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September 6, 1972

Introduction

This almanac page for Wednesday, September 6, 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: Tuesday, September 5, 1972

Next Date: Thursday, September 7, 1972

Schedule and Public Documents

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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

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  • 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)
      Wednesday, September 6.

      President met with Rogers and Kissinger first thing this morning on the Israeli hostage question. He wants Rogers to take the matter to the UN in order to keep Rogers busy. They didn't get into a discussion of Kissinger's tour, but Rogers apparently is still maneuvering around in various ways to screw that up, which is, of course, driving Henry up the wall. President is fortunately off the idea of going to the services but is talking about going to church at the time of the funeral without any prior announcement.

      He had Ehrlichman and Colson in. We discussed general campaign strategy, the need to keep McGovern answering, positive stuff on our side won't do this; we should pay no attention to his attacks, except at a low level to keep the record clear. Their attack on us will eventually seep through because they have the media with them. Clawson's right, Scali's wrong on this. We'll now see a total media support effort. The question as to how to combat is we have to attack McGovern where he's vulnerable. We should hit these points all the time. More people on welfare, they'll pay more to welfare people than to workers, they'll raise taxes because of the increase in government spending, they'll cause inflation, and ultimately a recession. Also, the social issue, particularly amnesty and marijuana, because it grabs the Catholic Democrats, and must be hit along with lifestyle, McGovern's type of people. On foreign policy, hit him as being totally naive, hitting his judgment. Keep them talking about Vietnam, repeat the bugout charge. Don't respond as we did last week. Go all out on the attack, where he's weak: on welfare, taxes, social, tie the radicals to him, and foreign policy, and the second strongest nation point. The main thing is attack and make him answer. Use flyers at McGovern meetings, and demand that he answer this, force him to respond to the attack, run an ad in the Wall Street Journal. The Democrats for Nixon hit McGovern's duplicity in his Wall Street Journal ad.

      We had a long meeting with Connally, he got into the IMF speech question. Connally makes the point the President should do it but should speak to the United States rather than to the IMF, talking about fighting inflation, increasing productivity, insisting on equality in order to create new jobs, and so on. He should keep hitting McGovern, because he'll get mean if we do. His only hope is overkill by us and sympathy on his side, which we've got to be careful of. We should hit the point that the nation is fed up with those who degrade it, tearing down, belittling, destroying. This would be a good speech for Agnew, or could be worked into the President's Alamo speech on the spirit of America.

      Connally makes a good pitch on tax reform, that when McGovern talks about it, we shouldn't talk about a new program, we should hit the specifics of what we've done. We've taken 9.5 million people off of the tax rolls at the low income level, we've reduced personal income taxes $19.5 billion dollars, we've reduced the excise tax, which is paid by individuals by $3.5 billion. We've raised corporation taxes $4.5 billion. We will reduce the property tax. There are two reform bills in '69-'71 are the most sweeping tax reform in this century, since the income tax started. We should hit McGovern's tax proposals as old proposals that were submitted to Lyndon Johnson and he thought they were so bad he wouldn't even send them to Congress. Connally raises the point that Gene McCarthy wants an FCC or public broadcasting spot, and that he would give a public endorsement to the President. He hates McGovern.

      President wants to set up a regular weekly meeting on Tuesday nights at Camp David, with Connally, Mitchell, MacGregor, and me. Connally then had his Democratic crew in. President met all of them, they were quite an impressive group. Then he covered a couple of odds and ends on news summary, strategy, and so forth, and left for the house fairly early.

      End of September 6.
    • Original audio recording (MP3)

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