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:
From Bill Gavin to a Mr. Shakespeare RE: 1972 Republican National Convention. Handwritten note added by unknown. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 2/10/1971
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
26144873
label
WHSF: Contested, 6-7
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
26144873
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
WHSF: Contested, 6-7
description
This file contains:
From Bill Gavin to a Mr. Shakespeare RE: 1972 Republican National Convention. Handwritten note added by unknown. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 2/10/1971
citationUrl
collections
Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
Contested Materials Files
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
26144873
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
078ed19d42185380
ocrText
Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
Folder List
Box Number
Folder Number
Document Date
No Date
Subject
Document Type
Document Description
6
7
2/10/1971
Campaign
Memo
From Bill Gavin to a Mr. Shakespeare RE:
1972 Republican National Convention.
Handwritten note added by unknown. 2 pgs.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Page 1 of 1
DETERMINED TO BE AN
ADMINISTRATIVE MARKING
E.O. EMP NARS, Date 4-16-81
12065, Section 6-102
By
CONFIDENTIAL
February 10, 1971
MEMORANDUM TO: Mr. Shakespeare
Some thoughts about the Republican Convention 1972:
There will be, of course, two Republican conventions: the one
in some city and the same one as it appears on television. I have
nothing to say about the convention site except that I think it should
be in the West, perhaps Texas (Houston?). Such a site will be
symbolic of the President's efforts to have a national party that
includes the South and welcomes the West as a bastion of strength.
But wherever it is held, one thing is certain: The convention
must be built around the use of television rather than having television
serve the convention. In other words, an unconventional convention.
That, it seems to me, is the basic consideration. How can this
be done?
1. By a drastic revision of the convention ground-rules governing
seconding speeches, party platform presentations and those parliamentary
procedures dear to the heart of certain politicians but deadly dull to
the mass audience. Some suggestions:
a. Seconding speeches can be taped beforehand in good locations,
e.g. let's say someone from the State of Washington gives a seconding
speech. He should be taped in some scenic Washington spot talking
right into the camera. The parliamentary reality is that he is speaking
to the Republican delegates only; the real reality (not as redundant as
it sounds) is that he is addressing the television audience. Since this
is so, we should make certain that the audience has something good to
look at, not simply some wooden platform flanked by forty microphones,
eighteen flags and a dozen or so sweating, tired newsmen.
b. The party platform has to be either eliminated entirely as an
out-of-date function or else presented visually as well as orally. The
American people are bored to death every four years with party plat-
forms--or else the networks simply switch back to Dave and Chet or
Walter or somebody who usually then starts some interpretive mischief
because there is nothing else to do. A convention is, historically, part
politics, part circus. Instead of complaining about that fact we should
- 2
exploit it and make certain that our sideshows are visually entertaining.
Slides, imaginative graphs, photos, anything that will be useful for
television. If we subject the mass audience to some political lunatic
reading the platform to a bored and probably stupefied audience we
deserve defeat and worse.
C. Get the best parliamentarian in the world and have him come
up with some simplified rules of order so that this thing can move. I
think we shouldn't be on the tube for any longer than two hours (IN A GIVEN EVENING),
2. Instead of a key-note address (remember the absolutely numb
keynoter given by Dan Evans?) why not something different, a key-
note film? One man shouldn't have to bear the burden of keynoting an
entire national convention- the entire Republican Party should do the
keynoting through a film made by the Republican National Committee.
It goes without saying (so I'll say it) that this has to be first rate, about
the past four Nixon years, about America heading toward 1976, about
"the system, " how it works and how the Nixon Administration has
worked through it.
3. At least one of the seconding speeches should be made by a
young- I mean in the twenties--person, preferably a girl. Perhaps the
Republican National Committee can have a search for this young person.
This person would also give a taped presentation (or, if desirable, a
live presentation, not at the convention auditorium, but, instead,
somewhere else in America.)
The auditorium should be decorated and re-built so that it will work
for us on television. Houston's Astrodome just might be too big for what
I have in mind.
At any rate, these are a few ideas that I think might be looked into.
Bill
I/R Bill Gavin
If we are to carry out a 'new Omerican Revolution"
we have to make revolutionary changes at the one major
political event the mass audress CONFIDENTIAL watchs.