Conversation: 768-004
Prev: 768-003 Next: 768-005Start Date: 14-Aug-1972 9:00 AM
End Date: 14-Aug-1972 10:42 AM
Participants:
Nixon, Richard M. (President); Connally, John B.; Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Mitchell, John N.; MacGregor, Clark;Recording Device: Oval Office
NARA Description:
On August 14, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, John B. Connally, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, John N. Mitchell, and Clark MacGregor met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:00 am to 10:42 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 768-004 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid:
Conversation No. 768-4
Date: August 14, 1972
Time: 9:00 am - 10:42 am
Location: Oval Office
The President met with John B. Connally.
Jamaica
-Connally’s recent trip
-Weather
-Visit with Prime Minister [Michael Manley]
-Unemployment
-Need for capital investment
-Manley
-Hugh Shearer
-Socialism
-Absentee land owners
-North shore of island
-Use of natural resources
-Manley
-Connally’s view
-Caribbean islands
-The President’s view
-Jamaica
-Nassau, Bahamas
-Great Britain
-Nassau, Bahamas
-Lynden Oscar Pindling
-The President’s view
-Black leaders
-The President’s view
-Congo
H.R. (“Bob”) Haldeman entered at 9:03 am.
5
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
-Haiti
-Liberia
-Drug abuse
The President's schedule
-Republican National Convention
-California
-The President’s upcoming speech at the American Legion
national convention
-Chicago
-The President’s upcoming speech at the dedication of Dwight D.
Eisenhower High School
-Utica, Michigan
-American Legion
-National defense
-Dwight D. Eisenhower High School
-Neighborhood schools
-California
-San Diego
-San Clemente
-American Legion
-Dwight D. Eisenhower High School
-California
-Hawaii
-The President’s forthcoming meeting with the Japanese
-Timing
-Retirement ceremony for Adm. John S. McCain, Jr.
-Clare Booth Luce
-Celebrity reception
-San Clemente
-Photographs
-Press participation
-Connally’s ranch
-Possible Labor Day events
-Pittsburgh
-Radio address
-Pittsburgh
-Picnic
-Informal nature of event
-Steel and automobile workers
6
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
-Political alignment of the city
-Compared to Detroit
-Connally’s ranch
-Pennsylvania
-Texas
-Illinois
-California
-Hawaii
-Possible visit by Democratic candidates
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 12m 57s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
*****************************************************************
Foreign affairs
-Defense issues
-Melvin R. Laird
-Platform committee
-William P. Rogers
-Today Show
-Laird
-Roles of Secretaries of State and Defense in a campaign
-Examples of 1964 and 1968 campaigns
-The President’s actions as a party spokesman while
abroad
-W. Ramsey Clark
-John F. Kennedy
-Laird
-Press coverage
-Campaign tone
7
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
Publications
-R. Sargent Shriver
-Chances for Vietnam peace settlement in the previous administration
-Withdrawals by the North Vietnamese in 1968
-Motives behind Shriver’s desire to work in the current administration
-Television appearance
George S. McGovern
-Compared to Shriver
-Opportunity for peace in Vietnam
-Troop withdrawals by North Vietnamese
-Response by the President
-Possible negotiations
-Bombing
-Kissinger's actual negotiations
-Haldeman’s view
-Installation of communist government in South
Vietnam
-Shriver
-Possible coalition government in South Vietnam
-The President’s view
-McGovern’s actions in Paris
-Return of prisoners of war [POWs] for US withdrawal
-Clark
-Return of POW’s for bombing halt and US withdrawal
The President's forthcoming acceptance speech
-Tone and content
-Defense
-Economy
-Trade
-Need for aggressive tone
-McGovern
-$1000 per person welfare proposal
-Raymond K. Price, Jr.
-Defense
-Judicial appointments
-Isolationism
-Clark
8
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
-Example of Franklin D. Roosevelt
-Joseph W. Martin, Jr.
-Bruce Barton
-Hamilton Fish
-Col. Robert R. McCormick
-Permissiveness
-Clark
-Attorney General
-Possible appointment as director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation [FBI]
-J. Edgar Hoover
-Recent trip to Hanoi
-McGovern
-Shriver
-McGovern’s possible appointment of Clark to the FBI
Public Relations
-Strategy
-Questions
-Use of quotations
-McGovern’s interview, August 13, 1972
-David Kraslow
-Hugh S. Sidey
The President's forthcoming acceptance speech
-Tone and content
-The President’s role at the Republican National Convention
-National security
-Jews
-Israel
-North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO]
-Soviet Union
-Vietnam negotiations
-Redistribution of wealth
-$1000 per person welfare proposal
-Increase in taxes
-Increase of welfare rolls
-Permissiveness
-Judicial appointments
-$1000 per person welfare proposal
9
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
-Human nature
-Environment
-Air
-Water
-Health
-Cancer
-Youth
-Senior citizens
-Farmers
-Defense
-US role in Mediterranean Sea
-Sixth Fleet
-Soviet Union
-Democratic reaction
-Greeks
-Turks
-Italians
-Jews
Presidential demeanor
-Roosevelt
-Harold L. Ickes
-Wendell L. Willkie
-Speeches
-Harry S. Truman
-Eisenhower
-1956 campaign
-The President’s speeches as Vice President
-Adlai E. Stevenson, II
Press relations
-Vice President Spiro T. Agnew
-Image
-Connally's view
-Republican National Convention
-Rogers
-Laird
-Herbert Stein
-Kissinger
-Trip to Moscow
10
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
-Trip to Paris
-Vietnam negotiations
-Trip to Saigon
-Announcement
-Meeting with Nguyen Van Thieu
-Trip to Japan
-Trip to Moscow
-Possible television appearances
-Columbia Broadcasting System [CBS]
-Possible interview with Marvin L. Kalb
-Haldeman’s view
-The President’s view
-Types of questions
-Intelligent questions compared to demagoguery
-The President’s hypothetical example
-Treaty of 1816
-United Nations [UN]
-Negotiations with North Vietnam
-Kalb
-Other networks
-Television audience
-Laird
-Defense spending
-McGovern’s proposed budget
-F-14 program
-Laird’s forthcoming speech at Grumman
Corporation
-Laird’s forthcoming trip to Los Angeles
-Rogers
-Kissinger
-Need for public statements
-Compared to backgrounders
-Secret trips
-Connally’s view
-Announcements of forthcoming trips
-Moscow
-Compared to Prince Klemens von Metternich
-Gregory Efimovich Rasputin
11
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 5
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 4m 3s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 5
*****************************************************************
Connally left at 9:55 am.
Rogers
-Public appearances
John N. Mitchell and Clark MacGregor entered at 9:55 am.
Greetings
Mitchell’s health
Amnesty
-Carl Sandburg quotation
-Location
-Abraham Lincoln: The War Years
-Price
-Lincoln
-Confederate soldiers
-US soldiers
-Quotation
-Anecdote about deserter who returns to US
-Lincoln’s reaction
-Patrick J. Buchanan
-The President’s view
Press relations
-Vietnam negotiations
-Rogers’s public statements
12
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
-Connally’s view
-The President’s view
-News summary
-Lyndon K. (“Mort”) Allin
-Need for factual position paper
-National Security Study Memorandum [NSSM] 1
-1968 withdrawal by the North Vietnamese
-Significance of the withdrawal
-Subsequent North Vietnamese offensive
-Tet offensive
-Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap
-1969 offensive by the North Vietnamese
-US Casualties
-US bombing
-McGovern
-May 8, 1972 decision
-Rogers
-Platform committee
-Press conference
-Peter Lisagor
-Kraslow
-Shriver
-Shriver
-Desire to remain in the administration
-Gerald R. Ford
-Statement regarding Vietnam
-Notion of US surrender
-Clark
-Installation of Communist government in South Vietnam
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 7
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 9m 33s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 7
13
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
*****************************************************************
Campaign legislation
-Section 315 [Suspension of equal time requirements for the Presidential
election]
-The President’s participation in televised debates
-Comments by Hugh Scott, Michael J. Mansfield, John O. Pastore
-The President’s possible approval
-Campaign spending bill
-House of Representatives, Senate
-Possible televised debates
-McGovern
-Section 315
-Possible joint purchase of air time
-The President’s possible comments in California
-Mitchell’s previous interviews
-Section 315
-McGovern's voting record in 1964
-Hubert H. Humphrey, Edmund S. Muskie
-McGovern’s comments on his voting record
-Compared to comments on Thomas F. Eagleton
-Comments by [Lawrence McGarry]
-Rhode Island
Watergate
-Maurice H. Stans
-$25,000 check
-General Accounting Office [GAO] audit
-Timing of Stans’s statement
-Lawyers
-Kenneth W. Parkinson
-Roger Robb
-Paul L. O’Brien
-Grand Jury
-Indictments
-Call for special prosecutor
-Compared to Robert D. (“Bobby”) Baker case
-Committee to Re-Elect the President [CRP]
-Need for independent investigation
14
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
-White House support
-CRP involvement
-Indictments
-Jeb Stuart Magruder
-Hugh W. Sloan, Jr.
-Need for statement
-Investigation by CRP
-The President’s forthcoming meeting with the Japanese in
Hawaii
-Limitations of CRP involvement in Watergate
-Strategy
-Possible demand for more investigations
-Public relations nature of the investigation
-Compared to “Five percenter” case
-Release of reports
-Court actions
-Public relations impact
-Cooperation by CRP
-Grand jury
-Indictments
-Press reaction
-Grand jury
-Forthcoming meeting
-John W. Dean, III
-Grand jury
-Magruder
-Justice Department
-US Attorney’s office
-Timing of indictments
-Possible statement by the President
-CRP investigation
-MacGregor
-Time article
-Resistance of CRP and the White House
-Possible statement
-CRP investigation
-G[eorge] Gordon Liddy
-James W. McCord, Jr.
-Sloan
-Dwayne O. Andreas
15
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
Kenneth H. Dahlberg
-GAO report
-Funds from Mexico
-Release of report
-Stans
-Discussion with Phillip S. (“Sam”) Hughes
-Timing of contribution from Andreas
-[Federal Election Campaign Act]
-Cash deposit
-Sloan’s testimony
-Cashier’s check
-Kenneth L. Dahlberg’s check
-Dating
-Liddy
-Sloan’s testimony
-Andreas
-Dinner in Miami Beach
-Previous talk with Humphrey
-Strategy
-CRP investigation
-Possible grand jury indictments
-Magruder
-Justice department
-Richard G. Kleindienst, Henry E. Peterson
-Approval of indictments
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 8
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 1m 54s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 8
*****************************************************************
16
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
Watergate
-Financial reporting
-Secret fund
-MacGregor’s view
-Subsequent financial reports
-CRP’s refusal to identify contributors
-Democrats
-Independents
-McGovern
-MacGregor’s or Stans’s possible
statement
-Identities of Democratic contributors
to CRP
-Andreas
-$25,000 contribution
Campaign funding law
-Public list of McGovern’s contributors
-Max Palevsky
-Lunch with Robert H. Finch
-Unreported contributions to McGovern
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 9
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 32s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 9
*****************************************************************
Quotas in government
-MacGregor’s possible comments
-Jewish members of the Administration
-National Security Council [NSC]
-Federal Reserve Board
-Council of Economic Advisors [CEA]
17
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. Nov-03)
-Stein
-Kissinger
MacGregor, Mitchell and Haldeman left at 10:42 am.