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This file contains:
From Colson to Haldeman RE: Tom Evans and fighting within the Republican Party. 1 pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/16/1972
From Colson to Hallett RE: creating a realistic appraisal of the 1972 presidential election for posterity. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Letter], 11/2/1972
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WHSF: Contested, 4-43
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WHSF: Contested, 4-43
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This file contains:
From Colson to Haldeman RE: Tom Evans and fighting within the Republican Party. 1 pg. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/16/1972
From Colson to Hallett RE: creating a realistic appraisal of the 1972 presidential election for posterity. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Letter], 11/2/1972
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Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
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4
43
11/16/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Colson to Haldeman RE: Tom Evans
and fighting within the Republican Party. 1
pg.
4
43
11/2/1972
Campaign
Letter
From Colson to Hallett RE: creating a
realistic appraisal of the 1972 presidential
election for posterity. 2 pgs.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Page 1 of 1
November 16, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:
H. R. HALDEMAN
FROM:
CHARLES COLSON
SUBJECT:
Tom Evans/RNC
I was told by a friend of mine at the RNC yesterday that Tom Evans
is about to blow his cork. He thinks that we badly mistreated him
and the RNC during the campaign. He has been on the verge of
talking to reporters badmouthing the White House and the
President, etc. Tom is also on the verge of quitting -- and
perhaps with a blast at us.
We don't need this right now within the Party. Tom has been out
of sorts for months, as you know. Personally I've never thought
he was worth much but on the other hand he is co-chairman of
the Republican National Committee and a blast from him would be
well publicized and damaging.
My informant suggested that a call from you or obviously one from
the President merely thanking him for a good job in the campaign
and urging him to continue his work for the Party whatever he does
would deter him from doing this. Tom, as you know, has been a
big money man in the past and I would think from all standpoints
we would want to try to keep him reasonably happy, If possible.
I would, therefore, recommend that you call him unless you think
that perhaps the President should. I would be glad to do it but I
don't think it would carry enough weight coming from me.
November 2, 1972
Dear Doug:
I have your latest missal of October 24 which I find incompre-
hensible. Either I am getting very dull-witted as the campaign
grinds to an end or else Harvard is doing something to you. I
have no idea what you're talking about on compounding immaturity,
yours against mine, but I'll be glad to let one measure up against
the other any day! I'm glad you liked the one speech of the Vice
President's before the Conservative Party dinner, especially since
it was based on your draft. I assume you also recognized signifi-
cant portions of your earlier submission in the President's radio
speech that I pointed out to you in my last letter.
Just for old time's sake, why don't you call me this weekend and
tell me how we're going to do in Massachusetts. I still think Inman
Square tells us a lot.
Since obviously the law school gives you nothing better to do than
write snotty letters and long speeches, why don't you prepare an
article on what the real meaning of this election was. Watch the
liberal media turn on McGovern like piranhas. They will never be
able to admit that the movement was defeated or that their ideas
were out of step with the mainstream of American thought. They
will have to come to the conclusion that their ideas were right and
that the time was right for the movement, but that poor, bumbling
idiot McGovern blew it. They will have to blame him since by
definition, "movement" can't be wrong in its ideas and ideology.
This is something you could have some fun with and could be damn
useful to us.
In my opinion, whether the President builds a permanent new majority
or whether this is merely a phenomenon of the 1972 election, will
2.
depend on how well we are able to convince people that President Nixon
does indeed represent the mainstream of American thought and that this
year's election was a referendum on those very issues which we have
identified. If people feel this was a referendum of the kind I think it is,
then they may feel a permanent allegiance to a Nixon majority. If on the
other hand, it is dismissed as an election year fluke, a bumbling George
McGovern blows a golden opportunity and despite all of the vicious sub-
versions of the political process that we have engaged in, Nixon somehow
managed to back into a landslide that's at least the way they'll print
it -- then we won't build a permanent majority. I think it is really how
people perdeive this.
One of the reasons that CBS and the Washington Post have gone on such
an unprincipled and unprecedented vendetta over the Watergate/spying/
Segretti/sabotage garbage is that it is the only way they can sour the
country on this election. They don't want the majority in this country to
feel proud of the way in which this President was re-elected, they want
people to have bad memories about this election because if people think
ill of this election and want to put it out of their minds or if they think
that we "stole" it through our massive army of saboteurs, then they
will detract from what really, in fact, has happened in 1972.
Maybe they've already poisoned the water so badly that even honest
historians will not recognize what was at issue in 1972 and what was
decided by the pelple. Maybe the post mortems of this election will
deal with the Watergate, the fact that it should have defeated Nixon but
it didn't because the whole country has become impervious to scandals,
has come to accept them as a way of life, all politicians are discredited,
etc. Clearly the lesser of evils mythology is building very fast and
even though we were filthy sinister people, McGovern was such an inept
ass that we won.* That's not the way it is and we need some of the bright
young intellects of our party, which includes you, to start articulating
what in fact did happen this year.
Let us hear from you.
Sincerely,
Charles W. Colson
Special Counsel to the President
Mr. Douglas Hallett
135 Antrim Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
*At least that's what the WalterCronkites
and Erie Severeids will say.