Nixon Does It Again

Death was simply not enough to stop Richard Nixon. In Slate there's a newly-released memo that Nixon apparently wrote in 1970, in which he senses (correctly?!) that he's losing the PR battle with the public regarding his personal character and complains to his staff for 10 pages about how voters fail to appreciate his "warm and friendly" side. It's pretty long, so here are the highlights:

"There are innumerable examples of warm items - the way we have gone far beyond any previous President in this century in breaking our backs to be nicey-nice to the Cabinet, staff, the Congress, etc. around Christmastime in terms of activities that show personal concern, not only for them, but for their families. For example, the Church service, every other person who comes through that line practically gets tears in his eyes when he thanks us for allowing them to bring their children to church. I have yet to see any columnist write this, and I of course doubt that anybody will because none of us really have the capacity to get it across (due to the fact that we are 'slightly embarrased to say such things'). There are such little things such as the treatment of household staff, the elevator operators, the office staff, the calls that I make to people who are sick, even though they no longer mean anything to anybody, the innumerable letters I have written to people when they have fallen on bad days, including even losing an election. I doubt if any President in history has ever written somebody who has lost an election."

"No President could have done more than I have done in this respect and particularly in the sense that I have treated them like dignified human beings, and not like dirt under my feet."

"Again, I will utterly decline to tell people in the morning all the good deeds I have done but there are enough people around who know of such incidents who simply have to get together and work them out."

"This is the primary failure of the public relations side of my first two years, and the irony of it is, of course, that we have gained the liability of being known as a 'PR-obsessed Administration' and have been less successful in PR than in any other area of undertaking."

"I again respectfully urge that ways be found to point out that the president works late at night, gets up early in the morning, doesn't have lunch, writes his own speeches when he can, spends interminable hours listening to dullards discuss subjects on which he has forgotten more than they will ever know, etc., etc., etc...This has not gotten across in any poll that I have seen and if we don't get this across we have really dropped the ball."

"...everybody wants me to sit down and talk to members of the staff in a puffing way about how 'nicey nice' I have been to members of the staff. That is not the way to do it. If warmth is to be believable it must be discovered..."

Give it time, Dick. Give it time.