Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 4 › Conversation 004-103

Nixon, Reagan & Kissinger on Federal shipbuilding program

Wednesday, June 9, 1971 · 4:50 PM–4:55 PM ET · White House Telephone · 5 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Reagan, Ronald W.; Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation004-103 on Tape 4 (tape position 03:50:36–03:55:30)StartWednesday, June 9, 1971 at 4:50 PMEndWednesday, June 9, 1971 at 4:55 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 004-103 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon initiated this call to Governor Ronald Reagan to coordinate federal support for California, specifically announcing a new shipbuilding contract for San Diego intended to boost employment. Nixon also expressed appreciation for Reagan's recent letter to the Young Americans for Freedom before transitioning the call to Henry Kissinger. Kissinger and Reagan discussed upcoming travel plans involving Vice President Spiro Agnew and reviewed positive foreign policy developments, including declining Vietnam War casualty rates and the recent diplomatic activity of Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Audio

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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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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· Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).
Hello.
Governor Reagan, sir.
There you are.
Hello?
Hello.
Ron?
Yes.
Hi, how are you?
I'm just sitting here talking to Henry Kissinger.
He just walked in, but I wanted to tell you two things.
One, a little bit of good news, and second, to thank you for something.
We've, you may have heard this,
We have a very large federal shipbuilding program, you know, which has been approved.
And we've been trying to look for a good place to put one, a contract.
And Maurice Stans and I were talking a few days ago, and we're going to slug a big one into San Diego.
Oh, great.
Now, what I would like, what I'm thinking of doing, it has to be done before June, is probably to invite back half a dozen people, just maybe, you know, the shipbuilding guys and so forth and so on,
I will have them.
I'll be if we do it here.
either that or see i can't go to california the latter part of june because i'm tied up here to to announce it there if we do do it i was thinking we'll be in touch with you if you could come it might be a good idea because it will show that the administration and we got some other plans too you know saline water and a few other things that we're going to try to throw into orange county and san diego but this shipbuilding is a good contract it's it'll start creating jobs almost immediately
so uh we'll be in that sounds wonderful it'll be in touch with you and uh we'll be in touch with you and have mercy on me if you know i've got this damned you got a legislature you're still going down here mercy if if you're caught really battling down that right let me let me suggest this if we can't if i can't do it that way if i can't get the right people here then what i will do is to uh
is to have stands go out and do it in San Diego.
But I think you ought to go down.
That would be great, yeah.
Because, you know, San Diego is a good spot for us, and they have high unemployment because of that damned aerospace thing.
And so we're putting it in there.
The second thing I wanted to do is to thank you for that really brilliant letter you wrote to the young Americans for freedom.
I mean, that was really far beyond what you needed to do, but I do want you to know I appreciated it.
Oh, well, listen, I'm delighted to do it, and I think you'd be interested to know that the kids came back from there and from state level here with letters that...
I would have said that's fine with us, and that's the way we'll go.
I'll let Henry say hello to you here.
You haven't had a briefing lately.
I was going to say, if it does work out, that you could come.
You thought you'd like another foreign policy brief, but here he is.
All right.
Hello, Governor.
Hi, how are you?
How are you?
Pretty good.
I may be seeing you on Sunday.
I may go out there with Agnew.
Oh, wonderful.
Well, wonderful.
That's going to be quite an affair.
Yeah, it sounds like quite a thing.
Well, fine.
And I look forward, when you come east, anytime I can be of any service to you.
I enjoyed our talk when I was in Palm Springs.
Well, thank you very much.
I did, too.
Well, all right.
I'd be delighted to hear the latest things from the front.
Good.
Well, we have a number of fairly favorable developments now.
Good.
Good.
That's always nice to hear.
Yeah.
Oh, I thought we were interrupted there for a minute.
Yeah, no, actually there's a lot more going on right now.
No, they just brought in a piece of paper for me to look at.
Actually, there's a lot more going on than meets the eye, and I think we've definitely turned the corner.
I remember one of your earlier briefings about the position and the whole scheme of things of the president of Romania.
Right.
And I noticed he turned up in Peking the other day, and I just wondered if that was just coincidence or if that was part of what's going on.
Well, let's just call it a coincidence.
All right.
Okay.
All right.
Well, you say we've turned a corner.
I presume we're talking about the Vietnam War.
Well, we've...
We've got a chance there now, too, but we'd like to cool it and see how it develops.
Uh-huh.
Our casualties this week, incidentally, were only 19, the lowest since October 1965.
Oh, that's great.
It should give you some indication of the trend of things there.
Uh-huh.
Yes.
Well, I think I know what you mean, yes.
Well, that's good to hear.
Good.
Well, I'll be talking to you soon.
All right.
Okay.
Look forward to it.
See you this week.
See you this week.
All right.
Bye.

NARA Description

On June 9, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Ronald W. Reagan, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 4:50 pm to 4:55 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 004-103 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 4-103

Date: June 9, 1971
Time: 4:50 pm - 4:55 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with Ronald W. Reagan.

[See Conversation No. 255-40B]

     President's conversation with Henry A. Kissinger

     Federal shipbuilding program
          -President's conversation with Maurice H. Stans
                -San Diego shipyards

     President's schedule
           -Reagan

     Jobs for California
           -Saline water
                 -Orange County, San Diego
           -Shipbuilding

     California legislature

     Stans’ possible trip to San Diego
          -Aerospace letter

     Reagan's letter to Young Americans for Freedom [YAF]

Kissinger talked with Reagan at an unknown time.

     Kissinger's possible trip to California with Spiro T. Agnew

     Kissinger’s schedule

     President Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania
          -Visit to People's Republic of China [PRC]

     Vietnam war
          -Casualties

Also recorded on June 9, 1971

  • 255-039 4:35 PM · 7 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 4:35 pm and 4:48 pm.
  • 004-102 4:38 PM · 11 min — President Richard M. Nixon, William F. ("Billy") Graham, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 4:38 pm to 4:48 pm.
  • 255-040 4:38 PM · 31 min — President Richard M. Nixon, William F. ("Billy") Graham, Henry A. Kissinger, Ronald W. Reagan, John D. Ehrlichman, and Tricia Nixon Cox met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 4:38 pm to 5:18 pm.
  • 004-104 4:55 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman talked on the telephone from 4:55 pm to 5:00 pm.
  • 004-105 5:15 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Tricia Nixon Cox, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 5:15 pm to 5:18 pm.
  • 004-106 5:18 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 5:18 pm.
  • 004-107 5:18 PM · 46 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods talked on the telephone from 5:18 pm to 5:19 pm.
  • 255-041 5:18 PM · 26 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 5:18 pm to 5:19 pm.

All 58 conversations from June 9, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 004-103, June 9, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/004-103 (accessed October 12, 2026).