that if we called you, you wouldn't know the problem, but you'd have to find someone else to do it.

We don't like to bother the White House, and they're like, you bother Ken, and I'm going to avoid it.

But if I had a Ken here, and if the cabinet members know that they are at least to call us back, then we have a way to explain it.

This is important, and I believe it, of course.

Let me suggest this to your colleagues.

He said, this is the procedure we've now set up with Ken in the White House.

I would say, I know that I have to broker things.

And what you should say is, I called the Vice President, and the Office of Governmental Relations on this matter.

What you can now say is, I called the White House.

I called the White House, and the White House is very interested in this subject.

And by calling Ken, in other words, from now on, you can all use that.

And broker it for sure is helpful.

And you can broker it for all you want.

You can say, I'll call the White House.

And that's the way it'll be.

You can hold that White House operator.

So if the White House can't call, or whatever, you know, you'll have to obviously get along yourself.

Anytime you get anybody here, it is the White House.

And basically, in the public mind, that's the president.

And in a sense, it really is like, many people might say that I've got all the way out there.

Right?

Not in any of your states.

I think we've all had the experience where we've written letters to the press, knowing that you're not going to get it.

The press sends you the letter, and then they have to take a decision.

That's one thing that's very important for us.

What was it, six weeks, two months ago, they noticed, came out, they made spot checks of ineligibles on the public assistance rolls, and that they were going to withhold money that corresponded to the ratio of the number of ineligibles they followed on their rolls.

The truth of the matter was that prior to that time, six months or a year prior to that time, HEW had corrected the states.

Not to fully check the system afterwards, but to do simply a spot check.

So on one side, say, you can't check them, and I'll take money away from you because you didn't check them.

You've got to direct that money.

The point I'm making is, in that kind of thing, are you going to be able to be in close touch with Cap and the others that we will at least have the opportunity to consult?

Cap and I have talked about this, and we recognize that the problem is that that's something that never should have happened.

Cap and I have gone through it.

I believe it's being straightened out.

It's not something that's going to happen again.

Captain, I have a unique feature, and that is that we have what is known as a PL.

He's got a button on his phone.

He pushes it, and it rings in my office, and I did the same thing.

Same kind of setup with the other counselors who will be here in the White House.

It's no problem for me to talk to a cabinet officer at all.

So when you see that kind of problem shaping up, if we haven't identified it, we'll let you know.

And we'll get a thing for this.

All right.

He's going to have a tough job that you're not going to have in many areas of the funds that you would like.

But he's politically very, very aware.

He's reasonable in terms of conversation.

I think also that he's a very smooth operator.

He's easy to talk to.

So you've got two men there.

I think butts will arrive.

Or, you know, of course, it's got to live a sense.

You've got the thoughts on agriculture is certainly a lot of political antenna.

It's not a lot of work, but if you run down a list there, you have people who generally are, who are all quite aware and have been told that on the new secretary of labor, you won't have too much to do with them.

But Brennan, who is a Democrat, is just as tough as he can be when it comes to him.

I don't believe that, sir.

I don't believe in this, because I think all of us recognize that we're moving into the decision-making process here, where we can at least get some things down.

But we're very strong in our support for you.

All of us admired you tremendously, particularly when the NOAA tried to trap you into that thing just before the election.

The way you handled that was magnificent.

But we also are in the best position of anybody we think to help you carry out this restoration of the balance that our federal republic requires.

That's why we feel like we're really making moves.

If we move here, we'd like to strengthen your hand as much as we can.

Well, we are glad to have you here.

Don't worry, buddy.

Be careful, buddy.

That's one of them.

Nixon, Bush & Cole on 1974 midterm elections and Republican National Committee

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on February 1, 1973

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