Nixon, Bull & Bush on Republican Party and 1974 election

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) ·JSON data · Click a timestamp to play from that point.

Thank you.

We're going to obtain some close-up key scenes.

There's one second.

The setback was a special setback in San Diego.

I'd like to see one of them.

They have two other girls.

But how do you do that to the guy next to you?

I know that he's giving me another man.

You give a son away, and I'll run him back into the third floor.

They'll also find on the third floor, they'll find that there's a bunch of, I think there's some that are not even in a bag.

Not non-match ones, but there's some miscellaneous gloves.

Miscellaneous, doesn't mean anything.

I mean, a full set of gloves and boxes.

There's one of those, I think.

You've got to send one set to be the same.

But I know there's another set in Vernon Creek.

I remember playing with them the last time.

There are two sets out there.

There's an old set with old graders.

And then there's a set of new ones that pass off.

And then see if the old set's still out there.

Or it's gone.

Or you've got to send another set.

And when that gets well done, you send it to the White House.

You can send it to Arnold Palmer.

Send him another set.

Mr. Statham is our owner.

We'll be able to two hours in there about 10 to 12.

I don't really have to show you a little bit, but so you don't have to say it.

You can suggest it.

We ought to drop it down here in the section that's saying it's trying to get it down.

We don't have any taxpayer groups.

We've got a lot of groups.

We've got Bruce Harlow's area, John Burns, Alan Wallace, and others.

We'll be there for two hours.

We're sitting there.

We're going to do a match.

I don't want anything to announce on this but

this meeting of the department of agriculture leadership i wanted to check the scrutiny to see about that american foreign service wives see if they can all be there by three o'clock don't ask us if they are i will drop by there any other meeting will have to be pushed back 15 minutes and uh and uh push it back with claudia

Well, I'm sorry, Charlie.

Can I research a couple of things?

Sure, sure.

John Anderson, a leader.

He said, what's the commitment at the White House on Rumsfeld?

I said, I want to keep it out of it, but I think that would be getting out of it if you... Well, frankly, Rumsfeld has got to have his mind.

Either he or Anderson or Rumsfeld.

He started it that time.

And that other fellow, Crane, probably was thinking about it, but Crane can't win.

He's too conservative, you know.

And I was able to call under him.

Now, I quote Rumsfeld when he said he'd like to run.

He said, fine.

He said, do you want to get off?

I said, well, no, he's just gone.

He's been abroad for a while.

I said, well, no.

He said, I don't advise him.

It's a bad idea.

But he insisted.

So I said, OK, let's get into NATO.

He said, Nick, so I said, well, when are you going to decide whether you're going to run it or not?

He said, well, I said, well, I can only tell you that you'd better damn well decide what you're going to do soon enough so that somebody else doesn't come in and bring it to the field or show that you don't have a primary.

He said he wouldn't know.

I followed him.

I saw him and he was stagnant and he walked out and says, who's going to be able to sign?

I actually didn't tell him.

I said, why not?

I said, we're all fine.

But I said, you call us and we're going to decide.

Now, it's worth it.

It's not a long charge.

It says that tonight we're staying at the MPB.

I think either man could beat him.

I would lean to Rumsfeld.

I think Rumsfeld would be a better senator for us than Anderson, but that is not important because the main thing is that anybody's better than Severson.

Anderson's a very capable fall.

Rummy's a very capable fall.

Rumsfeld could then be counted and sit over there in Durham until November and not decide.

So I'll leave it to you.

He's going to do it.

Bob Young, I think, could be a key to this.

because he's a hell of a money raiser, and he represents that thing, and maybe you can talk to him, but what you tell Anderson is say, well, the president has no commitment.

He said, rest, though, before he left, and he said he'd like to run.

The president says, well, if you're going to run, you better decide soon, and if you do, naturally, I will support you, but the president speaks things very highly of Anderson.

I said, frankly, I'm an eager man, but I don't want to get in the primer.

That's what I put.

That's all we need to tell him.

He was saying, look, if there's a commitment of the president, I'd understand.

You know, John's a decent fellow.

I don't care about him.

He's a very capable man.

He's a decent man.

The president had a commitment to her just whispered to me, and I'll say it out of the way.

No, there's no commitment.

I said, look, I said, Bob, Bob, I said, Don, you're going to go.

I said, you've got to decide early, because somebody else is going to go.

And I said, I can't get anybody.

Somebody else goes.

I said, I had fun that you could say it.

I could be enthusiastic about either one of the seven.

I think the main thing is, if Romney ought to decide, is he going to go?

And I told him, he ought to go.

I don't think he can wait that long.

And I think that he, Anderson, knew that he ought to stand up, push him, and make him decide.

I'm not sure, given this, that Anderson, I'll say to Anderson, Mike said on that, well, look, that's all I want to know, and I'll take him on.

No problem.

If he goes, I'll tell you what, this way, I think you've got to tell Anderson, if he goes, I'm not going to stand up to anyone.

I will not ever be around him.

So if I tell him that that's all he really wants to know, then I will also tell him no.

And I agree that it's a shame that the two got together, and we should probably hope they work together.

Yeah, they work together.

All right.

The manager, you see, has got a good position in the house.

He may not be able to go to the top because he's maybe too low for some of the guys.

Isn't that right?

Yeah.

Yeah, he's got the brains to do the job.

And he's a hell of a candidate to be so damn articulate.

I'll agree with being articulate.

I mean it.

The wrong way to articulate.

The second point is an occasional thing.

I don't want to seem to be the guy dragging my feet, but I talked to Mitchell as he talked.

Mitchell said, look, I asked him about this IRS matter.

Earlier we got into it and checked it with the IRS arm's length, not saying why.

Without boring you with the details of it, there's a fellow named McCrane who is the state treasurer.

His son-in-law got involved in a

in the racetrack business, and they cashed at the racetrack certain contributions.

They laundered them through the racetrack window, and these campaign contributions ended up in Cahill's campaign.

I think this is the stuff that Charlie Sandman was referring to.

State treasurer's son-in-law or whatever has not yet been referred to the Justice Department, but two compadres have for prosecution.

This will get out all over the paper.

It could go the other way.

But here's what Mitchell and I think might be all right, inasmuch as Holton pushes it damn hard.

But what Holton wants you to do is to say, I've got to get our top incumbent governor on board.

What I think we should do is try to say, now, look, same man in it.

He supported the president.

The president said he can't get involved in primaries.

Come down there.

Talk about something.

New Jersey matter, spending matter, tax matter, government matter, find coal to give him something, and then get some kind of an understanding out of them that that's how they lead.

And I'm not sure we could do it because Holton's so headstrong.

He's pushing, and he did a nice job for you up on the Hill.

But I'm just worried that this thing, that we get too close, for your sake, to this kind of racetrack thing.

Well, why come to the President to endorse him or do something like this, you know,

So I say see him, but don't endorse him.

I say see him, but don't endorse him.

Holden says see him, but God damn it, we want to have him endorsed.

I can't endorse a man when I'm responsible.

If bench goes to the Senate, I would have to be, I would be for benching as to anything that goes to the governor.

It's going to be tough.

It's going to be tough to follow.

But I mean, we would make the right choices.

I would promise, though, I would frankly think that the two would be slightly different.

But I'm not going to be a bench.

A bench, I'm sure, in the primary, I'm not going to be a bench.

I cannot endorse anybody in the primary where they're too responsible.

Fair enough.

All right, I'll clear it with two people.

No, and I'm so delighted to be thinking about it.

I think he's a hell of a guy in the house.

John Schmitz called out, wants to rejoin the Republican Party, and I think the

I don't want to involve you, but I think I ought to talk to the Congressman from Whittier, but I just thought you might be curious, because he was mean as hell about you in that campaign, and we don't need the image of that.

I mean, I like the switch of government, Connolly, and this movement.

I think we should miss by rejoining the Republican Party.

How does he rejoin?

What I'm afraid he wants to do is rejoin and take on the guy who's got his district.

I don't know.

That's the thing that's different.

I support him.

He's my congressman.

Well, I don't know if that's right, but I'd like to know.

Yeah, absolutely.

And he was a virgin, too, though.

Yes, sir.

He was a virgin.

The virgins are no goddamn good.

They are bastards.

Right.

That's exactly right.

They're true.

They're not.

Okay.

Yeah.

We need to get a policy on the CRP funds and stuff, and data.

And Halderman said, look, you look at it.

Find out what the data is, whether it's worth it.

There's a lot of this demographic stuff.

And make a recommendation.

I haven't done that.

There are some funds that the National Committee gave the CRP, which could come back.

The CRP?

The Committee for the Relation to Pricing.

And so I'm talking to Maury, but what I think I better do on that is just make an overall recommendation to you, if that would be agreeable.

And everybody wants it.

I mean, the point is,

They're going to get some because they're really the main thing.

They're just trying to remember that I'm not the scapegoat.

They're just thinking they're going to be in the pitfalls of the campaign, but not their companies.

That's it.

And companies have got to raise their own money.

Not these assholes who got to get out and raise their own money.

You didn't know that.

I did talk to Fred Brown.

That didn't change your mind.

I said, my buds, I said, I just wanted to, and I also, and I told him, frankly, I said that you fellas want to work out the situation.

Can they recruit for me?

I might come to the dinner.

No, I'm sure you know him.

I think I worked with him.

But he said to him, I said, look, you have to go in on those 10 days.

I can't ask hard.

But it is for your benefit.

I mean, that is not George.

I mean, with him, he has his time working on it.

I said, don't worry about Michael.

We're working on it so far.

And I know that he worked, and we're working it out.

Every time George White has a chance, I kick Brown's ass, and I kick Brown's ass, because they are likely to sit back and work too much on the comments.

We've got three instead of now.

The thing I've got to get, well, we had a good meeting yesterday.

We're moving in on it.

We're focusing on it.

There's a meeting tomorrow where Bob Wilson conceivably will announce.

And I just talked to Ford about it earlier.

And Michael's got the votes.

Michael's going to win 100 minutes.

And he has talked to Brown.

He's asked him to stay.

But he said he's hell no, I'm not going to be in it.

The main thing is once we get it structurally changed.

We need Brown.

He's good.

He's able.

But we can get someone out and meet him.

But Brown's got a chance to set up, too.

He can't take all of that.

But Will should set up.

Well, he'll change it for him.

I'm afraid Michael might not.

But what I'd like to do is if Michael gets it, to have a little session

Um, just Brock and Michael and me with you.

Right.

Uh, and if Bud stays on as campaign guy, fine.

Just do it for 15 minutes and say, now look.

Well, I'll tell Michael, basically I can tell him what's up.

Uh, you, your job over here, you get your colleagues, your council members, you get Brock the job, get new candidates.

Yeah.

And work closely with Bush, and that's how you get out of this election.

Which I said you can't do.

I think I'm incorrect.

Oh, he's doing it.

Michael's been basically lazy on this stuff.

But he's in a way to be better with Michael.

Because then he has told me, I'll work fully with you.

See, they don't want us to obliterate the identity of the House committee.

And yet he wants somebody to do the work.

And we're staffed up to do the work for him.

But he just needs that part.

I don't have the credit.

I don't have the identity.

I'm glad that Brown is making an analysis of the age factor.

And then of course getting the people in.

And as I told you, George, take a good look at some of the women around here.

Be sure you use men, people like that.

One of the worst things that I've found

our field the reason being is that they go in there's a lot of things i'm familiar with the local districts there you know they're not my shop if you've got to follow like a dam if he lives in an area that's moving around he's likely to be able to get his gear closer to the ground than somebody else another thing that i strongly urge if you could also george keep them close by for the best of the sleep time for the best of the financial benefits many times

Well, why not think that'll work out, and I'll... Well, on the money thing, that money, it sits there.

Everybody, every state chairman, every national committee, committee really has all that money.

We need this, we need that.

And I think we need a plan.

We need something that if you are...

Can I say that?

Sure.

OK. That's it.

It's already been.

It is designated for candidates for the House, or new candidates for the House.

That's what we, that's what I'm saying.

Absolutely.

We decided that that's what we'd go for, to elect, to elect the Republicans of the House of Senate in the year 1934.

That was not a whole lot that quick.

You know, for me, $19,000 is nothing.

and start spreading it around.

Make them accomplish what you're gonna do.

Send it to a sensei.

I think if we can get the word to Maury or somebody, Duke, I can't do it.

Because he's got all these schemes about a trust fund and we're giving it some back to the party.

They're not schemes.

I mean, he's just thinking.

The whole alternative back to the party.

That won't do you no good.

Duke, that would just mean that money they wouldn't rent.

That's right.

They get the money.

We don't want to.

I think it should be candidates.

That's my view.

And that's what it is.

It's a candidate trust fund.

The idea of giving money back to this state or that state or the other.

Oh sure, make sure we don't need it.

Somebody else will say they have a benefit.

Somebody else will say they signed that form.

Don't go and say, we're going to do it in Canada.

It's all the same.

This one is going to need a word from you because it's separate from just to bow home or something.

Look, I'll go over there just for a moment.

It's not fun.

I'm kind of glad.

Why?

Look, you've got a much better job.

Why?

Stop there.

Look.

Action.

Well, there you go.

You'll get some more for it.

You know, you know this is the thing that kills me about this.

Pam Johnson is all the change at the end of the day.

She doesn't like her.

How many people point at him?

He's so this.

I fire two or three of them.

I put their name down.

But this is the real thing.

I can't do that.

I don't even want to tell them about it.

They get home in a bad breath because I don't take it.

I make him cry.

So they say he's a son of a bitch.

That's exactly what I do.

I'm not going to do it.

I can't do it.

You know, I've been working here since I've been worried.

It gets me, because there were some, maybe he's talked to you about it, but this thing where a couple of those guys were popping off, look, I was told, if I give this money, wow, there's that thing, that thing, that thing, and it's, you know, some idiot has to say, well, if you give me the money, I'll see you here.

This was canceled.

Well, they got signed half a day, but it didn't happen.

These domains are because of everything else.

They're growing, and I think they're absolutely running off.

Yeah.

Well, I checked it, and I'm told Bill's request.

I talked to Jerry Jones.

I said, Jerry, man, how can you have a thing called like this around the president?

He's ill-served by having a man consider stopping that.

Like, I'm carrying on like she did.

That's giving this money back.

I don't mind that.

That would be a festival.

But Bill, that would be darn embarrassing.

That's a festival.

I've heard of that.

Well, I don't think they're certain.

Okay, okay.

We'll see.

Don't worry about all those speeches.

No, I understand.

I understand.

Well, I mean, there's some of you guys that would work for me.

I'm going to have to snap the kids into the office.

But there's a lot of people we have to deal with.

And all he did, I didn't go to the graveyard and everybody said who did great.

No, I'll tell you, Mr. President, I don't go to that.

I came in second in my government and I didn't like it, but he did well.

I like it.

He did well.

You know why?

He did well.

Because I heard that he did.

But the point is, we wanted to do well for a reason.

We wanted to flush it.

You've got to keep him up there as the new Negroni.

That was the regular Negroni.

He was never going to take McCartney.

And he was going down too far.

Too far.

So he does well.

And then he goes, he's not that bad.

That's just great.

Who do you want the Negroni to fight and what he means and the rest?

They will never agree.

So keep him up.

Don't beat McCartney.

That's why I don't want you to hit McCartney.

Keep McCartney coming up close.

Okay.

Okay, yeah.

Next question.

All yours.

Nixon, Bull & Bush on Republican Party and 1974 election

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 13, 1973

Cite this conversation