Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 011-148
Date: Tuesday, October 19, 1971 at 6:04 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Graham, William F. ("Billy")
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/011-148

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello.
[0:01] Reverend Graham, sir.
[0:03] Hello.
[0:04] Hello.
[0:05] Hello, Billy.
[0:05] Hello, Mr. President.
[0:06] You back home?
[0:07] No, sir.
[0:07] I'm in Memphis getting ready to address the Holiday Inn Convention here.
[0:11] Oh, well, they're all our friends.
[0:13] Give them my best.
[0:14] Well, they are your... Tell them I think, too, their ads have been great.
[0:17] I saw them in, you know, in the football and baseball games.
[0:20] 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.
[0:27] Oh.
[0:27] And they voted it through.
[0:29] Oh, my.
[0:29] And it's going in right away.
[0:33] Oh, Dwight Chapin had suggested it.
[0:36] Oh, really?
[0:37] He called me about it.
[0:38] Well, we've stayed there enough.
[0:40] We've stayed there enough in New Hampshire and Oregon and other places.
[0:44] Well, that's great.
[1:29] Well, I'll tell you, all of my friends throughout the country are sure excited about Friday.
[1:35] They really are.
[1:37] You mean about last Friday?
[1:38] Yes, this past Friday.
[1:39] Yeah, well, I'll tell you, I was going to tell you that I was very pleased, Billy.
[1:42] First, our people said the television was good, and second...
[1:47] Even the New York Times and the Washington Post had a front-page picture, to my great surprise.
[1:56] But I don't know.
[1:59] I really was pleased that they paid that much attention to it, weren't you?
[2:04] And they treated it very well.
[2:06] You probably had a chance to study it more than I have.
[2:09] 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.
[2:15] How about in Charlotte?
[2:16] They played it big there.
[2:18] Oh, you know, whole pages all over the Carolinas.
[2:20] And in Texas, I went to Texas that afternoon right after your plane took off.
[2:24] I had to go.
[2:25] I know you did, yeah.
[2:26] And all the papers down there had pictures on the front page and big articles except the Dallas Morning News.
[2:33] I don't understand why they didn't.
[2:34] But the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Houston Chronicle, all those papers made it front page.
[2:42] So I think, you know, that's great.
[2:43] That's great.
[2:44] And Walter Cronkite, the way he handled it was tremendous.
[2:48] Yeah, they told me CBS was a bet.
[2:50] You know, they haven't been too good to us on a lot of things, but on this they said they were just great.
[2:54] Now, Herb Kepler was a little bit cynical.
[2:57] He said one or two little snide things, but Dan Rather handled it very well.
[3:05] Isn't that something?
[3:06] Yeah.
[3:06] Well, that's good.
[3:08] I was very pleased.
[3:09] The main thing is, how about our friends?
[3:12] How'd they feel?
[3:12] I mean, the people, your friends and the rest.
[3:15] They're just overjoyed everywhere.
[3:17] They felt Texas is where I went.
[3:19] They got the message?
[3:20] They got the message.
[3:21] That's the point.
[3:22] That's the point.
[3:23] And I thought your message, we played your message Sunday on 900 radio stations, and it was just tremendous to listen to it.
[3:35] You know, sitting back there, I didn't get the full impact, and of course I was emotional.
[3:40] And also you can't hear anything.
[3:41] You can't hear very well.
[3:42] When you're sitting back there, you don't hear half of it.
[3:44] I came over, and what you said was tremendous.
[3:48] Well, it's hard to know what to say on such occasions.
[3:51] Matter of fact, one or two of the papers said that you were giving the spiritual note and I was touching on politics.
[3:57] That's right.
[3:58] That's all right, too.
[4:00] Well, tell me, you're feeling all right?
[4:03] I'm feeling just great.
[4:04] I'm getting ready to go to Rome tomorrow.
[4:06] You're right.
[4:06] I know you were.
[4:07] And you give the Holiday Inn people my best and tell them when I stay at a hotel, I'll try to pick theirs.
[4:12] I'll greet them when I get my address.
[4:15] Great.
[4:16] Bye.
[4:16] All right.
[4:16] Bye.