Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 009-010
Date: Tuesday, September 14, 1971 at 8:20 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/009-010

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Mm-hmm.
[0:01] Hello?
[0:02] Yes, sir.
[0:02] Oh, excuse me, Mr. President.
[0:04] I have Mr. Haldeman.
[0:04] Do you want him to wait?
[0:05] Yeah.
[0:06] No, I'm on.
[0:07] There you are.
[0:10] Oh, Bob, I didn't want to bother you, but one subject that, to my surprise, Henry brought up, which will be referred to you, and I just wanted to put you on it, was that Reston was in to see him.
[0:23] You're kidding.
[0:24] Yeah, and I said, well, what do you want to see?
[0:27] He said, well, he, Reston...
[0:30] asked for an interview with the President on the ground that he did an interview with Zhou Enlai.
[0:33] I said, now look, Henry, I didn't even let him finish his sentence.
[0:36] I said, no, I'm not going to do it.
[0:38] And I said, first, as I told you, there would be no interviews with the New York Times under any circumstances for the Pentagon Papers.
[0:46] And second, I said, I'm not going to see Rustin after what he did with Zhou Enlai.
[0:51] And Henry said, well, he says, I agree.
[0:53] He says, I told him that I did nothing to do with these things, and I referred it to Haldeman.
[0:58] So, but you see what I mean?
[1:00] Henry, of course, is trying, I guess, you know, with his usual concern about the times.
[1:06] But let me just say this.
[1:09] I don't care who it is, and
[1:10] Scali, Ziegler, Moore, Klein, anybody else, they can come along with all the business that, well, you really ought to see the Times, and, you know, and it's a question of, it's like going to the White House Correspondents thing, and he's very important, and if you don't see him, he's going to write something bad, and so forth.
[1:29] Now, the worst thing I could do, I put it to Henry just cold turkey, I really gave him hell, I said, Henry, look, if I see Scotty Rustin and give him an exclusive interview,
[1:39] What do you think this does to the very few friends and their goddamn few we have in the press that I haven't given personal interviews to?
[1:47] What do you think it does to them?
[1:48] It kills them.
[1:50] So I just wanted you to know that, and I'd like for you to really raise it tomorrow, and I want the goddamn staff to understand, and he must not have understood this, that the blackout on the Times is total.
[2:00] Well, he understood it.
[2:01] He stood in your office when we talked about this, and you made the point to him that he was not to see Rustin, that you would not see Rustin.
[2:07] That's right.
[2:09] That's right.
[2:11] Well, whether he talked to him or whether he was in, I don't know, but I gathered he was in.
[2:17] But the point is that he would even refer it to me was amazing.
[2:21] He would even talk to us in the beginning.
[2:25] You've got to tell Henry he must not talk to him.
[2:28] He's valuable.
[2:29] He must not talk to him, period, under penalties of, frankly, dismissal.
[2:34] Now, God damn it, I'm not going to have it.
[2:37] And don't you agree?
[2:38] I sure do.
[2:39] This is not a question of vengeance or this or that or the other thing.
[2:42] It's just a point that we are not going to get anything out of Reston except a bad shake.
[2:46] And he did us in in that he did his best to do us in.
[2:50] It didn't turn out that way particularly due to show and lies cooperation.
[2:54] But we cannot allow, we cannot have our people get soft because of their trying to suck up to some of these goddamn newspaper people.
[3:02] If I were going to give an interview, why would I give it to a newspaper man anyway?
[3:06] Give it to a television man.
[3:08] Huh?
[3:08] Darn right.
[3:10] Why do I waste my time, you know, being examined by this son of a bitch?
[3:13] He will never be in my office as long as I'm president.
[3:16] Never.
[3:17] And no man from the Times will ever be in my office as long as I'm president.
[3:21] It isn't worth it.
[3:22] You agree?
[3:23] I sure do.
[3:24] That's it.
[3:24] That's the way it's going to be.
[3:25] I'm just astonished that he talked to him and that he would raise it with you.
[3:31] Well, he'll tell you that he didn't press it, but he didn't.
[3:34] But he didn't press it when I jumped in awful fast.
[3:38] But I said, no, Henry, I'm not going to do it.
[3:40] And then he said, I agree.
[3:44] But I put it on the basis of the Pentagon Papers.
[3:46] But the point is that they're working on it.
[3:49] I don't want him to see him, though.
[3:51] I want you to tell Henry he should not talk to Reston.
[3:55] Why should he?
[3:56] Well, he shouldn't.
[3:56] Reston doesn't have a goddamn thing to talk about that he hasn't already published.
[4:01] You know that.
[4:02] Henry's
[4:03] And he'll only be in to get what Henry gives him rather than to give anything for our benefit.
[4:10] And I'm just going to, I think we just cut the son of a bitch out.
[4:15] I mean, that's all there is to it.
[4:18] And so it'll be raised.
[4:20] Let it come up in its natural way when it comes up, when he raises it with you.
[4:25] And you just
[4:26] Actually, with complete astonishment, why, Henry, you didn't consider it, did you?
[4:30] So you're not going to see him, are you, Henry?
[4:32] So forth.
[4:33] Then, you know, go on, and then, but I want you to, as I said, I want Ziegler, Scali, Klein, you know, the others who might talk to us, and Sapphire, to know they are not to talk to the New York Times.
[4:45] That order is on, and it's final.
[4:48] Nobody from the New York Times is to be talked to.
[4:51] The only exception I made is Dale.
[4:53] That's the only one.
[4:55] Yep.
[4:55] And there aren't going to be any others.
[4:57] None.
[4:58] Absolutely none, period.
[5:00] Except in press conferences.
[5:02] Not simple.
[5:02] Nobody.
[5:03] You're not going to gain anything by softening up on these people.
[5:09] The same is true of Time.
[5:10] The same is true of Newsweek.
[5:12] Is that clear?
[5:13] Yep.
[5:14] I mean, are we enforcing this or not?
[5:15] What astonished me, Bob, is that he asked the question, and I just thought that something had gone wrong on the enforcement side, that our people would...
[5:23] I suppose it's time lapses and they forget.
[5:25] No, they don't forget.
[5:26] And Henry, of all people, doesn't forget.
[5:28] He, of all people, he's the one guy that's had the order directly from you.
[5:33] Yeah.
[5:33] He and Ziegler.
[5:35] He and Ziegler were there.
[5:36] But you couldn't have hit him harder on the point before we went out to California.
[5:44] Now, the arguments will all be made.
[5:46] I'll give them to you all.
[5:47] You know what they are, that the Times is important, and getting even a half-ass story is better than getting a completely flat story.
[5:55] It isn't important to begin with.
[5:57] And second, it's terribly distressing to other people.
[6:00] And third, what the hell are they going to do?
[6:03] So they're going to write that the president refused to see him.
[6:06] That's just too goddamn bad, isn't it?
[6:08] So, but the point is, Reston, if he comes in, will only do us in.
[6:13] He always has, and he will now.
[6:16] And I'm not going to, I just, I'm not even, incidentally, you shouldn't call him back either.
[6:20] I just have somebody, I wouldn't, and Ziegler shouldn't call him back.
[6:24] I think he should just have a second man at his office.
[6:28] Okay.
[6:28] Calls.
[6:29] Don't you agree?
[6:29] Yeah.
[6:30] Why should Ziegler call him?
[6:33] Well, I sure won't talk to him.
[6:34] Well, naturally, I mean, but I see no reason for Ziegler to get into it.
[6:38] I just have to say it.
[6:40] Or I just let it rest and let him ask again.
[6:43] Yeah.
[6:44] Or something like that.
[6:45] I don't know.
[6:46] But I just don't want the, or no, no, the best thing to do is if he has promised an answer,
[6:54] It's just to have somebody from Ziegler's office, a secretary or something, say, I'm sorry, the president isn't giving any interviews at this time.
[7:02] Period.
[7:03] When will he?
[7:04] I'm sorry.
[7:04] And let him swear.
[7:06] God damn him.
[7:08] Boy, I'm telling you, we've just got to be tough on these people.
[7:12] All right.
[7:12] And now, let me say, where it's a television man, all together different.
[7:17] That's right.
[7:18] For Christ's sakes, for Christ's sakes, it's worth it if you have to, you know, eat crow and shit and everything else.
[7:24] But not with the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times or Time, Newsweek or the Washington Post.
[7:31] It is not that important to us, is it?
[7:33] No.
[7:34] That's my view, at least.
[7:35] No, it definitely isn't.
[7:36] It'll come up in a meeting, I'm sure.
[7:38] And when it does, my views should be expressed just as toughly as that.
[7:43] Okay.
[7:44] No doubts about it.
[7:45] Whatever.
[7:46] I couldn't agree with you more.
[7:47] Okay.
[7:48] Right.
[7:49] Fine, bye.