Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 344 › Conversation 344-022

Nixon & Ziegler on John D. Lavelle and Arms control

Thursday, June 22, 1972 · 12:56 PM–1:08 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Ziegler, Ronald L.Conversation344-022 on Tape 344 (tape position 02:51:35–03:00:12)StartThursday, June 22, 1972 at 12:56 PMEndThursday, June 22, 1972 at 1:08 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 344-022 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler discuss media messaging strategies regarding controversial administration issues, specifically the General John D. Lavelle case and defense policy. Nixon instructs Ziegler to distance the White House from the details of the Lavelle court-martial by deferring to the Department of Defense's position. Furthermore, the President outlines a rhetorical strategy for arms control, emphasizing that ongoing U.S. defense programs were essential to securing agreements with the Soviet Union and should be framed as a necessary precursor to future disarmament progress.

Audio

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This conversation has not yet been cut into its own clip, so the player above contains the full tape segment shared with neighbouring conversations. It begins about 02:51:35 into the tape and ends around 03:00:12.

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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· Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.
2:51:35It was very cleverly done.
2:51:35In fact, your people are always very clever, I believe, and I hope that you find those incredible shoes that they're working on that you've never worked on before.
2:51:51Oh, it was a fine job.
2:51:52Okay.
2:51:53Thanks.
2:51:54Yeah, very good one.
2:51:56Wow.
2:53:55Hello.
2:54:11Hi, Ron.
2:54:12I just got, uh, that's, uh, an armchair.
2:54:15It'll come up pretty quick, so, uh...
2:54:21Do you think I should get into Lavelle then?
2:54:23My own view is that if I do, I'm sort of close to getting into Lavelle.
2:54:28I just, my thought at the beginning was to say that the foreign policy is not going to matter.
2:54:41I guess I'll say that on the matter that it hasn't layered the legislation on it.
2:54:51I mean, they have said there's not going to be a court-martial, right?
2:54:54Well, of course there should not be.
2:54:56Yeah, I just say in the Department of Defense, the Department of the Secretary of Defense, the Discussion Committee has stated that there's a decision on that matter, and I support that decision, period.
2:55:10And so I'd rather say, rather than get into it.
2:55:15I'm forwarding stuff.
2:55:16I'm not going to get into the business of saying this can't even go and all that crap.
2:55:26It's what we live for.
2:55:27We just want to stay out of that.
2:55:30The Department of Defense takes a position on that.
2:55:37I support that.
2:55:39It really is so much more important.
2:55:41Now the other thing was this.
2:55:43I was thinking...
2:55:45I don't know what else to say.
2:55:46I'm not sure if I can say that.
2:55:49But I was in protection because they recovered that.
2:55:51And I just spoke to him about what he said.
2:55:54And he said, of course, I don't know what it's all about.
2:56:00I don't know what he said.
2:56:03But I think that's just kind of that theory.
2:56:07I think I don't know what it's all about.
2:56:10It's a process.
2:56:10And I don't know what it's all about.
2:56:15They do that sometimes.
2:56:19If you have a single standard, you have to follow the legal control of the steel papers from the White House.
2:56:26There's a lot of steel papers from the government.
2:56:30What do you think about that?
2:56:32Because, you know, there's bubblings.
2:56:34There's not bubblings.
2:56:35And everything else involved in that, they are theft.
2:56:38And the NPR kind of broke into that research and into the market.
2:56:45There we go.
2:56:46There we go.
2:56:55There we go.
2:56:55There we go.
2:57:10I'm wrong when I say this, and I say this, and I say this, and I say this, and I say this, and I say this, and I say this, and I say this, and I say this,
2:57:40I was wondering if this black-and-white layer is something that you would like to address?
2:57:53I just want to say this, and I would say this, and I would like to say this, and I would say this, and I would say this, and I would say this,
2:58:13Now, what we have to realize is that this is the first step.
2:58:26To take the next step, which can be a much bigger step, a permanent
2:58:39a comprehensive implementation on office as well.
2:58:43It is indispensable that the United States have ongoing programs.
2:58:46It would be harder to give any incentive to the Soviet Union to negotiate it because the impression of it is very clear that they were going to have ongoing programs.
2:58:53I can tell you, Donald, we wouldn't have an APM agreement.
2:58:56We wouldn't have a defense implementation.
2:58:57We wouldn't have any agreement with all of Moscow had we not had an ongoing program with APM.
2:59:02You see my point?
2:59:02It's a hell of a problem for the Soviet Union.
2:59:09How do you say it?
2:59:15How do you respond to that?
2:59:20We've got to get in this.
2:59:21We'll probably leave it out at this point.
2:59:25There's a bear that laid my feet as a witch.
2:59:29That wasn't the same.
2:59:31I'll address that question.
2:59:33I'll address that question.
2:59:42The main thing you should take on, you see, not the vision.
2:59:52The way Larry said it, even more of a vision.
2:59:57You've got to say, this is the first step.
3:00:02In order to make the next giant step, the big step,
3:00:07the president is that it would be ironic and it would be tragic if those, if there were senators who would support the arts control is limited and then vote against the

NARA Description

On June 22, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 12:56 pm to 1:08 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 344-022 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 344-22

Date: June 22, 1972
Time: 12:56-1:08 pm
Location: Old Executive Office Building

The President talked with Ronald L. Ziegler.

[See Conversation No. 25-123]

Also recorded on June 22, 1972

  • 025-121 12:14 PM · 35 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Constance M. Stuart talked on the telephone from 12:14 pm to 12:15 pm.
  • 344-019 12:14 PM · 32 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Constance M. Stuart met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 12:14 pm to 12:15 pm.
  • 025-122 12:15 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 12:15 pm and 12:56 pm.
  • 344-020 12:15 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 12:15 pm and 12:56 pm.
  • 344-021 12:15 PM · 16 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 12:15 pm and 12:56 pm.
  • 025-123 12:56 PM · 11 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler talked on the telephone from 12:56 pm to 1:08 pm.
  • 344-023 1:08 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:08 pm and 1:35 pm.
  • 344-024 1:35 PM · 11 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 1:35 pm to 1:45 pm.

All 38 conversations from June 22, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 344-022, June 22, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/344-022 (accessed September 24, 2026).