Even in the dog days of a Washington summer, there is Richard Nixon, the audio gift that keeps giving.
The more things change, the more they . . . oh, you know the line. It came to my mind last week as NASA expressed interest in seeing whether its technical wizards could solve the mystery of the famous 18 1/2-minute Watergate tape gap; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talked tough about missile defense in Moscow; the Chicago Cubs held place; the Bears held training camp; and The Wall Street Journal detailed how private foundations are pouring money into campaign finance reform projects.
As I listened to previously undisclosed Nixon tapes at the National Archives in College Park, Md., the same people and topics surfaced, as did the odd couple of former Vice President Spiro Agnew and the late legendary columnist Mike Royko.
In these dog days, praise the lord for Nixon:
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It’s after 10 a.m. on Nov. 24, 1971, and he’s discussing the budget with Treasury Secretary John Connally, Office of Management and Budget Director George Shultz and top aide John Ehrlichman. After discussing revenue sharing, welfare reform and the Drug Enforcement Administration, they turn to NASA, with Nixon focusing on the 1972 re-election campaign and the failed 1970 Apollo 13 moon mission.
Nixon: Space. What’s the problem there? What do you want?
Ehrlichman: The problem there is do we go ahead with the next two shots?
Nixon: No.
Ehrlichman: If we don’t . . .
Nixon: No shots before the election.
All well and good but what about the 17,500 NASA employees, wonder Ehrlichman and Shultz. Unless you scrap the whole program, and fire everybody, says Shultz, you’ve got a lot of folks not doing much work and “they go stale on the job.”
Ehrlichman claims that while the scientific community is hot for the two scheduled manned flights, the American public isn’t. “The American people say, eh, so what?” he claims. But “in pure job terms,” Ehrlichman concedes, NASA is a big deal.
Nixon demurs, thinking the space program is a “waste of money.” Oh, “And the scientific community can go to hell. They’re always wrong.” He cites a nuclear test on the Aleutian island of Amchitka the month before, in advance of which some scientists and others predicted earthquakes, tidal waves and radioactive leakage. It didn’t happen, Nixon says.
When Shultz suggests waiting until after the election, Nixon seems satisfied. “There are not going to be any shots between now and the election. Period.”
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Nixon and Ehrlichman are chagrined with Congress passing the partial public financing of presidential campaigns via the income tax check-off. Nixon ultimately will sign a larger legislative package that includes the measure but does so assuming (erroneously) that the provision will be killed the next year.
Nixon: John, let me tell you this. I’m a helluva lot interested for what we leave as the legacy for the political system in this country. You gotta remember the smartest thing the Congress did was to limit the voters in this country. Out of 3 1/2 to 4 million people, 200,000 voted. And that was true for a helluva long time, and the republic would have never survived if all the dummies had voted along with the intelligent people.
Now we’ve gone all the way and passed voting rights. We’ve got people voting down there, ah, we even got rid of the literacy tests now. So you got people voting now–blacks, whites, Mexicans and the rest–that shouldn’t have anything to say about government; mainly because they don’t have the brains to know.
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On Nov. 22, 1971, the eighth anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination, Ehrlichman tells Nixon “we have a chance to pick up Catalina Island as a national park.”
“Buying it?” Nixon asks.
“Nooooooo!” Ehrlichman says. “Wrigley will give it to us.”
Chewing gum mogul and Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley owned most of the 120-square-mile island off California.
The two wax enthusiastic. “Great!” Nixon says. “It will be a beautiful park.” He wonders whether cars were allowed on the island (they were) and, then, who brought up this notion of donating the land.
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Ehrlichman mentions William Pereira, a prominent Los Angeles architect, as the conduit. “He dealt with Wrigley through the years.” As for Wrigley, “very difficult guy to deal with on land, apparently. Apparently a very strange bird.”
“Mishandled the Cubs,” says the president of the United States, a declaration not even his staunchest critics could disagree with.
“Pereira said he [Wrigley] has never really been engaged in business,” Ehrlichman says. “Never had any debt, never borrowed any money for the chewing gum company. Has always operated on strictly a cash basis. And he says the value of this island is going to ruin him when he dies.”
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In the same Oval Office chat, Nixon “hatchet man” Charles Colson, later to serve prison time for his Watergate actions, shows up and the conversation turns to dumb comments Agnew has apparently made in Chicago.
“Rose told me about that. What the hell is it?” Nixon says, referring to his secretary, Rose Mary Woods.
“He made fun of welfare recipients in a very, very tasteless way, apparently, and it was in the joke part of the thing. And he took off on welfare recipients,” Ehrlichman says.
“He and his gag writer,” an exasperated Nixon says. “But I wish to Christ he wouldn’t use him. It’s not really what he ought to do.”
Nixon asks Colson whether he knows what was said. Colson responds that, yes, something to the effect of “put the want ads in the ceiling so they can read them while they’re lying on their backs.” But, fortunately, it apparently didn’t make the national news, he says, though “there was a Mike Royko column this weekend in which he just cut Agnew apart.”
“Did he? I haven’t seen that, either,” Ehrlichman says.
“It would be good for us,” Nixon says, implying that a shot at Agnew would be a good thing.
“He’s good at cutting people apart,” Colson says about Royko.
“Did he cut him up over this?” Nixon says, referring to Agnew’s welfare remarks.
“That’s what I understand,” Colson concludes.
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It’s 4:41 p.m. on Christmas Eve, 1971, and Nixon is alone in the Oval Office, a seemingly sad figure, making calls to wish various aides a good holiday, with no hint of doing anything interesting himself.
The latest is to White House aide Rumsfeld. After discussing various matters, he wishes him a good Christmas. “Don’t worry about anything over the weekend. Just watch football games.”
Rumsfeld does some apple-polishing, telling him how great it is to be in his administration. Then comes this oddness as Nixon alludes to a movie on ABC, starring James Caan and Billy Dee Williams.
Nixon: Incidentally, did you see, I wanted to ask you, did you see “Brian’s Song?”
Rumsfeld: No sir.
Nixon: You know what I’m talking about?
Rumsfeld: No!
Nixon: The Piccolo story?
Rumsfeld: No. Never even heard of it.
Nixon: The Chicago Bears, in 1965 and 6 had this halfback, Brian Piccolo, who played with Gale Sayers, and Piccolo got cancer and died.
Rumsfeld : Oh, I heard of him.
Nixon: ABC had made a movie of it, an hour and half movie, and I saw it last night at the White House. And it is the most beautiful movie. It’s very emotional and corny in many ways. And I’m having it put on in the White House Monday night for anybody in the White House family who’d like to see it in the theater here. And I would urge you to bring your children. It is a beautiful story. It is the best story on race relations. It will do more good on race relations than anything I have seen in years. It’s that good. It shows how Sayers and Piccolo roomed together, and, ah, really, and how Sayers saw him through to his death, and all that. Be sure to come see it.
Rumsfeld: We’ll do that! Very good.
Nixon: OK.
Oh, as far as the more things change, the more they . . . You know. ABC just finished shooting a new version of “Brian’s Song,” which will air this winter.