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From Price to Nixon RE: "Recommendations for Kentucky Rally Speech" 3 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 10/25/1972
From Price to Nixon RE: "Recommendations for Long Island Rally Speech" 5 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 10/18/1972
From Price to Nixon RE: "Recommendations for Long Island Rally Speech" 5 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 10/18/1972
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This file contains:
From Price to Nixon RE: "Recommendations for Kentucky Rally Speech" 3 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 10/25/1972
From Price to Nixon RE: "Recommendations for Long Island Rally Speech" 5 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 10/18/1972
From Price to Nixon RE: "Recommendations for Long Island Rally Speech" 5 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 10/18/1972
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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
47
10/25/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Price to Nixon RE: "Recommendations
for Kentucky Rally Speech" 3pg
53
47
10/18/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Price to Nixon RE: "Recommendations
for Long Island Rally Speech" 5pg
53
47
10/18/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Price to Nixon RE: "Recommendations
for Long Island Rally Speech" 5pg
Monday, June 25, 2012
Page 1 of 1
DOCUMENT WITHDRAWAL RECORD [NIXON PROJECT]
DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT
NUMBER
TYPE
SUBJECT/TITLE OR CORRESPONDENTS
DATE
RESTRICTION
N-1
memo
Price to RN re: Recommendations
10/25/72
J
DOC#147]
for Kentacky Rally Speech".
N-2
memo
Price to RN re: "Recommendations
10/18/72
J
[Doc*148]
for Long Island Rally speech".
FILE GROUP TITLE
BOX NUMBER
STAFF SECRETARY
135
FOLDER TITLE
Presidential Speeches september 1972 December 1972
[I]
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G. Withdrawn and return private and personal material.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H. Withdrawn and returned non-historical material.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:
135
Folder:
Presidential Speeches September 1972 - December 1972 [I]
Document
Disposition
147
Return
148
Return Private/Political
MEMORANDUM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 25, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:
FROM:
RAY PRICE
THE PRESIDENT Rull
SUBJECT: Recommendations for Kentucky Rally Speech
Paralleling the soundings we took for the Long Island
visit, my staff have contacted Louie Nunn and Arch Moore,
Senators Cooper and Cook and Kentucky Re-elect Chairman
Gene Goss for advice about your remarks in Ashland.
All expressed the feeling that your themes in recent
campaign talks would be most appropriate and well received
in this setting. But they also appealed for at least passing
mention of some specialized local issues. Unemployment
and energy problems (coal) head the latter list.
Among the preponderantly Democratic miners, your
signing of the Black Lung Relief Act is evidently a very
strong crossover incentive. Nunn and Goss recommended
issuance of a statement on steps to implement the program.
Applicants for black lung benefits number upward of 100, 000
in Kentucky and West Virginia together. We will prepare a
statement on this.
A new State tax has priced Kentucky coal out of the
market of late; Nunn says he spoke to you of this recently;
there seems to be nothing specific which you could say on
the matter, however.
The Statewide telecast in Kentucky should help in Louis-
ville County, weakest area for Nunn and for you, Cook says.
The President
-2-
He adds that some mention of this year's record tobacco prices,
and tobacco's generally good record since 1969, would go over
well Statewide: almost two-thirds of all Kentucky's farms grow
some tobacco.
What to say about Nunn: Cooper's line is that Louie was
"the best Governor of Kentucky during my lifetime, " great
experience, high integrity, persuasive and forceful, and is
running at John Sherman's personal urging. (Bill Timmons
feels Nunn would be helped if you tied him to Cooper, a very
popular figure. "Nunn will carry on in Cooper's great contri-
butions, etc. '')
West Virginia: Arch Moore says that if this is to be the sum
total of your campaign effort for that State, no mention whatever
of West Virginia would be preferable (for him) to some passing
mention which could be harped on as a slight by what he called
"vicious press. 11 He added that whatever you say to stroke
Kentucky interests will probably touch many of West Virginia's
problems anyway.
Opposition effort in West Virginia has featured two visits
by McGovern, one by Shriver, and 11 Senators. RN will do well
in the State, Moore said, and stated he wished gubernatorial
balloting could be held today.
Moore stressed Appalachia's concern over unemployment.
September rate for his State as a whole was about the national
average, but the Huntington-Ashland area is closer to 7 percent.
"Home to job" mass transportation is an attractive subject in the
area at present, he says. Mention of the Federal commitment
to transit might be appropriate; also recall that Tricia and Volpe
were in Morgantown, W. Va., Tuesday to open an experimental
transit system.
Some highlights of the individual comments were: Cooper:
An H.R. 1 veto, if it comes, will hurt RN badly in this region
and possibly defeat Nunn. Veto will "scare hell out of millions.
The President
-3-
Nunn is scared to death. If the President comes down here after
that veto, his reception will be colder than a well digger's.
11
Emphasize peace efforts in Vietnam, Soviet Union, People's
Republic of China; hit amnesty; hit the big spenders but don't
castigate all Congressional Democrats as such.
Nunn: In Louisville there is much hope that University of
Louisville will be designated a River Grant College by RN
under the new Water Pollution Act. Cook concurs. Both hope
you sign H.R. 1.
Goss: Emphasize concern for follow-through on Black Lung
relief.
####
MEMORANDUM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 18, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:
THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
RAY PRICE
SUBJECT:
Recommendations for Long Island
Rally Speech
We have solicited the thoughts of about a dozen individuals who would
be particularly in tune with the New York State and Long Island situa-
tions. Governor Rockefeller, Senators Buckley and Javits, Bill Casey,
Burdell Bixby, and Nassau County GOP Chairman Joseph Margiotta
are among those contacted.
The advice is of course very diffuse, but some points of consensus
emerge.
There is wide agreement that you would touch a most responsive chord
by stroking Nassau-Suffolk community pride and economic interests
with an announcement on the trip that OMB is designating these counties
as a new, separate Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area in their own
right. (Their 2.5 million combined population exceeds all U.S. cities
but New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. ) Rockefeller and both
Senators are very strong for this, and Cap. Weinberger has it ready to
go. The announcement could be made in a press statement, to which
you could allude near the beginning of your remarks. We're working
up a statement; my own recommendation would be that it just be issued
in written form.
Defense and aerospace unemployment, centering on Grumman's troubles,
places high on everyone's list of major local issues. A reassuring but
nonspecific indication of your awareness of this situation and of the
government's intention to help out is generally felt to be imperative for
inclusion in the rally remarks. Since Grumman lost out to North Amer-
ican Rockwell in the space shuttle competition, there has been consider-
able White House effort expended to help keep them from going the way
-2-
of Lockheed, including staving off of Navy orders for more F-14 jets
on a contract on which the firm loses $2 million per plane, and, on
the positive side, some space shuttle subcontracts which helped to pre-
vent layoff of 300 engineers and which may become Grumman's entering
wedge for a bigger share of the work later in the shuttle program. Your
references to all this, it is recommended, should be limited to code-
word remarks about strong defense and easing the transition to a peace-
time economy.
September polling data, summarized on the attached sheet, also points
up our relative weakness on the jobs issue in Long Island. Issues
bunched at the top in this survey were Vietnam, inflation, crime and
drugs, and taxes. But it is the "pride in our values, stand up for
America" theme, more than any of these specifics, which Rockefeller,
Javits, Buckley, Casey, Margiotta, and in-house people emphasized
most. This tracks with your own instructions to the surrogates last
week. Some material along these lines is included in the preliminary
remarks by John Andrews.
Margiotta notes that Nassau County is about half Catholic and more than
one-fourth Jewish, and that many Dems are coming over in response to
your patriotism-religion-work ethic emphasis.
Selected comments from some of the people we contacted are as follows:
Rockefeller: work the patriotic themes hard; show how the
various foreign policy achievements fit into a single pattern for peace;
dramatize the tangible local benefits of revenue sharing, especially
better law enforcement and safer streets.
Buckley: sketch out the next four years in terms of shift from
works of war to works of peace and increasing focus on domestic needs;
express concern for the environment (water bill veto may be a sore
point up there); boost Reps. Jim Grover, John Wydler, and Norm Lent
(the latter active in POW concerns).
Javits: voice concern for spread of urban ills to suburbs and
outline our efforts to prevent this, especially with respect to crime
and drugs; begin by saying that when in Long Island you are talking to
-3-
all of New York, so you will speak broadly (Buckley favored a more
parochial focus); "about Margiotta, tell the President he tries to be a
prototype of Russell Sprague. "
Gordon Gooch (NY regional director under Malek at CRP):
Nassau effort under Margiotta organization is very strong blitz, CRP
largely deferring to him; Suffolk election efforts relatively poor -- no
bouquets for Chairman Schwink; Conservative Party and Dems for Nixon
are hurting GOP lower on the ticket -- a boost from RN for the GOP
assembly candidates and for a large voter turnout would help a lot;
reference to "peace everywhere in the world -- Vietnam, Middle East,
and Ireland" would be invaluable in cementing many potential Irish
supporters; the Coliseum will be full of "peripheral urban ethnics, "
and this is ideal Nixon country. Give praise to Rockefeller.
Bill Casey: this is a homeowning area, school taxes are out of
sight, and a word on property tax relief would go very well; important
Jewish swing vote will respond favorably to mention of quota issue and
work ethic; these people are self-made, consider themselves Long
Island's "pioneer stock. 11
Don Rodgers: praise Rocky's achievement in building a broad-
based majority in New York, of the type we now seek nationally; outline
an economic future with work for everyone who wants it; pay special
attention to employment problems of technical and professional people;
Nassau GOP is conservative and heavily Italian; in addition to Margiotta,
Country Exec Ralph Caso should be praised.
Bill Gifford: talk about moral and religious values as at Italian
picnic, not about Grumman subcontracts.
Bixby: law and order is a big issue; McGovern's permissive-
ness widely feared.
Margiotta: the issues are set and RN is far ahead; (2-1 margin
early this month, no sign of slippage); "complacency is now my biggest
concern;" this visit is vital to keep momentum up and get out the vote;
RN liked in county as responsible, moderate leader -- McGovern seen
as too far out; Nassau issues as he sees them -- taxes and spending very
- -4- -
important, Vietnam all in RN's favor, busing not hot but overwhelm-
ingly opposed, amnesty a very vulnerable point for McGovern, RN's
summits and peace achievements highly approved.
In addition to the attached remarks, I'm having some selected lines
and passages pulled from your other campaign speeches.
######
Attachment.
POLLING DATA
New York State
*
Vietnam and inflation are by far the most important issues,
according to 1701 polls from September 5-9.
*
Clustered behind in importance are drugs, unemployment,
crime and taxes.
*
Among uncommitted voters, unemployment ranks as a very
important issue.
* On ability to handle the issues, RN receives a negative on
only unemployment and taxes. McGovern has a positive rating on
unemployment, and scores better than RN on taxes and drugs. RN
far ahead on all other issues.
Nassau/Suffolk County Area
*1701 polls show Vietnam top issue. Not far behind are inflation,
taxes and drugs.
* On ability to handle the issues, RN is far ahead on everything
except unemployment: there he has a 49-48 positive rating, while
McGovern comes in at 46-40 positive.
*
Nassau County Chairman Joe Margiotta disagrees with 1701
polls. His own data from Oliver Quayle and his personal surveys
convince him that RN is so far ahead on Vietnam that it is no longer
an issue.
* Margiotta's data shows that taxes and inflation are the top
issues.
Connecticut
*1701 polls from Sept. 5-11 show Vietnam, inflation and unem-
ployment the top issues.
* Clustered behind are drugs, taxes and crime.
###
MEMORANDUM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 18, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:
THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
RAY PRICE
SUBJECT:
Recommendations for Long Island
Rally Speech
We have solicited the thoughts of about a dozen individuals who would
be particularly in tune with the New York State and Long Island situa-
tions. Governor Rockefeller, Senators Buckley and Javits, Bill Casey,
Burdell Bixby, and Nassau County GOP Chairman Joseph Margiotta
are among those contacted.
The advice is of course very diffuse, but some points of consensus
emerge.
There is wide agreement that you would touch a most responsive chord
by stroking Nassau-Suffolk community pride and economic interests
with an announcement on the trip that OMB is designating these counties
as a new, separate Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area in their own
right. (Their 2.5 million combined population exceeds all U.S. cities
but New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. ) Rockefeller and both
Senators are very strong for this, and Cap Weinberger has it ready to
go. The announcement could be made in a press statement, to which
you could allude near the beginning of your remarks. We're working
up a statement; my own recommendation would be that it just be issued
in written form.
Defense and aerospace unemployment, centering on Grumman's troubles,
places high on everyone's list of major local issues. A reassuring but
nonspecific indication of your awareness of this situation and of the
government's intention to help out is generally felt to be imperative for
inclusion in the rally remarks. Since Grumman lost out to North Amer-
ican Rockwell in the space shuttle competition, there has been consider-
able White House effort expended to help keep them from going the way
-2-
of Lockheed, including staving off of Navy orders for more F-14 jets
on a contract on which the firm loses $2 million per plane, and, on
the positive side, some space shuttle subcontracts which helped to pre-
vent layoff of 300 engineers and which may become Grumman's entering
wedge for a bigger share of the work later in the shuttle program. Your
references to all this, it is recommended, should be limited to code-
word remarks about strong defense and easing the transition to a peace-
time economy.
September polling data, summarized on the attached sheet, also points
up our relative weakness on the jobs issue in Long Island. Issues
bunched at the top in this survey were Vietnam, inflation, crime and
drugs, and taxes. But it is the "pride in our values, stand up for
America" theme, more than any of these specifics, which Rockefeller,
Javits, Buckley, Casey, Margiotta, and in-house people emphasized
most. This tracks with your own instructions to the surrogates last
week. Some material along these lines is included in the preliminary
remarks by John Andrews.
Margiotta notes that Nassau County is about half Catholic and more than
one-fourth Jewish, and that many Dems are coming over in response to
your patriotism-religion-work ethic emphasis.
Selected comments from some of the people we contacted are as follows:
Rockefeller: work the patriotic themes hard; show how the
various foreign policy achievements fit into a single pattern for peace;
dramatize the tangible local benefits of revenue sharing, especially
better law enforcement and safer streets.
Buckley: sketch out the next four years in terms of shift from
works of war to works of peace and increasing focus on domestic needs;
express concern for the environment (water bill veto may be a sore
point up there); boost Reps. Jim Grover, John Wydler, and Norm Lent
(the latter active in POW concerns).
Javits: voice concern for spread of urban ills to suburbs and
outline our efforts to prevent this, especially with respect to crime
and drugs; begin by saying that when in Long Island you are talking to
-3-
all of New York, so you will speak broadly (Buckley favored a more
parochial focus); "about Margiotta, tell the President he tries to be a
prototype of Russell Sprague. "
Gordon Gooch (NY regional director under Malek at CRP):
Nassau effort under Margiotta organization is very strong blitz, CRP
largely deferring to him; Suffolk election efforts relatively poor -- no
bouquets for Chairman Schwink; Conservative Party and Dems for Nixon
are hurting GOP lower on the ticket -- a boost from RN for the GOP
assembly candidates and for a large voter turnout would help a lot;
reference to "peace everywhere in the world -- Vietnam, Middle East,
and Ireland" would be invaluable in cementing many potential Irish
supporters; the Coliseum will be full of "peripheral urban ethnics, 11
and this is ideal Nixon country. Give praise to Rockefeller.
Bill Casey: this is a homeowning area, school taxes are out of
sight, and a word on property tax relief would go very well; important
Jewish swing vote will respond favorably to mention of quota issue and
work ethic; these people are self-made, consider themselves Long
Island's "pioneer stock."
Don Rodgers: praise Rocky's achievement in building a broad-
based majority in New York, of the type we now seek nationally; outline
an economic future with work for everyone who wants it; pay special
attention to employment problems of technical and professional people;
Nassau GOP is conservative and heavily Italian; in addition to Margiotta,
Country Exec Ralph Caso should be praised.
Bill Gifford: talk about moral and religious values as at Italian
picnic, not about Grumman subcontracts.
Bixby: law and order is a big issue; McGovern's permissive-
ness widely feared.
Margiotta: the issues are set and RN is far ahead; (2-1 margin
early this month, no sign of slippage); "complacency is now my biggest
concern;" this visit is vital to keep momentum up and get out the vote;
RN liked in county as responsible, moderate leader -- McGovern seen
as too far out; Nassau issues as he sees them -- taxes and spending very
-4- -
important, Vietnam all in RN's favor, busing not hot but overwhelm-
ingly opposed, amnesty a very vulnerable point for McGovern, RN's
summits and peace achievements highly approved.
In addition to the attached remarks, I'm having some selected lines
and passages pulled from your other campaign speeches.
######
Attachment.
POLLING DATA
New York State
*
Vietnam and inflation are by far the most important issues,
according to 1701 polls from September 5-9.
*
Clustered behind in importance are drugs, unemployment,
crime and taxes.
*
Among uncommitted voters, unemployment ranks as a very
important issue.
* On ability to handle the issues, RN receives a negative on
only unemployment and taxes. McGovern has a positive rating on
unemployment, and scores better than RN on taxes and drugs. RN
far ahead on all other issues.
Nassau/Suffolk County Area
*1701 polls show Vietnam top issue. Not far behind are inflation,
taxes and drugs.
* On ability to handle the issues, RN is far ahead on everything
except unemployment: there he has a 49-48 positive rating, while
McGovern comes in at 46-40 positive.
*
Nassau County Chairman Joe Margiotta disagrees with 1701
polls. His own data from Oliver Quayle and his personal surveys
convince him that RN is so far ahead on Vietnam that it is no longer
an issue.
** Margiotta's data shows that taxes and inflation are the top
issues.
Connecticut
*1701 polls from Sept. 5-11 show Vietnam, inflation and unem-
ployment the top issues.
* Clustered behind are drugs, taxes and crime.
###