Nixon, Roth & Wilson on Gridiron Club and Press relations

All right.
All right.
Your son-in-law is my guest at this dinner.
He's a cocks.
Oh, yeah.
He's in the Navy.
He'll give me a runner.
I think so.
He said he'll have tips.
I know.
Take that.
See what they... That stuff you made in the basement last night.
No, it's not ready yet.
Ice tea.
He makes ice tea with pineapple, which George Jones always drinks.
Anything, right?
Ice tea.
Tea, potter ice.
Ice would be fine, yeah.
Ice tea.
With pineapple?
Yeah.
They make it the way they make it.
I'll take some hot tea.
Go ahead.
Mr. President, we appreciate very much your willingness to come in here today.
This way, even though we have four or one of you, you're going to tell us you can't come.
I would understand some way we could appeal to them.
Well, let me tell you this.
What I will do, though, which I think is a few folks know, they're about six of us of this type.
I really feel it.
You know, I ought to do that on the gridiron.
We should always do it, and I think you probably have some priorities, but you've got the White House Correspondents, you've got the radio television Correspondents, so we have the White House Photographers, who I almost consider to be a lower form of life, but they are important.
And then, of course, you have the women's business, and they're important, even though they're in the gridiron now.
So I'm going to do two of them this year, you know, and I'm going to do the White House Correspondents, for example, and probably the radio one when it works out.
But I definitely will do the gridiron next year and try to work again.
In other words, you can do the gridiron two years at least.
You've got to work with the others to do a couple of them.
Two years in a row?
74 and 75?
Thank you.
That's the trouble with Trump.
Well, everybody's going to be there.
I'm sure you've got to get a bill back from Europe.
He'll be signing the thing tomorrow.
Yes, he will be there.
And I'm happy, of course.
I guess everybody else that you want, he's going to be there.
It's a little hard to get a bill back.
I didn't think we were going to make it until we got the P.O.W.
thing worked out at 1130.
Have you got it really worked out?
Well, it better be.
Yeah, they have the names.
I think once they get the names, and they said that within 24, we think within 48 hours after we get the names, they start going back.
So they should be coming in Sunday.
I mean, they should be coming to Clark.
Mr. President, let me put a little something in perspective.
You already indicated that you have a pretty clear perspective.
Some of us are talking on the way over here.
We don't think anybody has really ever contributed more to the dinners themselves than you have.
On two outstanding occasions, which you remember very well, and on many others, the first one being the checkers.
Yeah, they brought the dog down.
Yeah, the first one being the checkers.
I'm not sure that sure this will work, but...
I know that what your guests like, you know, when the president is delighted to come in and give a toast and all that things in the last, but so late, but you hear it so often.
I mean, I'll say that in the White House for a response, and I'll go to the radio if they work their day out.
I don't know about their day, if you're having a little problem with that.
You have to rule, because if they run in conflict with the state, they've got to do it.
But it's often occurred to me that
Well, you wouldn't want to do the duet thing, you can't help it, but the idea of trying to create some kind of a number.
You may remember Dick Eisenhower's first year, remember?
When he did what maturity do, do you remember?
They worked out Milton.
Eisenhower stood up there at the restaurant, and Milton got up and did something.
I don't know what it was called.
And he worked it out.
It didn't come off awfully well, but it was good.
Let me say, I have an idea in the back of my mind.
It might work out better during the course of the dinner.
See my point?
Or maybe in the end.
There's no problem with that.
What I'm thinking of, for example, is the grove things.
Were you there to hear that old Bill Thompson is now dead and I get to prove Sean K. Thompson's memory?
No.
You heard of that one?
That's supposed to be one of them.
Friday night.
Yes.
And it was very well done.
Mr. President, looking back on some of those records, in our later years, we probably had a distinguished line.
Oh, yes.
Say, if we invited him to stay, would that in any way embarrass or paralyze you?
No.
No, no, no, no, not at all.
I think that would be great.
I mean, they'd love it.
Would they understand?
It depends on which one.
Well, of course, it would be great if you could have the...
I was thinking, we're at the time, but you can't...
Like next year, I would say next year, if you had us head of state, that would have given added the deals for future.
I think it'd be great.
Well, the reason I say we have to plan, we have to invite you six months in advance.
What we could do, we could work with you in terms of the state schedule, and I could have a follow-up.
You know, I could do the, you know, the route, you know, the things.
You take, for example, a life, like tomorrow, uh,
Well, now, this is my error here.
She's a real man.
No, you've got some that he, for example, would love it.
He would love it.
He would be great.
And also, he might perform.
That's right.
We'll work with you on that.
Now, the possibility of heat is good, too, because we have a meeting with heat every year.
It's now almost annual, and usually in December, January, if we could move it to, say, 1st of March.
From what you're saying, Mr. President, I'm going to be president next year.
If you're otherwise unemployed, please be my general chairman.
Now, this year, you could have a, you could have, if you just put it together, I might be able to arrange it.
Just think what a good effort to make with Maxine Cheshire and Frank Snyder.
I hope you got the, you got the, you got the knocker work.
I mean that.
What I mean is I've never talked to her, and therefore I don't relate to who she is.
I know all the others who don't have her, and the rest they can't.
but I don't, she's been around, but she never, she'd never come up into the day.
Well, no, she does.
No.
You don't have any ideas about how you might contribute to this particular performance?
To come?
No, I can't change that.
No, I can't change that.
You mean to offer you something?
What do you mean?
Or give it to the vice president.
We're having some questions.
external forces here.
We've battled the wind a little ways.
I think most of us feel we've battled as far as we should.
We're trying to...
The wind?
Yes.
We're trying to create... We're trying to maintain the traditional... That's what we're trying to do at the second.
We think at the moment, at the second, that it's a primary event.
The actual arcade... Well, sure, relax.
We have a problem.
I forgot his name.
He's from down here in Virginia, a sergeant, Colonel Belay.
And we were waiting on the State Department.
They were waiting for this release, and they said Mannhart was going to be on the list.
I'm afraid they're getting too close.
They may have to take Doug Ramsey, who was held at a big con.
He's out of the country.
But these, they're going to have to come.
We're only going to have three.
We're only going to have three.
I have a big fan of McCain's.
I mean, of these people, well, they're going to have a lot of their own.
Everybody remembers Debbie.
Everybody's heard of her recently.
I talked to the Apple last night.
He's still hoping.
He's on this new list.
Well, isn't he there six years?
Six years ago.
Six years ago.
Right?
Well, the Apple busts a little bit, too.
I hope we'll get him to the amount.
I mean, it's true.
It gets very funny when you don't pay for it.
I didn't know somebody.
She was the wife of one of the enlisted men on the ship that was in Saratoga.
Remember, we were there.
She was wearing a bracelet.
She said, do you know where this man is coming from?
It was Jack McCain.
I said, well, I know who he is.
She didn't know who he was.
He was wearing a bracelet.
I said, he's the son of the admiral.
I said, well, I'm sure he's alive.
I said,
I have not exploited.
I remember one of the biggest fans was one of the little guys stood up, you know, and he was talking about the fine Lewis Lewis.
Nobody ever heard of him since.
And the crowd hit the way it came apart.
Of course, that shows what kind of membership you are.
And what kind of guests they have.
All your publishers and the rest of it.
That's what it is.
I don't remember the name.
I'll never forget the answer.
You know, I would suggest that if you want to think of that other thing, and Ron, you check quietly with Henry to see whether or not you want to think of it.
If we can get heat
He can do a single life, they say.
He's terrific.
He's a classical author.
We wanted to speak
I don't know what he can do.
He can speak as a third party, a third voice.
And if you're going to get him to speak, that would be better.
He'd rather do that.
But he has a surprising good voice.
And if he didn't get him, I'd say, I'm going to praise him.
That would be too late.
His visit will occur this year.
The date is not yet set, but it won't be next year.
Join live.
See me.
What about this?
What does he call it?
Does he get the stand or does he get a seat this year?
Well, I don't know.
We're getting some attention from the skits.
We're getting some attention.
Oh, God, yeah.
We've got the... Well, let's see.
He's got the...
He's got the pseudonymis fracture.
He's got to get your complexion.
Well, we appreciate it very much.
We will pursue this idea.
Yes, we'll do that.
The idea is that if you can't get heat, you know, there are a number of... You take it all the way up, like the shot of Iran.
He's got a lot of glass...
Oh, they're going to give him a picture, too.
Get out of here.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
I'm supposed to make up a speech.
Have you read this speech yet?
No, sir.
I hope you're all in good voice.
Well, we've been spraying our throats three nights a week.
Thank you.
Sure.
Well, one of these guys is basically a decent man.
And it's nice of them to come in and try to get some sex.
And that's a good idea.
We'll get eaten.
Then I won't have to do so much.
Also, if we have a foreign visitor, they won't be quite as removed.
Don't you think so?
I'm trying to be.
Uh, let's see.
How many of your names are in the book?
Well, I don't know.
How many did she get?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I think I would throw in my coals, how much I can.
People, you know, you'll have some of the officers around, some of these guys, like Dick Wilson, who, you know, should be a sponsor.
They don't.
Wilson's a classy guy.
He's a great gentleman.
And he knows they've made a mistake.
And also because he feels they've gone too far on the issue.
Wilson is a good man.
And Jerry Charles is a good man.
Jerry is more than rare.
He's practically a...
I'll call him what he is.
Is he?
I'm not sure.
I'm sorry.
Steele's, Steele's a good man.
It's all wrong.
Well, wrong, basically.
But he's not a vicious man.
No, he's not.
There's a difference.
I don't know.
I'm a liberal.
It's just a question.
I'm looking for it, of course.
Yeah.
But we'll have to consider which one of those gridirons I do the right way.
I'd rather do, frankly, I don't have to do it, but we'll basically do it next year.
But it's just as well we didn't do it this year.
No question about it.
As people understand, it's never been mentioned.
My brother's never mentioned it.
I've never mentioned it.
Wilson's never mentioned it.
None of it.
But they all know, and they all agree.
Well, never.
If you're not going through the government.
One conversation amongst us was about the government coming to the inauguration.
There's more conversation about that.
Thank you.

Nixon, Roth & Wilson on Gridiron Club and Press relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 1, 1973

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