Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 002-076
Date: Tuesday, May 4, 1971 at 4:29 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kleindienst, Richard G.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/002-076

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello.
[0:01] Mr. President.
[0:02] Well, somebody told me you hadn't had any sleep for three days, and I thought I'd better wake you up.
[0:06] It'll suppress my personality.
[0:07] Listen, what kind of animals you got out there today?
[0:10] Oh, the same goddamn bunch.
[0:12] Yeah, they are something, aren't they?
[0:13] Well, they really fooled us because, you know, they'd been so disintegrated and separated.
[0:17] Yeah.
[0:18] All of our informants couldn't find them.
[0:20] Yeah.
[0:21] 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.
[0:29] Where do they come from?
[0:30] Over the country, but primarily, I would say, Chicago and East.
[0:35] And they mobilized, but how did they mobilize as many at this time?
[0:38] Well, I guess they just did it by word of mouth.
[0:41] 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.
[0:50] be there, because they just came like ants from everywhere.
[0:53] Yeah.
[0:53] Well, I don't know.
[0:54] It's the, what's that, how are they, how do they conduct themselves?
[0:59] What do they do when they're there?
[1:00] Just shout, yell?
[1:02] 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.
[1:10] They came down here in front of the Department of Justice.
[1:12] Actually, this is pretty good.
[1:13] We would like to not have had it.
[1:15] 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.
[1:22] So it really solves a problem for his officers.
[1:25] They'll get a good night's sleep.
[1:27] Are they going to have to arrest these people too?
[1:31] 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.
[1:36] Yeah.
[1:38] On the ground that they were told that this person did not.
[1:40] It was an unlawful assembly, and they just sat down in the middle of the street.
[1:43] So they're arrested.
[1:44] The military will be in position by now just for patrol duty in the traffic hours.
[1:51] Are they going to, are you handling it in a way that you're not appearing to be?
[1:55] We've come off the first day so well that I just continue to handle it firmly.
[2:03] Right, no problem on that.
[2:05] Be firm.
[2:06] It's all been nonviolent.
[2:08] It's a very orderly arrest procedure now.
[2:10] because it enables us to take a photograph of each one as we put them on the bus and identify with these arresting officers.
[2:18] Our problem on the sweep yesterday is that about 6,500 of them were not identifiable.
[2:24] All of these will, and it's going to, I think, give us an entirely different judicial procedure.
[2:32] It's really something.
[2:33] It really is.
[2:34] Pretty crummy lot, aren't they?
[2:35] But I'll tell you, the thing that, after going through five of these things now,
[2:40] 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.
[2:52] And we're capable, really, on very short notice, of putting together the whole government to meet any type of a situation.
[3:01] 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.
[3:09] Right.
[3:10] Injuries?
[3:11] No.
[3:11] Not one person's been killed and a million people doing this.
[3:15] I think it's a remarkable...
[3:17] It really is, isn't it?
[3:18] The chief's done a good job, everybody.
[3:20] If I could be presumptuous, Mr. President, sometimes you can call that chief up there the White House.
[3:25] you know, and Chief Wilson up there, and thank him personally because... Oh, wait, I plan to do something special.
[3:31] Do you, sir?
[3:32] You know, I called him on the phone Sunday, you know, from California, but I will call him.
[3:37] I think maybe we'll give a...
[3:39] I'm trying to think of a citation to give to the whole department.
[3:42] How do you like that?
[3:43] I think it would be great.
[3:44] Yeah.
[3:44] And the National Guard.
[3:46] Yeah, well, we do that separately.
[3:47] Okay.
[3:49] Bye.
[3:49] Well, I'm very honored that you came, sir.
[3:50] Bye.
[3:51] Bye-bye.