Insight: Nixon staffer memos

[December 03, 2008]  (AP) -- Some tidbits culled from the 90,000 pages of documents that offer insight into the power players of Richard Nixon's administration and re-election committee. The documents were released Tuesday by the National Archives' Nixon Library.

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In a Jan. 31, 1972, memo, a re-election committee employee responsible for getting out the black vote wrote that he asked Sammy Davis Jr. to campaign actively for Nixon's re-election.

"The entertainer's reaction was that he has not chosen sides and is 'hanging loose,'" wrote Paul Jones. "He indicated wanting to see 'what is in it' -- which was spelled out to mean something 'for the people' -- not for himself."

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In a memo to several Nixon aides, White House Staff Assistant John R. Brown III said, "It is requested that you immediately implement a coordinated Congressional and columnist attack on the question of the Urban Coalition's tax exempt status," because its chairman, John Gardner, had started a lobbying group seen as hostile to Nixon's agenda.

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In a memo between aides Charles W. Colson and H.R. Haldeman, Colson complains about Geoffrey H. Moore, the commissioner of labor statistics, who is described as being "insensitive to political implications and a classical statistician; meaning that he applies little imagination to the statistics."

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In a series of intelligence summaries on "information concerning civil unrest and acts of violence," the acting director and associate acting director of the FBI kept the president, vice president and national security team briefed on events large and small. Some summaries were written by W. Mark Felt, who operated secretly as Deep Throat.

One summary reports on a peaceful Dec. 12, 1972, sit-in of about 20 students at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, R.I.

A Dec. 14, 1972, memo tells of a member of the Black Panther Party who informed the police of a plot to ambush and kill police officers in Atlanta, Ga.

A Dec. 12, 1972, memo details the arrest of musician James Brown along with two others for failing to vacate a Knoxville, Tenn., concert venue at midnight after a show.

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A February 1972 memo from Colson to Nixon suggests that the president offer Republican National Committee chairman Bob Dole some encouragement.

"The key to Bob Dole's effectiveness is his morale and his attitude. A pat on the back from you tonight when you see him would go a long way toward keeping his spirits up. He is very sensitive to this kind of thing and often asks whether you know what he does. The slightest mention would have a very healthy impact."

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A note between political lieutenants at the re-election committee, John Mitchell and Jeb Magruder, outlines plans for getting the female vote, referring to the need for "sensitivity to the new self-awakening."

[Associated Press]

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