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This file contains:
From Buchanan to Khachigian RE: recommendation to hold on to back-up materials. 1pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 9/17/1971
From Buchanan to RN RE: reasons against televising RN appearance before the Detroit Economic Club. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 9/17/1971
From Buchanan to Kherli advising against meeting with academics and White House Staff. 2pgs [Subject: White House Staff] [Memo], 9/17/1971
From Buchanan to RN RE: concerns about the politics of RN's Phase II Board. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 9/17/1971
From Buchanan to Barbara Franklin RE: support for RN. 1pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 9/7/1971
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WHSF: Contested, 1-8
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26144208
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WHSF: Contested, 1-8
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This file contains:
From Buchanan to Khachigian RE: recommendation to hold on to back-up materials. 1pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 9/17/1971
From Buchanan to RN RE: reasons against televising RN appearance before the Detroit Economic Club. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 9/17/1971
From Buchanan to Kherli advising against meeting with academics and White House Staff. 2pgs [Subject: White House Staff] [Memo], 9/17/1971
From Buchanan to RN RE: concerns about the politics of RN's Phase II Board. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 9/17/1971
From Buchanan to Barbara Franklin RE: support for RN. 1pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 9/7/1971
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Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
Folder List
Box Number
Folder Number
Document Date
No Date
Subject
Document Type
Document Description
1
8
9/17/1971
Campaign
Memo
From Buchanan to Khachigian RE:
recommendation to hold on to back-up
materials. 1pg.
1
8
9/17/1971
Campaign
Memo
From Buchanan to RN RE: reasons against
televising RN appearance before the Detroit
Economic Club. 2 pgs.
1
8
9/17/1971
White House Staff
Memo
From Buchanan to Kherli advising against
meeting with academics and White House
Staff. 2pgs
1
8
9/17/1971
Campaign
Memo
From Buchanan to RN RE: concerns about
the politics of RN's Phase II Board. 2 pgs.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Page 1 of 2
Box Number
Folder Number
Document Date
No Date
Subject
Document Type
Document Description
1
8
9/7/1971
Campaign
Memo
From Buchanan to Barbara Franklin RE:
support for RN. 1pg.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Page 2 of 2
[Item N-8]
80
September 17, 1971
MEMORANDUM TO: Ken Khachigian
FROM:
Pat Buchanan
Would hold onto the back-up materials. However, for HRH
and the Attorney General, would prefer, only a page and a
half. Which iterates the major anti-Muskie themes to which
we have contributed. And mention each of our success in
passing. We can now add the President's ripping of the "scab"
off Muskie -- on the black VEEP -- a course of action we
recommended in the briefing book. Can you draft 2 pages
Item #1, Item #2, etc.
Buchanan
[Item N-9]
September 17, 1971
MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
Patrick J. Buchanan
Understand thought is being given to televising nationally the RN
appearance before the Detroit Economic Club. Don't think we should
do that for the following reasons:
1. An hour's show with Richard Nixon answering the concerns
of some Detroit Fat Cats does not seem to me particularly
good television; it will lack the adversary setting of a press
conference, and the sharpness of questions, RN can expect
from editors and writers.
2. An hour is simply too long -- to sustain the interest of Middle
America.
3. 3. We have nothing really new to say, from my knowledge; the
President has already covered the "news" in Thursday's
conference.
4. The President's greatest political asset is the Presidency --
part of the power of that asset adheres in the distance between
the Presidency and the people. Harry Truman as Harry Truman
is a clown -- as President, he fills the shoes of Lincoln, Wilson,
etc. The more we show of RN the individual in front of a camera,
the more in my judgment we diminish some of the mystery,
aloofness that surrounds the office. We make the President too
"familiar" a figure and not in the best sense of that word.
5. What makes China such an interesting, important country and
De Gaulle such an interesting man -- is the aloofness, the
distance, from the hoi polloi. Every time we put the President
on the camera in a conventional setting -- answering a and A --
we tend, I think, to bring him down closer to the average man --
and I don't believe that is to our political advantage -- partly
for the next reason.
0
-2-
6. I have never been convinced that Richar d Nixon, Good Guy, is
our long suit; to me we are simply not going to charm the
American people; we are not going to win it on "style" and we
ought to forget playing ball in the Kennedy's Court.
This new emphasis of running the President on the tube at more
and more opportunities is a corollary of the theorem that the
more people who see the President, the more who will become
enthusiastic about him. We are selling personality; but we know
from our experience with television shows, how even the most
attractive and energetic and charming personalities don't last
very long.
7. As I wrote the President long ago, in 1967, we watched Rocky
rise twenty points in the national polls in a year in which he
was probably not once on national television. When Rocky took
to the airwaves in 1968, running around the country . -- he dropped
in the polls as he did in 1964. In short, what is said and written
around Nelson Rockefeller's accomplishments -- compared with
the accomplishments of others -- is invariably better received
than the presence of Rocky himself in a competitive situation.
8. The President is going to be on with Phase II in October, and
with the Vietnam announcements in November. My judgment is
that we ought not to put him on the air, without serious thought,
and usually only in context with some significant pronouncement.
9. Finally, am not at all against some of the more imaginative ideas
for presenting the President but they should come out of a
Media Strategy, which I don't know we have right now -- or I
don't see how this fits into it.
Buchanan
[Item N-10]
September 17, 1971
MEMORANDUM TO: Bruce Kherli
FROM:
Pat Buchanan
Your approach here is wrong and unrealistic. First, you are dealing
here with some real intellectual heavy-weights, among the more brilliant
thinkers in American academic life. What they and the average White
House staff person would talk about is beyond me. Secondly, on au
courant issues, we are more likely to be up to date, and more sophisti-
cated than they -- such as the political impact of Presidential decisions,
etc. These fellows with few exceptions are Governor Wallace's "pointy-
heads." Their ideas are available to us in better form, written than
spoken. For example, Glazer's piece in Commentary this weekend is
going in to the Old Man; Banfield's book should be must reading for the
Nixon Domestic. As contacts used in the manner of country chairman --
they would be of littel value to us; since there is no "functional" purpose
in doing this, simply therapeutic, the use would not be regular and thus
the benefit none.
What we would like from these fellows is not verbal reports; they are
probably less useful in something like that than calling a sharp political
mind; (with the exception of Buckley). Rather what their advantage to
the President would be in identification with the President, association
with him. We can get their ideas out of their publications. But their
presence at White House functions, Kristol type dinners, with Moynihan
and Kissinger present, discussions (the practical value of which I would
not say is great) would reflect well on the President which is what we want.
Between you and me, I don't think the President places a high priority
on association with these types; he enjoys it; but he has more important
things to do in his own mind; and other ways to exercise intellectually.
Here is the problem in a nutshell. The advantage of these academicians
to the President is not verbal communication of their ideas (their ideas
are better presented in the tight brilliant articles they write, not the
conversation they have) but rather in the burnishing of the President's
image as a Man of Thought by public association and intellectual ease
in company with these cerebral power-houses.
-2-
We cannot get the latter by WH aides calling up Glazer or Trilling
and asking them what they think of the "freeze" or RN's speech. To
get the benefits that I have in mind, and likely what Moynihan may
have in mind, RN must be seen in the company of such men himself.
The problem is that the President himself, I don't believe, feels this
is such a high priority with all the other "requirements" that he has
to get his work done. That is not unnatural. None of us is really
"taking advantage" of the intellectual stimulus and interesting associations
available to a White House Assistant we tend to be less the intellectual
aristocrat of man of ease, than the hard-working drones of the President.
Moynihan, similarly Kissinger, are the type of fellows who enjoy spending
an hour or so in intellectual sword play with the names included here.
Most of the President's appointments, and what they have to say, is of
immediate utilitarian value to RN. Most of the fellows on this list, with
some few exceptions, are not of that type. Lionel Trilling in a room with
the Old Man, the AG, Connally, H & E would be as about as much in place
as the President amidst Sly and the Family Stone.
Buchanan
Item
September 17, 1971
MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
Patrick J. Buchanan
While not conversant with the substance of RN's Phase II Board, some
thoughts about the politics, which have been brought to my attention and
concern me:
1. This is the ball game as far as the economic issue is concerned;
2. We cannot trust George Meany; he is our inescapable political
enemy; and any concessions to him only strengthen his hand in
damaging us further down the road.
3. Very likely we are going to have to confront this blow-hard;
the best time to do so would be when the President is at his
strongest, which I would suggest is at the earliest, while there
is still massive public support for our economic program.
4. For RN to accede to Labor's request for a tripartite board,
reporting and recommending directly to the President is to
leave RN with the onus of unpopular decisions and to guarantee
Labor demagoging it on behalf of their own people. Better it
seems to me to have a President's board, which will protect
the President's interests, and take off as much of the political
heat as possible.
5. In the last analysis, my judgment is that politically "Tyrannical
labor" is not popular and a presidential collision with Mr. Meany
handled properly, "What's good for George Meany is not
necessarily good for America" is not necessarily a disadvantageous
political position.
There has always existed the best political approach in my judgment --
the possibility of going over the heads of Meany and appealing to the
workingmen and their best personal interests. We may have no other
choice. Nevertheless, these fellows, with their limousines and puboic
statements have grown aloof from the hard basic concerns of the hard hats
and the workingmen.
-2-
So, recommend strongly that the President retain the fullest possible
leverage, and surrender the fewest possible concessions to fellows who
cannot be "bought" or "brought on board," notmatter how high a price
we pay.
Pat Buchanan
Attached is something worked up by Dick Burress from the 1950s to
indicate what Big Labor -- given the Tripartite Approach -- did to
their own man, Harry Truman.
PJB
bcc: Dick Burress
%
2
[Item N-20]
September 7, 1971
MEMORANDUM TO: Barbara Franklin
FROM:
Pat Buchanan
Any battle-ax that thinks like this probably didn't support
us in the first place. Why don't you check and see if she
was a member of "Chicks for Dick" in 1968?
Buchanan