Papers indicate Nixon had racial strategy

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Strategists for President Richard Nixon considered using race to divide Democrats in Nixon's re-election effort in 1972, newly released documents show.

The strategy paper in the files of Nixon aide H.R. Halderman, which laid out issues within the Democratic Party Republicans could try to exploit, was among the documents released Monday by the National Archives, CNN reported.

Listed in "Dividing the Democrats" was a strategy calling for the distribution of bumper stickers that "should be spread out in the ghettos of the country" calling for "black presidential and especially vice presidential candidates."

To try to weaken the Democratic challenge to Nixon's re-election, the paper said Republican operatives should "do what is within our power to have a black nominated for No. 2 at least at the Democratic National Convention," CNN reported Monday.

Archivists working with the Nixon documents said they believe the paper was written by aide Patrick Buchanan.

The National Archives, along with the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., made public about 280,000 pages of material, including handwritten notes and carbons of typed documents. None of the material released Monday was written by Nixon, CNN said.

"Some details had been out before, but these are materials that add fine-grain details to what we had before," Tim Naftali, Nixon Presidential Library director, told CNN. "It's very significant, and think of it as more dots to connect -- the mosaic is a little deeper now."