Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 652 › Conversation 652-003
Nixon, Woods & Butterfield on State of the Union Address
Thursday, January 20, 1972 · 1:22 PM–1:33 PM ET · Oval Office · 11 min
AI Summary
President Nixon met with his personal secretary Rose Mary Woods to discuss the reception of his recent State of the Union Address and administrative strategy. The two analyzed the reactions of political opponents, specifically Senator Edward Kennedy, and reviewed the logistics of promoting the Equal Rights Amendment to ensure the administration's position was clear. Additionally, the President discussed personal matters, including securing funding for his daughters, Julie and Tricia, to purchase campaign-appropriate clothing to bolster their public appeal.
- State of the Union Address
- Equal Rights Amendment
- Edward M. Kennedy
- Julie Nixon Eisenhower
- Tricia Nixon Cox
- Lyndon B. Johnson
Audio
Transcript (AI-generated)
This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 1 minute of this recording (about 5% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.
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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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Hi, Rose.
Did you go down?
Oh, yes.
Oh, I didn't know.
There's another.
Come on.
All right.
Come on.
I have a death, death loss.
You know, one thing that I do, nobody's got.
I don't have to do it.
It can't be.
No, it's together, sure.
This was on the 30 Minutes.
I know it.
I know it.
I've always been less than 40 to get these down to 30 minutes.
That's all I know.
To listen longer than that.
When they do them so long again, they get to be there.
It's so technical.
And 30 minutes is a good time.
And it speaks with that song.
I just thought it was a good time.
This type of heard on the forehand and said I totally agree with that, that we're stuck with an equal rights amendment.
I realize that the Constitution and so forth, but that we should at least set the record absolutely straight.
We're for it.
And I want some action to indicate maximum.
But listen, before that,
Because I know, as Julie pointed out, Eddie Kennedy, you've got to be sure about that.
He said he's reversed his position.
I've always been for it.
But still, I'm a friend of his letter.
He said, well, I'm quite a nice supporter.
It's because... Well, Dad, how am I supposed to tell those people that you're doing it?
No, the key answer is the mail.
The point is the fact we get the mail.
Well, I mean, it takes about 24 hours.
But Carolyn knows, she'll just say that there's going to get something out of it.
Some demonstration, maybe, with our women.
Congress is going to come down this evening.
You know, there's some other section of that in the lab.
It really was a lot of upliftment, you know.
Yeah.
Those clouds act like man.
Yeah, come on, be man.
Quit being, quit running down the country.
That's it.
I was watching the people, you know, from where we were sitting, staring straight across.
Kennedy, Buffy, you know, Hopcrate, Hughes.
You know, they're really, when I look at them, it just gives me the creeps to think.
No, look, it's hard to think how distinguished they are in the summertime.
Dear ladies, welcome to Granville.
This is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh,
I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll let you know.
.
.
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.
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.
. .
You know, Julie does a lot of, she does such a great job, she goes around so much.
And several instances here, I see that she, her mother is doing her dressing in a different way than they've done.
Now, Julie, in order to appease young kids, you've got to have young folks.
I think that we should, you know, that I, I don't know if I can talk to her about it, but I'd like to give her, you know, have her get some bigger money, you know.
Yeah, you say it in the campaign.
Yeah.
Because she is going out, but we have some funds.
We have some dollars to tell her she can go out and buy some dresses.
I think she wants it.
Well, you know, because she's so cute, and she didn't wear a few things, and she should, because she's so young and such a doll.
If you agree, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know.
Yeah, just say there's some money available for her clothes.
Chris doesn't have a problem because she's smaller and she's got all the clothes.
Yeah, she's always gotten a lot of clothes, but she's never had any.
She's got a lot, she's small, she can't wear a lot of things.
Well, she could if they were made down to it.
I'll wait until the right time to talk to her, but I just think it would be fun for her to go get a lot of gay things.
She does some of us.
I don't know if there's going to be any much to it for her.
You can call back.
Yes, sir.
Go ahead.
Thank you a lot, of course.
I appreciate it, but once it's done, I'll just deliver it to them and then get out of there and I'll come back.
Way to work.
You did.
You delivered it.
Great.
High five.
Well, it's partly because when they start out, they don't really know what to hear, I suppose.
Well, no, they hate to give up beautiful words that they've written, too.
Nobody likes to cut anything.
I hate to cut, but I know there's one important thing.
Nothing other than to get out of the speech every day and cut it out.
Ray was so thrilled when he came back to visit.
I wasn't in the car with him, but I walked in here.
And he just thought he delivered it so well.
He was just very thrilled.
Well, as said, Ted Kennedy really should have felt like a jackass sitting there.
I guess he was a real awful black.
But you know, when you were quoting what President Kennedy said,
You know, I can't stand it anyway, but you could just see the red door in your face.
And you didn't, you could have stopped, you could have paused and made that very, you went right on.
You could really have done it.
You could really have been very mean with that, because it was a... Silly statement.
We'll fight any foe, anywhere.
That means you didn't marry him.
We'll live with you.
Anything.
All right.
That's why we got in so much trouble, you know.
They always said what sounded crazy.
He had not done anything by the time he died on any of his singles.
If he'd lived, I don't think he would have done half of what Johnson had done.
Oh, yeah, I agree.
Jonathan came in kind of early to get a lot more done, and he got a lot of them to regret, but it has to be the whole poverty curve.
It's the worst thing that's happened to us.
Yeah, Jonathan was... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it raised the blacks up, and it created... Johnson didn't believe in it.
Johnson didn't believe in it.
Johnson's a racist.
Hell, I'm not.
You know, I don't know the beauty of it, but I had no racist feeling about it.
Johnson did it.
He was trying to out-candidate.
He had to prove that he could do all that.
We're more liberal.
We want to be more liberal.
Yeah.
The greatest I...
Mrs. Conley had on a cute blue dress today.
Oh yeah, all the catapults are right up in the back of her hat.
She's so nice.
And she just looks beautiful.
Yeah, a pretty blue dress.
You notice why I looked at Conley when he spoke about the tax day?
Right, and your robot, she's great.
Because she really is cute.
All the cats are watching her, they look nice.
It's the greatest fact you've ever seen.
Oh, it's really, and watching them come in, it's a real thrill.
Pat and Gerald said very good things when they came in.
NARA Description
On January 20, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, Alexander P. Butterfield, unknown person(s), and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:22 pm and 1:33 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 652-003 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 652-3
Date: January 20, 1972
Time: 1:22 pm - unknown before 1:33 pm
Location: Oval Office
The President met with Rose Mary Woods.
The President’s State of the Union Address, January 20, 1972
-Woods’s view
-Woods’s presence
Instruction
State of the Union Address
-Woods’s view
-Length
-Compared with addresses by Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and
Lyndon B. Johnson
-The President’s previous addresses
-Woods’s view
Equal Rights Amendment [ERA]
-Note to John D. Ehrlichman
-Administration position
-Publicity
-Edward M. Kennedy’s position
-Julie Nixon Eisenhower’s report
-Administration position
-Barbara H. Franklin
-Letter
-Publicity
-Ehrlichman
-Women in Congress
State of the Union Address
-Woods’s observations
-Edward Kennedy, Edmund S. Muskie, Hubert H. Humphrey and Harold E.
Hughes
-Senate
-Members
Margaret Chase Smith
An unknown man [Alexander P. Butterfield?] entered at an unknown time after 1:22 pm.
-Administrative Assistant
-Name [William C. Lewis]
The unknown man left at an unknown time before 1:29 pm.
[The President talked with the White House operator at an unknown time between 1:22 pm and
1:29 pm.]
[Conversation No. 652-3A]
[See Conversation No. 19-32]
[End of telephone conversation]
Lewis
-Name
-Health
-Marjorie P. Acker
-Name
[The President talked with the White House operator at an unknown time between 1:22 pm and
1:29 pm.]
[Conversation No. 652-3B]
[See Conversation No. 19-33]
[End of telephone conversation]
******************************************************************************
[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 08/09/2022.
Segment cleared for release.]
[Personal Returnable]
[652-003-w002]
[Duration: 2m 5s]
Julie Nixon Eisenhower
-Clothes
-Thelma C. (Ryan) (“Pat”) Nixon
-Appeal to youth
-Campaign
-Rose Mary Woods’ opinion
-Clothes
Tricia Nixon Cox
-Clothes
-The President’s opinion
-Rose Mary Woods’ opinion
-Compared to Julie Nixon Eisenhower
Julie Nixon Eisenhower
-Forthcoming conversation with Rose Mary Woods
The President's schedule
-Florida
-Activities
-Rose Mary Woods
-Thelma C. (Ryan) (“Pat”) Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower
******************************************************************************
[The White House operator talked with the President at 1:29 pm.]
[Conversation No. 652-3C]
[See Conversation No. 19-34]
[End of telephone conversation]
******************************************************************************
[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 08/09/2022.
Segment cleared for release.]
[Personal Returnable]
[652-003-w003]
[Duration: 2s]
The President's health
*****************************************************************************
State of the Union Address
-The President’s efforts
-Compared with previous addresses
-Delivery
-Woods’s view
-Length
-Raymond K. Price, Jr.’s view
-Cuts
-Delivery
-Price’s view
-Edward Kennedy’s reaction
-Clark MacGregor’s comment
-Previous speech
-John Kennedy quotation
-Woods’s observance of Edward Kennedy
-John Kennedy quotation
-The President’s handling
-US commitments
-Critique
-Bolivia
-US foreign policy
John Kennedy
-Accomplishments
-Death
-Compared to Johnson
Johnson
-Accomplishments
-Poverty program
-John Kennedy
-Blacks
-Johnson’s support
-Racism
-Compared with the President
-Liberalism
-Compared with John Kennedy
-The Great Society
State of the Union Address
-Idanell B. (“Nellie”) Connally’s presence
-Clothes
-Cabinet wives
-Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
-John B. Connally
-The President’s glance during tax section delivery
-Nellie Connally
-Cabinet wives
-Atmosphere
-Supreme Court
-Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon, Tricia Nixon Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower
-Applause
Woods left at an unknown time before 1:33 pm.Also recorded on January 20, 1972
- 652-002 1:17 PM · 19 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:17 pm and 1:22 pm.
- 019-032 1:22 PM · 33 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:22 pm and 1:29 pm.
- 019-033 1:22 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:22 pm and 1:29 pm.
- 019-034 1:29 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 1:29 pm.
- 652-004 1:29 PM · 12 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:29 pm and 1:33 pm.
- 652-005 1:33 PM · 37 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, Clark MacGregor, Charles W. Colson, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:33 pm to 2:15 pm.
- 652-006 2:20 PM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:20 pm and 2:30 pm.
- 652-007 2:20 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:20 pm and 2:30 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 652-003, January 20, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/652-003 (accessed October 12, 2026).