Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 11 › Conversation 011-148
Nixon phone call with Graham on Public relations and Media coverage
Tuesday, October 19, 1971 · 6:04 PM–6:09 PM ET · White House Telephone · 4 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Reverend Billy Graham discuss the positive public and media reception of the President's recent appearance in North Carolina. Graham reports on the widespread enthusiasm for the event among his supporters and notes the favorable coverage in various regional newspapers and on CBS. Additionally, the pair discusses the installation of portraits of the Nixon family in Holiday Inn lobbies, an initiative facilitated by Dwight Chapin, and touches upon Graham's upcoming travel schedule.
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Transcript (AI-generated)
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Hello.
Reverend Graham, sir.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello, Billy.
Hello, Mr. President.
You back home?
No, sir.
I'm in Memphis getting ready to address the Holiday Inn Convention here.
Oh, well, they're all our friends.
Give them my best.
Well, they are your... Tell them I think, too, their ads have been great.
I saw them in, you know, in the football and baseball games.
Well, you know, last week we presented the idea of putting the picture of you and your family in every Holiday Inn in the lobby.
Oh.
And they voted it through.
Oh, my.
And it's going in right away.
Oh, Dwight Chapin had suggested it.
Oh, really?
He called me about it.
Well, we've stayed there enough.
We've stayed there enough in New Hampshire and Oregon and other places.
Well, that's great.
Well, I'll tell you, all of my friends throughout the country are sure excited about Friday.
They really are.
You mean about last Friday?
Yes, this past Friday.
Yeah, well, I'll tell you, I was going to tell you that I was very pleased, Billy.
First, our people said the television was good, and second...
Even the New York Times and the Washington Post had a front-page picture, to my great surprise.
But I don't know.
I really was pleased that they paid that much attention to it, weren't you?
And they treated it very well.
You probably had a chance to study it more than I have.
They weren't cynical at all in any of the articles that I read, and I was quite surprised because I thought they would be.
How about in Charlotte?
They played it big there.
Oh, you know, whole pages all over the Carolinas.
And in Texas, I went to Texas that afternoon right after your plane took off.
I had to go.
I know you did, yeah.
And all the papers down there had pictures on the front page and big articles except the Dallas Morning News.
I don't understand why they didn't.
But the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Houston Chronicle, all those papers made it front page.
So I think, you know, that's great.
That's great.
And Walter Cronkite, the way he handled it was tremendous.
Yeah, they told me CBS was a bet.
You know, they haven't been too good to us on a lot of things, but on this they said they were just great.
Now, Herb Kepler was a little bit cynical.
He said one or two little snide things, but Dan Rather handled it very well.
Isn't that something?
Yeah.
Well, that's good.
I was very pleased.
The main thing is, how about our friends?
How'd they feel?
I mean, the people, your friends and the rest.
They're just overjoyed everywhere.
They felt Texas is where I went.
They got the message?
They got the message.
That's the point.
That's the point.
And I thought your message, we played your message Sunday on 900 radio stations, and it was just tremendous to listen to it.
You know, sitting back there, I didn't get the full impact, and of course I was emotional.
And also you can't hear anything.
You can't hear very well.
When you're sitting back there, you don't hear half of it.
I came over, and what you said was tremendous.
Well, it's hard to know what to say on such occasions.
Matter of fact, one or two of the papers said that you were giving the spiritual note and I was touching on politics.
That's right.
That's all right, too.
Well, tell me, you're feeling all right?
I'm feeling just great.
I'm getting ready to go to Rome tomorrow.
You're right.
I know you were.
And you give the Holiday Inn people my best and tell them when I stay at a hotel, I'll try to pick theirs.
I'll greet them when I get my address.
Great.
Bye.
All right.
Bye.
NARA Description
On October 19, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and William F. ("Billy") Graham talked on the telephone from 6:04 pm to 6:09 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 011-148 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 011-148
Date: October 19, 1971
Time: 6:04 pm - 6:09 pm
Location: White House Telephone
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542
The President talked with William F. (“Billy”) Graham.
[See Conversation No. 292-26]
Billy Graham's schedule
-Memphis
-Holiday Inn convention
-Advertisements
-Photographs located in Holiday Inns' lobbies
-Dwight L. Chapin
-The President's frequenting of Holiday Inns
-New Hampshire, Oregon
******************************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 12/12/2017.
13s segment cleared for release. 31s remain closed as 011-148-w001.]
[Personal Returnable]
[011-148-w001]
[Duration: 31s]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO.
******************************************************************************
John B. Connally, Jr.
-Health
-Trip to Asia
******************************************************************************
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542
The President's appearance in North Carolina on October 15, 1971
-The President's view
-Publicity
-Television coverage
-New York Times, Washington Post
-Charlotte, North Carolina
-Texas
-Dallas Morning News
-Fort Worth Star Telegram
-Houston Chronicle
-Walter Cronkite
-Columbia Broadcasting System [CBS]
-Herbert E. Kaplow
-Dan Rather
-The President's message played Sunday, October 17, 1971
-Radio station re-broadcast
-Distribution
Graham's schedule
-Rome
-Holiday Inn conventionAlso recorded on October 19, 1971
- 011-147 5:50 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone from 5:50 pm to 6:04 pm.
- 292-023 5:50 PM · 56 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:50 pm and 6:04 pm.
- 292-024 5:50 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:50 pm and 6:04 pm.
- 292-026 6:04 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and William F. ("Billy") Graham met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 6:04 pm to 6:09 pm.
- 011-149 6:09 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:09 pm and 6:16 pm.
- 292-027 6:09 PM · 17 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 6:09 pm and 6:16 pm.
- 011-150 6:16 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles G. ("Bebe") Rebozo talked on the telephone from 6:16 pm to 6:20 pm.
- 292-028 6:16 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles G. ("Bebe") Rebozo met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 6:16 pm to 6:20 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 011-148, October 19, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/011-148 (accessed September 28, 2026).