On April 6, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, White House operator, Michael J. ("Mike") Mansfield, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 9:20 am to 9:59 am. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 245-002 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Good deal.
Good.
What do you got here?
Let's show the box.
I'm just going to lay it here.
Thank you.
I know they may, but I just don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
We've talked before about doing a notification and stuff.
You know, through Rogers and Laird.
People just report to the station.
You've got to talk to Rogers and Laird and have them notify their key chairmen.
I think they should.
They'll probably want to do it by the moment.
Probably, yeah.
If you talk about the end of October.
You know, I purposely know that I'm checking just to be sure we're going to do it.
I do know Scott and Porter are here.
I think we ought to tell them this morning.
I'll call Mike.
Mike Mansfield, please.
I think I know what I have.
Egg.
I have two girls.
Egg goes to the speaker.
Egg goes to the speaker.
... ... ... ... ...
Hello.
Hello.
Hi Mike.
I don't want to put you out in terms of your own schedule and that's why I'm calling you before I go to the other ring.
I would like to meet with the Big Five to get a hold of you at 7 o'clock tomorrow night.
If you're not already left, but if you're still on my office, I think 4 is going to be your night.
Good evening, Senator.
Oh, I see.
All right.
I'll tell you what I'll do with you.
If you'd like to suggest this with you, one of the ones we have for you.
We don't send anyone to send you a big box.
We've got speakers.
We've got a box.
We've got a board.
We've got the whole Scott, Scott part.
Right, right, right.
I'll tell you this.
I would like to show you before I take the announcement what it's going to be.
It's going to be close to the headline.
Well, I'll tell you what the reason is.
I'm not informing you.
I'm not informing you.
I don't want you to read it.
I've got all sorts of comments.
I'd like to read it all.
10, 30, 11, better.
But I do want any comments.
Suit your time.
The only time I'm tied up, I'm tied up at 11.30, between 11.30 and 12.30.
I'm going at a time when it's a revenue share.
Come in at Southwest Gate and come to the EOP at one of our guys.
We'll be downstairs and bring you up.
You know, it's those officers you and I met before.
All right, Mike.
Are you going home?
You're going to Florida.
Right at East Yoke, I recall, where you go to other grounds.
Uh-huh.
And that opens my deal with the special snow here today.
I'm going to kill you, Mike.
Bye, and I'll see you then.
And as I say, can we say that you and I just talked about our visit to Montana right now?
I believe you.
I got a little suspicious of Mike.
Mike, you're talking to me.
All right, Mike.
Bye.
Bullshit, Mike.
I don't know what to say.
Bye.
I think I can.
It's not Bob, but it's never been Bob.
This thing over there.
Here you go.
I suppose to go to my daughter's school this morning.
Oh, good.
Right away.
Just a minute.
Well, don't let me hold you.
Yeah, let me just a minute.
I'm going to sit down.
Is there anything to do at this point?
I can't take a look right now.
I've got to front pay hands.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Hello.
Hello.
There's some others in the state, but that's not the point.
The question is, where are they going to be?
There's very much time left, and we're going to have to investigate as much as we can.
We've been to the store twice, and a lot of your dear little boys, you know, have shared all over the place, and I haven't seen them say it that much.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
I'm totally honest with myself.
I'm totally honest with myself.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I just think it's a good idea.
There's a different group, as I mentioned, and some of the different people like to take advantage of the genre.
... ... ... ... ...
He's been going in today.
His whole interest is maintaining the defense.
And he's sure about the defense.
But also, there's a lot of concern about what he's going to do.
He's going to maintain the defense.
That's real life.
There's something off each time.
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Now, and that can also be the other thing is that we have to realize that more than a few of us are, as I have basically discovered, very weak, weak, and I don't want to call them weak.
So,
They can be strong in other ways, but not in this view.
So, unless they have, unless they start, or some way, on the way back, they inherit enormous, strong constitutions, which would enable them to resist the wilds and their children.
So, the part that I make is that we need to get ready to do the work that we need to do.
We shall not rule over the country.
We will not rule over the country.
We will not rule over the country.
We will not rule over the country.
We will not rule over the country.
We will not rule over the country.
We will not rule over the country.
I get back to the
And they are not going to have the opportunity
I want you to check back on the gate and see how you're standing.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
But what I'm getting at is this.
I would not say this is the first test.
When I say it was the third, and they couldn't learn, I would say it over the second.
They couldn't learn after the third, and so forth.
They had this great confidence that they were not going to be able to wrap themselves, and so forth.
But they did not.
I don't care who it is.
I don't care who it is.
He's the highest person.
He's the highest person.
He's the highest person.
He's the highest person.
I was watching this morning because it was a good chance just coming back, you know, for exactly this thing.
I would be interested in what Henry's reading is because I suspect Henry gets more direct stuff.
What they put on this guy's name because they feel that, of course, he listens to him.
That's, yeah, available to him.
Yeah.
They don't want to argue about it.
But I don't think, well, I don't know.
I don't see any, even, I don't see the degree that November 3rd, the pre-November 3rd period was probably the worst.
Oh, and really it was not against faith.
Against faith was
post-candidate, Cambodia itself wasn't.
But I know I know, and I've been posted from Cambodia, so I can't say all of that.
Not for the war reasons, but for the domestic and agrarian freedom, which is really more of an authoritarian thing.
You see, I understand how the attitude now has been, at least right there this morning, totally positive on the basis of recognizing
where the problem is, the thing that they're getting us to eat from some of the congressional parties.
But our guys' attitude is not, we've got to do something about it, other than we've got to move into the earth and do the hell with it.
That was one of the staff members' points, that it is a matter of what we do now.
And Rumsfeld then hit in on that, all you're dealing with now is Congress is normal.
Period.
It's just their bad time of the month.
They take January, February, March, instead of winter comes to an end.
And before spring hits, Congress is.
And that bench time, as I said, it's just Congress.
It's every legislative body.
It's a period of winter.
They are all screwed up.
And you've just got to ride it through.
You should go back and look every year.
It's always this way.
And that's the only negative that really has been...
They're concerned is not to let an evident start.
There's a hell of a lot on the other side.
McGregor hit that very hard.
They were saying, McGregor, somebody make a point that you're lacking the backers, uppers, and downers, and they said that's true at all.
Well, but last week, it was Senator Justice who said, you know, there must be a whole hell of a lot of health care.
Now, the other thing is that I want to see leaders saying, when you get a check, you must go.
Thank you.
The point is that they're going to have to
Fishers have faith now.
You've got to support them on the court.
But they don't.
And we have to find out, see.
We've got to find out what they do.
If you're going to take them, you've got to show them.
You've got to show them what they do.
All right.
All right.
Good effort and so forth and so on.
Another decision has come to be made.
I don't want to do anything.
Nothing.
Nothing.
I think the scallion is important.
I don't want the scallion on him.
I'd rather want him in a hawk.
But anyway, he's a decent guy.
Do you have an enemy couple with him?
Well, since I haven't held a spot so long, I couldn't drop it before the guy was coming along.
I'd rather have him wait for me.
Well, if he comes on, then he's going to have to leave.
And then if it's down, then I wouldn't know what's up, John.
It's not going to be good for you at all.
Yeah, it's not going to be good for you at all.
But we obviously couldn't smoke that out.
I don't think you can find that out.
Because it was down all through the period he was thinking about coming in.
True.
Could be a little better now than it was then.
I don't know how people do it.
OK, let it go.
Did we not get any of that instruction?
Not much.
I'm not sure it really got through.
I established curiously that they got a bus sign for a while.
I can't figure what the price is over this market up.
I'll tell you what it is.
You know what it is?
It's a couple little blunts.
It's hard to get through them when they're in space.
And you watch retail sales.
Retail sales is in the late Easter.
It's been perilous.
Actually, we're starting up now.
But despite the Easter, they're up in New York.
above last year and where they're at with the home furnishings.
I saw the Chrysler report.
Chrysler first quarter, we had a net profit of $10 million.
We had a loss of $28 million or something last year to the first quarter.
And they were, they put it in this play thing.
So very optimistic.
You're reading the signs.
Home, home, home furnishings are up.
No.
The apparel things are very volatile.
I'm sure people start buying hats and shoes for the kids.
That could really push this thing going good.
But I think there's something in the market, there's something that you don't know about.
I don't know what it is.
Are they buying cars there?
Are they buying cars?
Well, you generally feel that the staff does not all that.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Less this time than any other time.
You can get better each time.
Just go around the circle.
All right, Henry.
When you finish your call, you can come over.
I hope Henry's staying.
You know, you've got your world around you, but you've got to know the spirit of it.
He's so terribly, terribly hurt.
I don't know how personal he is.
He's not fucking Rogers these days.
It's Laird.
Laird, he's pissed off about.
Laird, I was saying, so he is.
There's a thing that Henry knows.
There's a thing that Henry knows.
There's a thing that Henry knows.
That's nobody.
That's really the problem.
Nobody.
Yeah.
I mean, except for Chicago David, uh, Krigman, and, you know... Who?
Yeah, name them.
Who the hell?
Of course, and all the rest, all the big shot assholes.
None.
None of them support us on anything.
And, uh, that's why establishment names come off as goddamned lessons.
I mean... Ron Gates comes off as...
Put Nolan on there.
I want about three guys like Nolan on the list.
And they'll say, and they'll say, yeah, we've been doing this since the late 60s.
And I'm, and it's not going on there.
On the, the, the, buyout.
Get those goddamn names of the bastards off there.
I want some strong, right-wing bastards on there.
Well, that helps.
That helps.
It's the most important thing.
Okay.
I agree.