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From Colson to Nixon RE: "Your Meeting with Secretary Connally This Afternoon" 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 4/11/1972
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From Colson to Nixon RE: "Your Meeting with Secretary Connally This Afternoon" 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 4/11/1972
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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
53
3
4/11/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Colson to Nixon RE: "Your Meeting
with Secretary Connally This Afternoon" 2pg
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Page 1 of 1
DOCUMENT WITHDRAWAL RECORD [NIXON PROJECT]
DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT
NUMBER
TYPE
SUBJECT/TITLE OR CORRESPONDENTS
DATE
RESTRICTION
N-1
Memo
Colson to the President fe! "Your
4/11/72
((Nixon)
[67]
Meeting with Secretary Connally This
Afternoon"
FILE GROUP TITLE
BOX NUMBER
STAFF SECRETARY
83
FOLDER TITLE
PRESIDENTIAL MEMOS 1972 CONNALLY
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G. Withdrawn and return private and personal material.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H. Withdrawn and returned non-historical material.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:
Staff Secretary
Box Number:
83
Folder:
Presidential Memos - 1972 Connally
Document
Disposition
67
Return Private/Political
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
April 11, 1972
THE PRESIDENT HAS SEEN
MEMORANDUM FOR:
THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
CHARLES COLSON
SUBJECT:
Your Meeting with Secretary
Connally This Afternoon
In connection with your meeting this afternoon with Secretary
Connally, you might find of interest some very significant data
which Sindlinger passed on to me last night. In two polls prior
to Connally's meeting with the retailers, (March 16-March 22;
March 23-March 30), we declined precipitously in political
standing. In response to the question, "If next year's Presi-
dential election were being held today, would you vote for the
reelection of President Nixon?", we dropped to 39. 8% yes
and 29. 2% no in the first poll and in the second we continued
to decline to 37. 7% yes and 30. 8% no, our poorest showing
since early August of 1971. Following Connally's meeting with
the retailers, for which there was a high public awareness,
there was a dramatic turn around. In the poll of March 31-
April 4, the yes replies rose to 44. 6% and the no replies
declined to 25.2%. In a poll completed this past Sunday, the
yes replies rose to 49.6% and the no replies declined to 21.6%.
Throughout this period, when respondents were asked for the
number one reason that they would not vote for the President's
reelection, approximately half cited, "not stopping inflation",
four times as large as the next most frequent response and many
times larger than the typical replies Sindlinger gets, "I am a
Democrat", "not doing a good job", etc.
2.
Sindlinger's polls always show a greater sensitivity to economic
issues than anything else because generally the interviewe r con-
centrates on economic questions before asking political questions.
Hence the respondent is generally conditioned to thinking about
the economy before expressing a political view. On the other hand,
Sindlinger has an enormous statistical base and even if his informa-
tion is distorted, the trend line would have to be regarded as a
fairly significant barometer.
Sindlinger points out that this was the most volatile swing in
public opinion since the two months preceding your August 15
statement last year. It is very unusual in his poll to show such
sharp movement in the political questions. The fact that we have
bounced back to a very strong position today, actually as high as
we have ever been, indicates that the damage was temporary
but it also indicates how explosive the food price issue is.
Sindlinger attributes the bounce-back to the Connally meeting
with retailers and the fact that food prices have indeed tapered
off in recent weeks.
To summarize Sindlinger's advice and data: (1) we have to be
very sensitive to this issue and alert to price rises, food in
particular, (2) public attitudes are very volatile today especially
on a pocketbook issue like this, and (3) political support for anyone
in today's environment is fragile.
Over the coming months we have to watch carefully for any moveme
of this kind so that we can step in early, take hard, forceful action
and prevent a re-occurance of this kind of political erosion. In this
instance, we almost waited too long. It is a little unnerving to
think of the consequences had this particular cycle occurred next
October.
Also, we are not yet out of the woods on this issue. Male yes
responses continue to run significantly higher than female; there
is still a spread, although not as big as it was a month ago. The
spread between male and female support suggests that the food price
issue is still alive. In short, we have to keep jawboning and/or take
whatever other steps are necessary to at least demonstrate to the
public that we are not going to let food prices rise.