Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 2 › Conversation 002-076
Nixon phone call with Kleindienst on Anti-war protests and May Day protests
Tuesday, May 4, 1971 · 4:29 PM–4:31 PM ET · White House Telephone · 4 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst discussed the ongoing mass anti-war protests in Washington, D.C., and the government's strategy for managing demonstrators. Kleindienst reported on the successful, orderly arrest of thousands of protesters for unlawful assembly, noting that the coordinated effort between police and military forces allowed for improved identification procedures. The President praised the government's operational cohesion and expressed his intention to formally commend the police department and National Guard for their handling of the situation.
- Anti-war protests
- May Day protests
- Law enforcement
- Civil disobedience
- Mass arrests
- National Guard
Audio
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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data
· Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).
Each line starts with a timestamp button; press it to play the audio from that point.
Hello.
Mr. President.
Well, somebody told me you hadn't had any sleep for three days, and I thought I'd better wake you up.
It'll suppress my personality.
Listen, what kind of animals you got out there today?
Oh, the same goddamn bunch.
Yeah, they are something, aren't they?
Well, they really fooled us because, you know, they'd been so disintegrated and separated.
Yeah.
All of our informants couldn't find them.
Yeah.
And we anticipated no more than 300 or 400 at Franklin Square, and good God almighty, they showed up with about 4,000 or 5,000 of them.
Where do they come from?
Over the country, but primarily, I would say, Chicago and East.
And they mobilized, but how did they mobilize as many at this time?
Well, I guess they just did it by word of mouth.
We had them all in the clink last night, and Chief Wilson just feels they must have gotten a signal among themselves to not do anything on the streets this morning.
be there, because they just came like ants from everywhere.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know.
It's the, what's that, how are they, how do they conduct themselves?
What do they do when they're there?
Just shout, yell?
They shout and yell, and then pretty soon their leaders start, you know, the rhetoric of the street and get them pretty well fired up.
They came down here in front of the Department of Justice.
Actually, this is pretty good.
We would like to not have had it.
But it permitted the chief to just round them all up and instead of chasing them all over town tonight and will cause no problem with traffic.
So it really solves a problem for his officers.
They'll get a good night's sleep.
Are they going to have to arrest these people too?
We've already arrested over 1,200, and they're cordoned off on our street, and they'll be arresting them for another two and a half hours.
Yeah.
On the ground that they were told that this person did not.
It was an unlawful assembly, and they just sat down in the middle of the street.
So they're arrested.
The military will be in position by now just for patrol duty in the traffic hours.
Are they going to, are you handling it in a way that you're not appearing to be?
We've come off the first day so well that I just continue to handle it firmly.
Right, no problem on that.
Be firm.
It's all been nonviolent.
It's a very orderly arrest procedure now.
because it enables us to take a photograph of each one as we put them on the bus and identify with these arresting officers.
Our problem on the sweep yesterday is that about 6,500 of them were not identifiable.
All of these will, and it's going to, I think, give us an entirely different judicial procedure.
It's really something.
It really is.
Pretty crummy lot, aren't they?
But I'll tell you, the thing that, after going through five of these things now,
The thing that we really have in this government is a very cohesive, well-coordinated group of people in all branches of the executive department of the government, the military, and everybody else.
And we're capable, really, on very short notice, of putting together the whole government to meet any type of a situation.
It's just been kind of a drill that we've gone through so many times that I think makes this the model city of the United States.
Right.
Injuries?
No.
Not one person's been killed and a million people doing this.
I think it's a remarkable...
It really is, isn't it?
The chief's done a good job, everybody.
If I could be presumptuous, Mr. President, sometimes you can call that chief up there the White House.
you know, and Chief Wilson up there, and thank him personally because... Oh, wait, I plan to do something special.
Do you, sir?
You know, I called him on the phone Sunday, you know, from California, but I will call him.
I think maybe we'll give a...
I'm trying to think of a citation to give to the whole department.
How do you like that?
I think it would be great.
Yeah.
And the National Guard.
Yeah, well, we do that separately.
Okay.
Bye.
Well, I'm very honored that you came, sir.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
NARA Description
On May 4, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Richard G. Kleindienst talked on the telephone from 4:29 pm to 4:31 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 002-076 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 2-76
Date: May 4, 1971
Time: 4:29 pm - 4:31 pm
Location: White House Telephone
The President talked with Richard G. Kleindienst.
[See Conversation No. 490-24F]
[A transcript of the following portion of this conversation was prepared under court order from
December 1978 through March 1979 for Special Access 8, Ronald V. Dellums, et al. v. James M.
Powell, et al., No. 71-2271. The National Archives and Records Administration produced this
transcript. The National Archives does not guarantee its accuracy.]
[End of transcript]
Back to Top
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542Also recorded on May 4, 1971
- 490-020 2:05 PM · 3 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at 2:05 pm.
- 490-022 2:14 PM · 50 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Ronald L. Ziegler, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, unknown person(s), and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 2:14 pm to 3:06 pm.
- 490-023 3:06 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at 3:06 pm.
- 490-024 3:07 PM — President Richard M. Nixon, Manolo Sanchez, John D. Ehrlichman, George P. Shultz, unknown person(s), Ronald L. Ziegler, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, White House operator, Stephen B. Bull, Walter E. Washington, Arthur F. Burns, Paul W. McCracken, Paul A. Volcker, Richard G. Kleindienst, and John B. Connally met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:07 pm to 6:19 pm.
- 002-073 4:10 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:10 pm and 4:20 pm.
- 002-074 4:20 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Walter E. Washington talked on the telephone from 4:20 pm to 4:22 pm.
- 002-075 4:22 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:22 pm and 4:27 pm.
- 002-077 4:31 PM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:31 pm and 7:46 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 002-076, May 4, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/002-076 (accessed October 12, 2026).