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    "title": "WHSF: Contested, 6-7",
    "description": "This file contains:\n\nFrom Bill Gavin to a Mr. Shakespeare RE: 1972 Republican National Convention. Handwritten note added by unknown. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 2/10/1971",
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    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/73/1448/26144873/content/presidential-libraries/nixon/RN-RET/2546065/Contested-Box-6/Contested-06-07.pdf",
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    "ocrText": "Richard Nixon Presidential Library\nContested Materials Collection\nFolder List\nBox Number\nFolder Number\nDocument Date\nNo Date\nSubject\nDocument Type\nDocument Description\n6\n7\n2/10/1971\nCampaign\nMemo\nFrom Bill Gavin to a Mr. Shakespeare RE:\n1972 Republican National Convention.\nHandwritten note added by unknown. 2 pgs.\nFriday, March 26, 2010\nPage 1 of 1\nDETERMINED TO BE AN\nADMINISTRATIVE MARKING\nE.O. EMP NARS, Date 4-16-81\n12065, Section 6-102\nBy\nCONFIDENTIAL\nFebruary 10, 1971\nMEMORANDUM TO: Mr. Shakespeare\nSome thoughts about the Republican Convention 1972:\nThere will be, of course, two Republican conventions: the one\nin some city and the same one as it appears on television. I have\nnothing to say about the convention site except that I think it should\nbe in the West, perhaps Texas (Houston?). Such a site will be\nsymbolic of the President's efforts to have a national party that\nincludes the South and welcomes the West as a bastion of strength.\nBut wherever it is held, one thing is certain: The convention\nmust be built around the use of television rather than having television\nserve the convention. In other words, an unconventional convention.\nThat, it seems to me, is the basic consideration. How can this\nbe done?\n1. By a drastic revision of the convention ground-rules governing\nseconding speeches, party platform presentations and those parliamentary\nprocedures dear to the heart of certain politicians but deadly dull to\nthe mass audience. Some suggestions:\na. Seconding speeches can be taped beforehand in good locations,\ne.g. let's say someone from the State of Washington gives a seconding\nspeech. He should be taped in some scenic Washington spot talking\nright into the camera. The parliamentary reality is that he is speaking\nto the Republican delegates only; the real reality (not as redundant as\nit sounds) is that he is addressing the television audience. Since this\nis so, we should make certain that the audience has something good to\nlook at, not simply some wooden platform flanked by forty microphones,\neighteen flags and a dozen or so sweating, tired newsmen.\nb. The party platform has to be either eliminated entirely as an\nout-of-date function or else presented visually as well as orally. The\nAmerican people are bored to death every four years with party plat-\nforms--or else the networks simply switch back to Dave and Chet or\nWalter or somebody who usually then starts some interpretive mischief\nbecause there is nothing else to do. A convention is, historically, part\npolitics, part circus. Instead of complaining about that fact we should\n- 2\nexploit it and make certain that our sideshows are visually entertaining.\nSlides, imaginative graphs, photos, anything that will be useful for\ntelevision. If we subject the mass audience to some political lunatic\nreading the platform to a bored and probably stupefied audience we\ndeserve defeat and worse.\nC. Get the best parliamentarian in the world and have him come\nup with some simplified rules of order so that this thing can move. I\nthink we shouldn't be on the tube for any longer than two hours (IN A GIVEN EVENING),\n2. Instead of a key-note address (remember the absolutely numb\nkeynoter given by Dan Evans?) why not something different, a key-\nnote film? One man shouldn't have to bear the burden of keynoting an\nentire national convention- the entire Republican Party should do the\nkeynoting through a film made by the Republican National Committee.\nIt goes without saying (so I'll say it) that this has to be first rate, about\nthe past four Nixon years, about America heading toward 1976, about\n\"the system, \" how it works and how the Nixon Administration has\nworked through it.\n3. At least one of the seconding speeches should be made by a\nyoung- I mean in the twenties--person, preferably a girl. Perhaps the\nRepublican National Committee can have a search for this young person.\nThis person would also give a taped presentation (or, if desirable, a\nlive presentation, not at the convention auditorium, but, instead,\nsomewhere else in America.)\nThe auditorium should be decorated and re-built so that it will work\nfor us on television. Houston's Astrodome just might be too big for what\nI have in mind.\nAt any rate, these are a few ideas that I think might be looked into.\nBill\nI/R Bill Gavin\nIf we are to carry out a 'new Omerican Revolution\"\nwe have to make revolutionary changes at the one major\npolitical event the mass audress CONFIDENTIAL watchs."
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