Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 3 › Conversation 003-138
Nixon phone call with Garment on Arts and Culture
Wednesday, May 26, 1971 · 3:30 PM–3:35 PM ET · White House Telephone · 4 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Leonard Garment discuss the positive reception of the President's recent speech on the arts, which Nancy Hanks reported was well-received by leaders in the field. Beyond cultural policy, Garment informs the President of a significant fundraising development involving Taft Schreiber, Sam Rothberg, and other California Democrats targeting $5 million for the 1972 campaign. Nixon emphasizes the importance of framing arts and culture as essential to the human experience, transcending basic material needs like food stamps or Social Security.
- Arts and Culture
- 1972 Presidential Campaign
- Fundraising
- Nancy Hanks
- Cultural Policy
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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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Yeah.
Yes, sir.
Len?
Yes.
Yeah, well, how did your artists go?
I have in front of me some comments that were phoned in by Nancy Hanks.
Let me just read you a couple of these.
I frankly didn't have a chance to identify the people by name, but these are leaders in the field, and some of the comments are marvelous speech, comes across as marvelous humanitarian.
In one speech, he will advance the cause of arts more than I think even he realizes.
He's done so much already, but this will make them fly.
Isn't he fantastic?
Terrific.
No politics.
Not political at all.
Guy you'd want to know.
My gosh, I'm going to go back and get our governor to tell all his agencies they've got to get involved in the arts.
Best speech he's made since he's been in office.
It had the feeling and it had specifics.
I felt the sincerity.
Oh, it's just, it's really terrific.
Absolutely.
Well, I told them to get out.
It may be worth it.
In the bushes there, back in their states.
But the feeling in the crowd was one of just enormous great response.
I thought it was first rate.
If we can get a little of that through.
Well, anyway.
I don't know.
We never know whether this issue is worth much of a damn, but at least it's something that's important to these people and also important in the long run to what we do.
So we just got to do it.
Oh, I think it's a real kind of a sleeper issue.
It affects a lot of people and a lot of people have a right and a lot of people have money.
Oh, certainly not the place and they really we were able and I know people that I have access to now that I never did before because of the the Arts thing might affect a few clarinet players you clarinet players So I'm just sending you a memorandum.
We've got very good news from Tara Shriver.
Oh
He's got a commitment from Sam Rothberg and another major Democrat in California to go out and hit the trail and raise $5 million next year.
My gosh, that's something.
For the next time around, and that's related to, well, I'll put it down in the memorandum.
What we've done, what, movies?
No, no, not movies.
Oh, yeah.
Middle East.
Oh, yeah, I see.
And this comes in, you know, it's quite...
explicit yeah right and these are these are leading democrats who are going to go out on were you in san clemente when we had that meeting with the movie people yes you remember what that i wasn't but i know all the details you remember what the well then you know the story i told is absolutely true some guy over there is a bearded guy or something and one of the guys attending
Boy, he was not very long-haired.
He told me exactly that, that they'd already taken about, I think he told me there were 10,000 kids from Watts had been taken to museums and musical things, not musical, you know, I don't know what kind of music, but I didn't care.
So that meant something to those people.
They got that.
I thought it was interesting, too, the little story about the, shall we go second class?
And I remember that.
You know, that story, believe me, is 40 years old, but I recall it when I was working.
It's really true.
A woman, it must have been a remarkable woman, did it for nothing to come there and tell us that when she came back from Europe, the family voted, shall we buy the painting or go second class?
And they decided, well...
or go first class and decide to buy the painting, which I think is the illustrating priority.
The best way.
Really terrific.
And we've had that in a number of places where the, I think that it is true that the people have something to tie them over.
But the main thing we need is this.
If we can get across the point, Len, and I do feel strongly on this, that damn it,
that just food stamps and a little more income and increase my social security and give me a better plumbing and so forth is not all that is in life.
There's a hell of a lot of people in the world that don't have much, but who, well, there are a lot of people that have everything and have nothing.
And there are a lot of people that have very little and have everything.
That's really what these people in the arts ought to be doing to tell people.
In other words, a person who sits there, you know, in a hell, some of the greatest people in music,
They had to have angels later on, but they started from very poor families.
That's right.
And when you said this is the kind of thing that would take them up on the mountaintop and give them some vision of what life is outside that miserable city.
It's a marvelous passage, by the way.
That improvisation when you lifted up and went into that whole thing, and you know how that really drew a rifle shot of applause.
Yes.
Well, okay, well, the main thing is to tell Nancy to get behind those beards and find out what those people are doing.
Okay.
Okay, thank you very much.
NARA Description
On May 26, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Leonard Garment talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:30 pm and 3:35 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 003-138 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 003-138
Date: May 26, 1971
Time: Unknown between 3:30 pm and 3:35 pm
Location: White House Telephone
The President talked with Leonard Garment.
[See Conversation No. 253-020]
President's speech on the arts
-Comments relayed by Nancy Hanks
-Response
-Importance
1972 fundraising
-Taft Schreiber
-Sam Rothberg and another unnamed California Democrat
-Middle East
President's meeting with movie people at San Clemente
-An unidentified man
-Cultural programs for children from Watts
An unidentified woman
-Purchase of a painting in Europe
Arts
-Importance to quality of life
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542
-Food stamps, Social Security
-Musicians from poor families
-City-dwellers
-President's speech
-HanksAlso recorded on May 26, 1971
- 003-135 3:15 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:15 pm and 3:17 pm.
- 003-136 3:17 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower talked on the telephone from 3:17 pm to 3:18 pm.
- 253-018 3:17 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:17 pm to 3:18 pm.
- 003-137 3:18 PM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:18 pm and 3:30 pm.
- 253-019 3:18 PM · 3 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 3:18 pm and 3:30 pm.
- 253-020 3:30 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Leonard Garment met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:30 pm to 3:35 pm.
- 253-021 3:35 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at 3:35 pm.
- 253-022 3:35 PM · 29 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Raymond K. Price, Jr., John K. Andrews, Jr., unknown person(s), Ronald L. Ziegler, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:35 pm to 4:10 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 003-138, May 26, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/003-138 (accessed October 12, 2026).