Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Source Description
This file contains:
Copy of a memo from Chapin to Haldeman RE: the Republican National Convention and related memo from Tex McCrary. 8 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 7/20/1972
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
26145145
label
WHSF: Contested, 7-55
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
26145145
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
WHSF: Contested, 7-55
description
This file contains:
Copy of a memo from Chapin to Haldeman RE: the Republican National Convention and related memo from Tex McCrary. 8 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 7/20/1972
citationUrl
collections
Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
Contested Materials Files
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
26145145
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
9a534a89ce9b34b8
ocrText
Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
Folder List
Box Number
Folder Number
Document Date
No Date
Subject
Document Type
Document Description
7
55
7/20/1972
Campaign
Memo
Copy of a memo from Chapin to Haldeman
RE: the Republican National Convention and
related memo from Tex McCrary. 8 pgs.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Page 1 of 1
MEMORANDUM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
High Priority
July 20, 1972
12:40 p.m.
see
MEMORANDUM FOR:
H. R. HALDEMAN
FROM:
DWIGHT L. CHAPIN
St
SUBJECT:
Convention
Attached to this memorandum you will find two memos.
One is a critique of our present Convention program by
Tex McCrary. It is felt that Tex is overly critical of
the Convention plan and, in particular, overreacting to
Reagan and Anne Armstrong. It is attached just so you
will be aware of his thinking. Undoubtedly he is right in
terms of some of the feel of our present program since he
has no idea as to what alternate programming is planned.
Also attached is a copy of the memorandum which Safire
sent you today. It plays off the conversation he had with
Howard K. Smith. The main point here being that the
President's and Vice President's acceptance speeches
should be on different nights.
Dick Moore and I met with Garment, Scali and Safire this
morning in order to discuss Safire's recommendation that
the President and Vice President speak on separate nights.
After considerable discussion I think we are all in unanimous
consent that we should put the Vice President's nomination and
acceptance speech on the second evening.
We would recommend the following alterations in the program:
TUESDAY NIGHT
Main Elements:
1.
Opening of Convention.
2.
Possible series of Democratic speakers urging other
Democrats to support the President.
2
TUESDAY NIGHT (Cont'd):
3.
Nomination of the President by Rockefeller.
4.
Seconding Speeches.
why not cale
5.
Demonstration as the President goes over the top,
poll
6.
Cutaway to President departing White House and brief
interview on the South Grounds as he boards helicopter.
He would state his pleasure at being renominated, state
that he is looking forward to addressing the Convention
Red
delegates the next evening.
7.
The Vice President's nomination.
8.
Acceptance speech by the Vice President.
Note:
This will make a long evening. If we roll along and cut
back our demonstration times, we should be able to get
-Too
the Vice President on the air at 11:00 or 11:15 p.m. EDT.
lett
The one element which has been moved out of the
evening activities is the film on Nixon, the Man which
we will put the evening of the acceptance speech.
be R2 on
must
WEDNESDAY EVENING
10 so
Main Elements:
1.
The Opening.
2.
Film Nixon, the Man.
Pretty
3.
Introduction of the President. (It has been suggested that
perhaps we use a nonpolitical figure. We're trying to
Thin
determine who that could be.)
4.
President's acceptance speech.
Immor
Note:
We would hope that this session would not begin until
around 9:00 p.m. with the President's speech coming
around 9:45
p.m. 100 early
Orerall pretty bad the
pratty idea
3
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES FROM MEETING WITH MOORE, SAFIRE
SCALI AND CHAPIN:
1.
Anne Armstrong would not be interpreted as a Texas fat cat.
It would be good having a woman open the Convention.
agree
more
2.
We should find/of our new and more upcoming types to work
on the Convention. We need to get a list of the comers.
We tory have any
3.
Reagan is still extremely popular even though he may be
weak in California. He has not appeared on national television
in a long time and can be very powerful at our Convention but
he should not be overused. If he's going to be the Temporary
Chairman, he should not be the Presidential introducer,
agree
4.
Scali informed us that he has intelligence from the network
people that he's talked to that they're taking some of their
better reporters and putting them on the demonstration
activities for the Republican Convention. He says they expect
there will be more trouble and want to cover it with their
better people.
5.
We should have a Democrats for Nixon news conference,
maybe on two different days in Miami. Right.
6.
There is some concern over using the young girl from
South Carolina as one of the three main keynote speakers.
It is felt that we should do a survey of State Legislature
women around the country to find the most articulate
woman spokesmen we can find who is a Republican. Right
but
now we have a Governor, a Senator, a Mayor, and if we
can get a State Legislator type it would fit perfectly.
Delhat.
7.
There is some concern over Sammy Davis, Jr. Garment
and Moore feel that he's wrong and does not represent our
constituency. It is felt that he would be misinterpreted by
some of our constituency. They feel he should not do the
National Anthem but that if he did one song like "This is
agree
My Country" or "My Country 'Tis of Thee" that it would be
fine. We may try to work him in the program that way.
The other suggestion was to use him as a seconder.
Nevel
4
8.
No one can be found that's for having Kate Smith in the
program. We have dropped that idea unless you want to
dictate that she should be in the program.
No
cc:
Dick Moore
Bill Timmons
Bill Carruthers
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
TO:
Dwight Chapin
Dick Moore
FROM:
Tex McCrary
SUBJECT:
Convention Impact
1. At the discussion of the convention program with both of you
during which I voiced the vehement objection to an opening impression
from which the President will have to struggle to escape, I have since
thoroughly reviewed every aspect and accent and focal point, every
headline, picture and caption that might come out of it, and this is my
summary judgement:
2. This is not Nixon's convention, it is Goldwater's. This is not the
Spirit of '76 or even '72 -- it is '64 and '48. It is the convention that
produced the LBJ landslide, and Truman's upset of Tom Dewey.
3. It makes the McGovern convention by comparison look like
Oklahoma and South Pacific and My Fair Lady and Funny Girl and
Fiddler on the Roof.
4. The McGovern convention made rising stars; the Nixon convention
uses faded stars.
5. You vote that you open with a woman Ann Armstrong is not a
woman, she is fat cat Texas king ranch.
Wrong
6. The dominate name that hits the eye and ear first is Ronald Reagan,
who could not carry his own state even against Pat Brown this year. In
the year when George Wallace made tax reform an issue with as much
sex appeal as busing, Ronald Reagan comes-through still as the millionaire
governor who paid no state taxes.
True
7. Reagan will overshadow the only black face in the opening line-up,
Ed Brooke -- who is scarcely a hero to blacks and has been often as
maverick as Javits.
AO what
-2-
8. In the year where there is a chance that the President can crack
the critical Jewish vote in the key cities, the only Jew prominent in the
line-up of your convention is Sammy Davis, Jr. who will be remembered
throughout the South as a black who married a white girl and then dis-
carded her. And you have him singing the National Anthem! Why not
Sinatra, whom somebody wanted to take to Moscow. agree
9. In a year when with the help of the Jewish vote and the split in
labor, you might crack Chicago and Los Angeles and Miami and New York
City, the only voice of the cities is lost behind Reagan and Brooke in the
key-note quartet Mayor Luger of Indianapolis. And labor is as
speechless here as in McGovern's show. good point
10. When Dwight said that "We have to work Goldwater in somewhere, 11
he needn't worry Barry is already everywhere, the spirit of '64.
11. It is true that you have a touch of class in Jimmy Stewart and
even Clint Eastwood and Johnny Cash; and nostalgia in John Wayne and
even Pat Boone; and both class and nostalgia in Mamie Eisenhower
but from the opening shot of this monumental bore, I keep expecting to
see Bob Doe or Ronald Reagan introduce Jimmy Hoffa and Harold Janine
and Carswell and Haynsworth and Martha Mitchell and Hedda Hopper and
all the other grinning ghosts working to help McGovern win in the closing
week of '72 as Humphrey was winning at the finish in '68.
12. The feel and smell of this Nixon convention of '72 is frighteningly
reminiscent of the euphoria that beat Tom Dewey - - I stayed for Dewey's
closing Madison Square Garden. rally in '48 and watched in horror an
audience walk out on his speech and next day on NBC I said, "Last night,
Tom Dewey lost the elction. 11
13. The insensitivity of this spectacle is frighteningly reminiscent
of the insolated arrogance of the Taft gang, which we attacked in the
Madison Square Garden rally for Eisenhower in the winter of '52. And
in Chicago, starting with the young Texans I brought to that rally, Taft
was routed the way the McGovern gang took Humphrey and Wallace and
Muskie and Jackson and Meany and Daley. The same tide is rising again.
But for the Democrats.
-3-
14. Now I know why that battle cry for the 172 campaign came from - -
"Nixon now more than ever" is "in your heart you know he's right", plus
8 and spelled backwards, but not in Hebrew.
15. Johnny Unitas in this line-up has only three pass receivers
Mamie and Pat and the President -- and nothing but holes in his pockets
to give him protection until he can get rid of the ball.
16. The President acceptance speech better be better than Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address -- and it better be full of quotes that will finally get
him into Bartlett's and give him a headline for the campaign equal to
"I never shoot blacks".
ague
17. And you better figure out a way fast to get-Kissinger and Connally
into the Convention line-up; and get Agnew into black-face to play Jimmy
Brown.
18. Also "the only man who can beat Nixon is Nixon" now he can
add the architects of this convention to that list of one.
19. After the Peking trip, I wrote across the bundle of headlines:
"Look Out for Loose Boards". In this convention structure, it is hard
to find anything but loose boards.
20. Invintroducing Agnew at the Heritage Dinner I tried to make two
points: "Not since Disraeli has any immigrant Jew been brought to such
biblical power by any great power as Richard Nixon has given to Dr.
Henry Kissinger. In America no political party can become, or deserves
to become a majority party, until minorities feel at home within it. 11 This
Nixon convention, as outlined, even to Archie Bunker is pure early
California WASP, Right parade.
21. In terms of show biz there isn't a belly laugh or a roar, not even
a chuckle or a knuckle in the whole lineup - - no sex, only X. In terms
of drama, no suspense, no gut emotion except Mamic, no encore! In
terms of news, no headlines. In terms of history, it is as sharply
focused and significant and electric as Dave Mahoney's plans for the
Bicentennial.
-4-
New Subject: Had a good meeting with three key guys on Agnew's staff --
Summers, Damgaard and Goodcarle. Based on working with them by
phone on the Zionist and Heritage Dinners, they seemed genuinely
hospitable, not at all resentful or suspicious at my office. To sit with
them from time to time for suggestions, review, and preview. They
accept even though Connally is my friend, I am not his man. As I
have suggested to Dick, perhaps the best way I can be helpful to all of
you from now on is to be helpful as I can to Agnew -- I think your boss
is going to need a very good fullback to score on the ground, the muddy
ground, until his instincts and scars tell him it is safe to put the ball in
the air.
New subject: Around John Price and Queens, which is Archie Bunker
country and the key to the New York State election, we will try to set up
a perfect prototype campaign for any strategic urban area. In that
territory Agnew will have more candle power than any movie star,
second only to the President, if the President comes into the climax.
My gut instinct and scars tell me that this weird campaign will be won
in Hanoi, Wall Street, and other chancey places like Queens -- not on
Pennsylvania Avenue.
####