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This file contains:
A report regarding the comments on the Ray Price memo. Specifically, issues concerning: Patronage, campaign materials, messages, statements, and preparation for the '72 campaign. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Other Document], no date
From Ray Price to Haldeman. RE: The preparation for 1972, and a discussion of campaign materials, messages, statements, staffing, etc. 4 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/5/1971
A report concerning the comments made on Chuck Colson's memo and how they relate to the 1972 election. 4 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Other Document], no date
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WHSF: Contested, 17-12
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WHSF: Contested, 17-12
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This file contains:
A report regarding the comments on the Ray Price memo. Specifically, issues concerning: Patronage, campaign materials, messages, statements, and preparation for the '72 campaign. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Other Document], no date
From Ray Price to Haldeman. RE: The preparation for 1972, and a discussion of campaign materials, messages, statements, staffing, etc. 4 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 11/5/1971
A report concerning the comments made on Chuck Colson's memo and how they relate to the 1972 election. 4 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Other Document], no date
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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
17
12
Campaign
Other Document
A report regarding the comments on the Ray
Price memo. Specifically, issues concerning:
Patronage, campaign materials, messages,
statements, and preparation for the '72
campaign. 2 pgs.
17
12
11/5/1971
Campaign
Memo
From Ray Price to Haldeman. RE: The
preparation for 1972, and a discussion of
campaign materials, messages, statements,
staffing, etc. 4 pgs.
17
12
Campaign
Other Document
A report concerning the comments made on
Chuck Colson's memo and how they relate to
the 1972 election. 4 pgs.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Page 1 of 1
DOCUMENT WITHDRAWAL RECORD [NIXON PROJECT]
DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT
NUMBER
TYPE
SUBJECT/TITLE OR CORRESPONDENTS
DATE
RESTRICTION
N-1
Report
Comments on Ray Price memo
n.d.
C
Docs +
attachment:
Memo, Price to HRN, ne:
Preparing for 1972, 11/5/71
N-2
Report
Comments on chuck Colson's memo
n.d.
C
[DOC 30]
N-3
Report
Comments on I red malek's Paper
[DOCS 37+38]
n.d.
on the Import of Comparinon
C
the white House staff
attachment:
memory malch to HRH re: Re-
direction of stoff Efforts, 11/5/71
w-4
memo
Higher to HRIS ne:- addendem
to alex Butterfield Talking
11/29/71
C
[DOC 39]
Paper
N-5
Report
Commentson atex Bullerfuld
u.d.
A
[DOC 40]
Staff organization Poper
N-6
Report
Comments on John Dean's memo
n.d.
[DOC 41]
on Proposed activities Through
C
november 1972
FILE GROUP TITLE
BOX NUMBER
HRH
278
FOLDER TITLE
[Commentson preparing for 1972 election campaign 3
RESTRICTION CODES
A. Release would violate a Federal statute or Agency Policy.
E. Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
B. National security classified information.
financial information.
C. Pending or approved claim that release would violate an individual's
F. Release would disclose investigatory information compiled for law
rights.
enforcement purposes.
D. Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy
G. Withdrawn and return private and personal material.
or a libel of a living person.
H. Withdrawn and returned non-historical material.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
NA FORM 1421 (4-85)
Presidential Materials Review Board
Review on Contested Documents
Collection: H. R. Haldeman
Box Number:
278
Folder:
[Comments on preparing for 1972 election campaign]
Document
Disposition
34
Return
Private/Political
35
Return
Private/Political
36
Return
Private/Political
37
Retain
Open
38
Retain
Open
39
Retain
Close
Invasion of Privacy
40
Retain
Close
Invasion of Privacy
41
Retain
Open
CC .MENTS ON RAY PRICE MEMC
General:
Since Ray is constantly facing the problem of deadlines, it may
be his office is understaffed or may not have the right people. In
either case he should move ahead quickly to bring aboard those
people you have already authorised. Ray is trying to fill both the
role of chief speech writer and editor in chief. This cannot be
done. Somehow he must train his people to write more in the
Nixon style and work out his own priorities to get the important
work done before it becomes a crash project. You have already
covered the point with him of remarks and whether or not they are
helpful.
Specific Comments:
Patronage:
There obviously will be some additional staff needs for M72 and
Ray should begin working with Malek right now to get these solved.
One need will be for a writer to supply materials to all our key
speakers and the truth squad. This maybe something for a writer
at the Citizen's Committee but either way this consideration should
be taken care of, so when Ray's staff is asked to supply material
for a Dole or someone else it can be done.
You have mentioned to Ray the need for a gag writer and this is
another area he should work with Malek in. The same would be
true for a woman writer. The woman could spend a substantial
part of her time writing for Julie, Tricia, and Mrs. Nixon. We
should move ahead with this idea now.
In addition, there are times when Safire and Buchanan have time on
their hands. They are not properly being utilized, partly because of
Ray's reluctance to assign anything to Buchanan or Safire. This is
something that should be overcome on Ray's part, either by him
suggesting to you that things be assigned to them or by Ray stepping
up and moving in this direction himself.
Campaign Materials:
We need someone to quality control the campaign materials and
make sure our line is being hit hard. This probably will require
someone to be plugged into the Price question. We should use
the writer over at 1701 in this area also.
--Messages:
I agree that we don't want to do too many of them. On the
other hand, we should be able to do all of those that are
appropriate and you should make sure that the staff is
sufficient in this area.
Besides the messages, there is the mail situation. The
President wants to use mail more. Hopefully you will con-
tinue to pull good letters he can use in his remarks, etc. ;
something we have done a medioces job on in the past. You
should start encouraging your writers to spend some time
with the mail and find materials in the mail that could be
worked in to the remarks, etc.
--Statements:
This proposal raises a good point. This is something that
Buchanan should be able to work on also and we should perhaps
program him more in this direction; particularly for the reaction
material. With regard to initiating our own statements this is
something we should probably be getting some guidance on from
the Domestic Council. There is a need for better coordination
here.
-Preparation for the '72 Campaign:
There is the question of what we are doing in the construction
of an issue book for '72. Has this been figured out yet? It is
my understanding that the Domestic Council is working to some
extent in this area but I am not sure where we stand. Your thought
to having materials ready that can be put together quickly is
extremely good, It is something that should be done now while
there is a lull, rather than waiting until June of next year. Will
you please get together with Cole and Ehrlichman and see what
we are going to do here.
--By-liness:
The idea of thoughtful by-liners by Cabinet Members and your
office is great but they should be done as second priority to
those things that we need to get solved now. Let's make sure
we're properly staffed to strike a balance.
MEMORAN
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
November 5, 1971
MEMORANDUM FOR:
BOB HALDEMAN
FROM:
RAY PRICE
RaPy
SUBJECT:
Preparing for 1972
A few rough thoughts on gearing up for 1972:
Remarks. An enormous amount of the writers' time and
energy goes into the "suggested remarks" for Presidential
appearances, and most of it would appear to be wasted --
judging by the proportion of what we give him that actually gets
used. I'd like to sit down with him sometime and get an updated
reading on how useful this stuff is: whether it's still true, as we
used to be told, that even though he doesn't use much of it it's
helpful in stimulating his own thoughts, or whether some differ-
ent approaches to it would be more useful. We've tried a few
minor variations on the format lately; I'm reluctant to go too
heavily into major variations if in fact what he's getting serves
him well, but it would seem that we could either a) cut back
substantially on it, thus freeing up a lot of writers' time; or
b) invest the same time in providing stuff that would be more
useful.
Wommuriton
Staffing. I don't have a solid feel for what additional staff
needs will be, in part because this will depend to a great extent
writer.
on the nature of the campaign -- and also, of course, on the
extent to which we're going to be called on to provide materials
to others than the President. I do feel a need for one more
senior writer, who would be primarily and specifically a speech
the
idle
writer -- well trained in that particular branch of the art -- and
I'd hope he would also be someone who could fill in for me so
Budun
time
that I could cut loose for several days at a time to do writing
myself, and who could be a stand-by replacement for me if
necessary. I also think I'll probably be needing another junior
Bob Haldeinan
- 2
November 5, 1971
writer; and, depending on how heavy the demands of the campaign
become (and on what roles Safire and Buchanan end up playing)
perhaps more.
Campaign materials. I think we should provide "packages"
of speech materials that could be used by Administration spokes-
men -- not complete speeches-to-order, but the sort of thing we
used to distribute to the Cabinet: ideas, themes, lines, speech
1701
sections, etc., that highlight some of the themes we're trying
writer
to get across, and from which they can draw in putting together
their own speeches.
Messages, etc. The volume of special messages to groups
and individuals has increased substantially, and we'll probably
want to increase it somewhat more. But there's going to be
heavy pressure to increase it much more than I think would be
wise -- and in particular to send a lot that could get us in trouble.
As it is, we frequently get high-pressure requests, and sometimes
demands, for messages to groups or for occasions that on investi-
gation turn out to be badly tainted. There's also the perennial
problem that if we accede to one request for a message to an
event that falls outside the rules, and there are (as there usually
are) a hundred or so others that are similar in all respects except
for their advocacy at the White House, we lose more than the 99
we don't send them to than we gain with the one that we do. It's
easy to give the flip answer that we should send them to the other
99; but not only is this not manageable, but we quickly reach a
point at which it not only dilutes the impact of all messages but,
more to the point, makes the President look almost obscenely
over-eager. As we get into the election year we'll need a hard
look at the basic rules to see how they should be modified -- but
I don't think we should yield too readily to the easy temptation to
scrap them altogether. They serve the President well -- and their
existence gives us an understandable excuse for the many turn-downs
that have to be made.
Statements. We're probably going to want to do more of these,
and in a more programmed way -- finding opportunities for our own
initiatives, rather than simply reacting to the Congressional votes,
etc.
Bob Hald
- 3 -
November 5, 1971
Workof
Prepa ion. Somewhere along the way we should probably
(though I hann some doubts about its utility) begin building a bank
of campaign peech-type materials for our own use, that could
then be qui patched together when the appropriate occasion
talifor
arose. T egative side of this is that a) it risks a certain
done
stale
qual: the final product, as it comes out; and b) it
probably 'sents a substantial amount of wasted time, since
most of it would probably not in fact be used. But I'm inclined
to think at this point that the pluses of having it on hand, and of
the exercise it represents (as well as possible use by surrogates)
outweigh the minuses. However, I don't think it should be done
too far in advance - if it is, the staleness factor is greatly
increased
Thoug Jul by-liners by staff and Cabinet: if the President
continues feel he shouldn't deliver speeches with substantial
or sophi wated thought content, it's doubly important that the
rest of us do more of this to demonstrate that thought does occur
in the Administration, and also to legitimatize his own reductions
of these more sophisticated arguments to simpler terms compre-
hensible to the TV audience. As long as there's a basic consistency,
they'll complement each other rather than compete with each other.
As it is, we're taking it in the neck because of the constant
repetition of the old cheer-lines and the old themes, without
?
breaking substantial new ground or advancing substantial new
thoughts -- or arguing the case in sophisticated terms. But if
his aides and advisers are doing this, it makes much more readily
acceptable the argument that as the one who has to talk to all the
people he's constrained from showing in public the sophistication
he displays in private.
This is something my staff should probably help on from
time to time - -- not only doing occasional pieces themselves, but
also writing them for others' signature - for two reasons: a) since
it's important to the President's interests that it be done, and he
feels he can't do it himself, it becomes an important part of the
Presidential mix; and 2) it would be good for the writers - giving
them a chance to flex their intellectual muscles a bit from time to
time, and thus to keep the juices of thought and of thoughtful analysis
-- running.
Bob Ha man
- 4 -
November 5, 1971
It'
portant that this be seen not as a substitute for the
usual he
sell campaigns for matters of current concern,
answer
the critics, etc., but as a supplement to it, addressed
to a dif
nt audience and meeting a different need -- indeed,
filling
cuum. If we're going to sell the administration to
leaders
thought, we've got to demonstrate that we're capable
of thou,
and that we're thinking seriously, in philosophical
terms,
out the concerns of a latter-20th-century America.
COMMENTS ON CHUCK COLSON'S MEMO
General:
Chuck has tried to broaden the scope of his responsibilities too fast
to build the sound organisation beneath him that is necessary for '72.
He should take the next month or two and step back and concentrate on
really tightening his organization for the Campaign. While he has
done a good job, there is much work left to be done, particularly in
terms of getting some coordination with the Domestic Council on
deciding major initiatives and themes and setting up some program
to ride them through. This is something we started after the State of
the Union, but the whole idea has broken down. Right now the Demestic
Council is getting away with murder in terms of lack of follow-up and
Colson should move to tap this resource.
Colson has real doubts about his personal relationship with you. While
there are obtiously problems here, he should feel that he is not running
into a stone wall everytime he deals with you, but that you are at least
interested in his ideas. Colson does need to be put down and put down
hard on a number of occasions, but occasionally he should be told he
is doing a good job.
Specific Comments:
News Planning Coordination and Execution:
This does seem to be moving along fairly well, except in the
area of counter-attack. Here there is obviously a need for the
addition of another individual to handle Congressional follow-up
and Colson should work with MacGregor and Malek in finding the
Congressional man. He probably should be publicly identified as
part of the Congressional relations team, but work with Colson
similar to the way that Gifford works with Shults.
Domestic Coordination:
Barker is simply not strong enough to handle the execution needed
on the Domestic side. We need to get a stronger individual here
who can handle this job who can be dealing directly with Cabinet
Secretaries, etc. Perhaps Barker can remain as the number two
man.
2
-- Shumway replacement:
With Shumway's departure, there needs to be someone else brought
in to handle the type of assignment that he has been handling. Colson
should work with Klein and Malek to finding another Shumway.
Major Administration Political Issues:
This area needs to be followed up on and coordinated heavily with
the Domestic Council. There needs to be five or six key task forces.
Perhaps one on drugs, aging, the economy, etc., that are continually
meeting and figuring out ways to promote our initiatives in their
respective areas. This is an effort Barker could handle and should
have had underway by now. We are not drawing heavily enough on
the outside people in Departments and Agencies to make sure this is
done.
-- Political cultivation of interest groups and individuals:
While we have done a good job here of opening contacts and maintaining
lists, we haven't very effectively utilized these groups. It might be
good to bring another man in to figure out some political applications
for these groups or reorient Bell more in this direction.
The Youth effort is almost non-existent with McLane obviously not
producing very much. Perhaps we should look for someone wise here
and do it quickly. Chuck's concern over the areas of Labor and Aging
are probably justified. Malek is currently doing a study to determine
areas where we need to bring people in for the Campaign and these
special interests would certainly be high on the list. Once again, the
task force concept needs to be put in being here.
Ask Chuck to provide Malek with a list of the areas where he thinks we
need to consider bringing on additional White House staff during the
election year. Have Malek staff these Colson suggestions with the
rest of the people here to see if we could use more people.
3
-- Counter-Attack:
In the counter-attack area, in addition to getting a man on the
Congressional side, we need to have a better mechanism set
up for Buchanan and Khachigian to reaction material. This is
something that is not coming on a smooth or automatic enough
fashion. Buchanan and Khachigian need to be brought in more
with the new man and get a specific working arrangement
established here.
Maximising media coverage for the political promotion for
the President:
One of the areas where we have really fallen down here is getting
Meore or Safire involved in all of the events and making sure they
push our story. This is something Colson should constantly be
pushing with the scheduling people. Also, it might be helpful for
Chuck to hold a small meeting with the three people who are putting
the line out to make sure there is a coordinated effort to pump our
line. This would be Moore, Safire and Scall plus Shumway or his
replacement. He should constantly keep Ziegler informed of what
he is doing here.
-- Maximising Administration resources:
This needs to be handled probably on a higher level basis. Is
Pat O'Donnell really heavy enough to handle this job and have we
made all the efforts we should make to position him correctly.
These are two questions that need to be answered.
-- Mailings:
Chuck should be getting together with the Citizen's Committee to
figure out how we are going to mesh the two mailing operations.
Some mailings can obviously be more effective coming from the
White House, others from the Citizen's Committee.
4
-- Allen Hall:
I agree with Colson that he should get rid of Allen Hall. Hall would
probably be a very good advance man for Mrs. Nixon and the girls
and should be put to work in this area.
LH:kb