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October 5, 1972

Introduction

This almanac page for Thursday, October 5, 1972, pulls together various records created by the federal government and links to additional resources which can provide context about the events of the day.

Previous Date: Wednesday, October 4, 1972

Next Date: Friday, October 6, 1972

Schedule and Public Documents

  • The Daily Diary files represent a consolidated record of the President's activities. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    The President's day began at The White House - Washington, D. C.

  • The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents made available transcripts of the President's news conferences; messages to Congress; public speeches, remarks, and statements; and other Presidential materials released by the White House.

    Digitized versions can be found at HathiTrust.

  • Each Public Papers of the Presidents volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the White House Office of the Press Secretary during the time period specified by the volume. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events. In instances when the release date differs from the date of the document itself, that fact is shown in the text note.

    To ensure accuracy, remarks have been checked against audio recordings (when available) and signed documents have been checked against the original, unless otherwise noted. Editors have provided text notes and cross references for purposes of identification or clarity.

  • The Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other Presidential documents.

  • The Congressional Record is the official daily record of the debates and proceedings of the U.S. Congress.

Archival Holdings

Any selection of archival documents will necessarily be partial. You should use the documents and folders identified below as a starting place, but consult the linked collection finding aids and folder title lists and the collections themselves for context. Many documents to be found this way do not lend themselves to association with specific dates, but are essential to a complete understanding of the material.

  • Selective document listing

    President's Office Files

    The President's Office Files consists of materials drawn together by the Special Files Unit from several administrative subdivisions within the White House Office. It is the handwriting and sensitive papers sent to the Staff Secretary that now comprise much of the President's Office Files. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    President's Personal File

    The President's Personal File is essentially a President's secretary's file, kept by Rose Mary Woods, personal secretary to the President, for two purposes: (1) preserving for posterity a collection of documents particularly close to the President, whether because he dictated or annotated them, or because of the importance of the correspondent or the event concerned and (2) giving appropriate attention–letters of gratitude, invitations to White House social events, and the like–to members and important friends and supporters of the Nixon administration. This generalization does not describe all the varied materials of a file group which is essentially a miscellany, but it does identify the reason for the existence of the file group's core. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

  • The H. R. Haldeman Diaries consists of seven handwritten diaries, 36 dictated diaries recorded as sound recordings, and two handwritten audio cassette tape subject logs. The diaries and logs reflect H. R. Haldeman’s candid personal record and reflections on events, issues, and people encountered during his service in the Nixon White House. As administrative assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, Haldeman attended and participated in public events and private meetings covering the entire scope of issues in which the Nixon White House engaged in during the years 1969-1973. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    • Transcript of diary entry (PDF)
      Thursday, October 5.

      Press conference this morning went extremely well. One of the best he's done in the office. He was very low key, we got in some extremely good digs at the press. Hit them on their single standard thing, really knocked McGovern on his charges of corruption and cited a number of them. Got the Jerry Waldie quote in by saying one of the few members of his Party in Congress who support our opponent. He has vigorously criticized this kind of tactics and so on. After the press conference, he had a whole bunch in, Colson, MacGregor, Scali, Ehrlichman and Ziegler for sort of a general analysis and discussion. The President's feeling that he ought to do more press conferences. He felt pretty good, obviously, about this one, and the group tended to agree. They also decided to buy radio time, a half hour, and rerun the press conference, as well as to make it available to the networks. In the middle of this, Ehrlichman comes up with a problem on synthetic natural gas. The President gave him an instant answer, and said go ahead and do what you want to do, but call Connally first on the decision.

      We had some discussion on the merits of a TV press conference versus in-office and the question of one in DC versus going out into the country somewhere. Nothing really came out of that. He had Colson and me over at the EOB a little later. Got into the general political thing, says there's only really four issues, then proceeded to enumerate six or seven being: amnesty, marijuana, welfare, tax increase, Communist government imposed on South Vietnam, and reduction of defenses. Feels that we've got to get our people to make that speech. Back up on the things like inflation, unemployment and taxes, but the main items are the ones he enumerated, that we've got to go with the issues that get to the people, like amnesty does; that we should do a commercial on it; that we should hit him on his low-road gutter tactics; that Nixon is not off the high road of statesmanship, is not going to get off the high road of statesmanship to get in the gutter with McGovern. He also thought we ought to pick up the Dulles vignette that he used in his press conference about the good discipline of having to prepare a speech even though it's a lot of hard work.

      He had political strategy group meeting at 3:00 with Dole, Mitchell, MacGregor, Harlow and Ehrlichman. Made the point that we need a big vote this year, that it's to our advantage. The problem of how to handle the interpretation of the victory, that we can't sell the idea of a close election and so forth, that we don't want to sell the idea of McGovern gaining now. All our advertising nationally should hit the big vote, the big vote helps us, the small vote helps him. The Connally organization can't do anything on getting out the vote. We need to work with Nixon superstates for big vote. Dole thinks that the fear of McGovern will get the votes out. The President hit on using the telephone himself, calling some of our phone centers, volunteers, and so forth and Dole and MacGregor both sparked to that. Said we could start this program for the last three weeks, especially using Saturdays and Sundays. He also OK'd using his signature on the "Get out the vote" telegrams. He told them he would not campaign against any Democrat that has strongly supported him. On his schedule, it was agreed that there would be no appearance for any one candidate. He’ll do general regional things, but like the Southern thing, he described the Atlanta visit. Agreed that we should get more people in as Mitchell suggested, then for the Northeast he wants to do a gathering at Pocantico with Rockefeller's people, but also agreed maybe we ought to do Buffalo. Chicago for the Midwest, Denver for the Mountains and Southwest, then cover the Northwest by phone calls, no meeting. He mentioned the motorcade through Southern Ohio. Then they raised the point about bringing candidates in to see the President for individual appointments and doing a film, which he agreed to do. Also agreed to do phone calls for the hosts for President meeting starting the 17th and agreed to having Governor candidates come in. He hit again on the amnesty issue and defense and so forth. Wants to be sure that we have a good counter attack set after the 9th and 10th when McGovern cuts loose.

      After that meeting we had a meeting with Samuel Bell, who was singularly uninspiring. He obviously writes much better than he talks. He's a weird little fellow and the President had trouble drawing him out, although he did get some rather interesting insights that will be covered in Colson's report of the meeting.

      End of October 5.
    • Original audio recording (MP3)

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Context (External Sources)