On June 1, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 9:20 pm to 9:33 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 004-006 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Hello.
Hello.
Another good one.
Well, they were really good.
It all ganged up, apparently, on that damn May Day thing.
It's really, Ron ought to really be rough on them all night.
That was pretty sorry.
Yep.
I mean, every one of them.
And, you know, Townsend, all emoting about it.
I mean, Forrest, Boyd, even he.
I know, that was amazing that he got it.
But the whole, but incidentally,
Don't, don't, I mean, of course, you're going to find farmers, sapphire, the rest, don't worry about that.
That couldn't have been better for us.
No, that's, you're absolutely right.
Or don't you agree?
I absolutely agree.
That's what we want.
We want to get that point across.
That allowed me for once to get across the fact that I was for the police.
You're darn right.
I suppose you, I suppose your left-wingers don't agree with that.
Well, I haven't gotten any feeling from anybody on that, but the, uh, uh,
on the the network thing they made the point very like abc and there they did a very quick wrap-up and made the point that the president spoke out more directly on the mayday matter than he had previously said the police would use the right combination permission restrained those participating with panels and lawbreakers denied constitutional rights violated said that panels will not be tolerated chancellor afterwards uh made that point but didn't uh
didn't really go into it much.
He said the thing that fascinated him was the follow-up, just the fact that there was follow-up, which a couple others have noted, too.
Well, they had all been caught.
I don't know.
He made the point that the president supported the police absolutely, which he probably thought was bad.
Well, he hasn't read the polls much.
That's right.
That's right.
And Bud, afterwards, on CBS, made the same point.
No, he said the high point of the press conference was the follow-up on May Day and the interaction between the president and the reporters.
Calb said that's the first time this has happened and all that.
But it's kind of interesting, just starting to get some of the stuff in, but one call I got was from the mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Robert LaFortune, and he said...
I thought the President's discussion of the May Day demonstrations was excellent.
It would bolster morale and spirit of law enforcement officers throughout the country.
And I think you're going to get a lot of that.
On what purpose?
A lot of positive reaction on that.
We didn't have any other choice.
What the hell?
That's what you have to do.
I'm Brady Black.
The Cincinnati Inquirer says the President was especially firm and forceful on law and order, putting the May Day demonstrations in perspective and pointing out the pattern for other cities.
He also mentions the UAR thing.
A lot of them seem to have mentioned that, the Egypt Treaty.
Well, they put it in arms.
Oh, meet Alcorn.
This is one of the best press conferences the President has had.
Specifically, the May Day demonstration answer was by far the best.
It showed a command of firmness that was good.
And then he said, secondly, the McCloskey question.
He admired the way the President handled it with a comment that it can be a booby trap.
He was saying it could be a booby trap, getting into it, but that you would handle it right.
That was good.
I've got all political questions answered forever.
Yeah, that's right.
Don Goodenough, the L.A.
Examiner, says the President gave a strong defense of the police action in handling the recent demonstration in Washington.
It was an intelligence presentation.
It was something that was needed.
I thought he was quite cool.
This is a good point.
Instead of attacking the courts, he defended the system.
Which is a little harder to play.
Well, but it was still a good point.
I think you got some pretty good zings in on there, too.
Slapple and Sarah and her oversupply of goods in Vietnam.
I think, too, the point at the end about credibility.
Excellent.
I had all the thoughts.
You think that got across?
Yeah.
I wouldn't be worried.
Very much so.
Like the drug thing.
Yeah.
Dick Moore's thing was the president, as usual, his way as the president's answer on credibility was perfect.
He particularly liked the comparison between demonstrators.
with the vandals and lawbreakers.
And the thing of pointing out that the police took greater care of the rights of those arrested than the arrested persons did of the rights of the citizens.
More like that one.
John Conley says, it's interesting, that the president did exceedingly well.
I find myself frustrated again because of the emphasis on Vietnam rather than domestic issues.
The president looked relaxed, natural, and his facial expressions were good.
I liked, too, the way he cut off his answers and made them short.
As I've said before, he should have as many of these as he himself can take because he's great and he makes the press look antagonistic as hell.
It's apparently Pat said that we've got to get a hold of good on this.
We all agree that they, as compared with the other press conferences, probably fooled with the camera angle.
They said it was not as good tonight.
They said somewhere that Sharper didn't have the camera angle.
Did you notice that or not?
Maybe they didn't.
Well, they're very sensitive.
don't have him fool with it the last one is very good right it may be that they're wrong take a look see if they change anything because we did have it it was off to good it is true that I had to turn to the right I'm inclined to think what I might do in future press conferences is reveal cameras why the hell would I look at the reporter at all I think I should just turn to the camera and answer I would every god damn question no really
Why do I look at Peter Lutz again?
Screw him.
You could look at him when he asked it, and then turn to the camera to answer it.
Turn to the camera and answer it.
So the camera had moved to where the reporter was.
Like, as I did, you know, on that question on credibility.
I thought, oh, watered down the earth as the camera.
Oh, never mind.
I turned right to the camera.
I said, turning to the camera, that's the best thing to do.
Really true.
She's probably right.
Could be, yeah.
Yeah.
And the press doesn't like it.
You know, it's interesting, though, Bob, that all the big questions they had, they should have been here in the wrong place.
They covered it.
Jesus Christ screwed her out enough.
May Day.
Now, what the hell?
Most of the people just don't give a goddamn about that.
They just think we did the right thing.
And a couple of the Vietnam questions were just repetitions.
Oh, oh, oh.
Why don't you get out?
But still, out of 21 questions, there were only five on Vietnam, which is an all-time record of prisoners.
Well, then there were two more on POWs, so we were number seven.
Right, right.
We're not going to make that same mistake and show that you don't get anything.
Well, to make it clear, we don't get anything.
We don't gain from doing it.
That's amazing.
Not a single question on the economy, nothing on the dollar in Europe.
Nothing.
Buchanan had all these goddamn questions on the economy, on the euro dollar, on steel prices, on also a lot of political questions.
But I cut them off right off the bat.
Yep, I got that done.
I'm sure glad you got that dope question because you really got, it was good to get into that.
And I covered it pretty completely.
Well, it was a good thing you did because you didn't get another chance at it.
Got to hit the marijuana.
Got marijuana loud and clear.
We just got to say a few more things to the three folks.
This call from the wife of the president of Tuskegee Institute.
She says she was particularly impressed with the attitude on drugs.
They had all the questions about the blacks.
But these bastards are only interested in something that we need to do.
Yeah, well, they're a pretty sad bunch of people.
Yeah, they really are.
But I think it worked to your benefit to get all those questions on May Day because you got your law and order.
I think May Day really gets the law and order.
That's right.
They had one question.
The whole thing.
It feels good.
Well, hit them hard on the vandals and hoodlums and lawbreakers and you're not going to screw around with that kind of stuff.
I'm going to keep this government going.
He said, I'm going to keep this government going and period.
If they come back again, we'll do it again.
Don't let our liberals get concerned about this.
I don't think they will.
They don't know about it, Bob.
They don't know what people, what's really right either.
God damn it, these people are thugs.
Handles.
Terrors.
That's what they are.
You know, they really are.
Do you agree?
Sure.
Well, let's stand up and say so.
Good shape on that one.
Okay, anything else from your... Oh, Connolly, he likes to really hit it.
Yeah.
Did he mention any particular question?
No.
Keep going.
Yeah, because he likes the format, you know, the way you come through on it.
But he'd like to get a domestic, which is, you don't get any questions.
There's nothing you can do about it.
You talked to John.
Have I ever got a question in the environment?
Have I ever had a question on revenue sharing?
If I ever had a question on government reorganization, the answer is not one question about it.
Never.
On any of those subjects.
Do you realize, ever since the State of the Union, I have not had one question on any of those subjects.
None, whatever.
And since the State of the Union last year, not one of those subjects.
Tonight, you got really two domestic questions.
The women's, the government's, which is stupid, and the civil rights question.
She asked a very stupid question.
The civil rights question is about her.
Well, about the civil rights.
I thought it was well to hit Hesburgh, though, on the point that he questioned the sincerity of the civil rights.
I think that's right.
We should take the idea that everybody else is not concerned.
I don't question his sincerity.
You should question ours.
I didn't deliberately go into, you know,
to list the things we've done for Negroes.
I deliberately don't do it.
Folks ain't for it.
That's right.
They aren't for food stamps.
They aren't for welfare.
They aren't for more people.
Don't you agree?
Yeah.
So I don't say it.
I'm not very proud of it.
Our poll shows that you rate high at that, which may be higher than you want to be.
Okay.
Let me know if you've got any more.
Sure.