Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 11 › Conversation 011-157

Nixon phone call with Mitchell on Supreme Court appointments

Wednesday, October 20, 1971 · 9:19 AM–9:25 AM ET · White House Telephone · 8 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Mitchell, John N.Conversation011-157 on Tape 11 (tape position 04:51:33–04:59:17)StartWednesday, October 20, 1971 at 9:19 AMEndWednesday, October 20, 1971 at 9:25 AMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 011-157 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417190201 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell discuss ongoing efforts to appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court, specifically focusing on the status of Senator Howard Baker and Lewis Powell. They discuss plans to bypass the American Bar Association (ABA) review process for these candidates to avoid political obstacles and public scrutiny. Additionally, the two explore strategies to improve the administration's image regarding female judicial appointments by identifying potential candidates like Sylvia Bacon for future openings in the federal district or appellate courts.

Audio

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NARA Description

On October 20, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and John N. Mitchell talked on the telephone from 9:19 am to 9:25 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 011-157 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 011-157

 Date: October 20, 1971
 Time: 9:19 am - 9:25 am
 Location: White House Telephone

 John N. Mitchell talked with the President.

 [See Conversation No. 597-2A]

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 [Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 12/12/2017.
 Segment cleared for release.]
 [Personal Returnable]
 [011-157-w001]
 [Duration: 5s]

        Greetings

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        Mitchell's schedule
             -Philadelphia
                    -Associated Press [AP] editors

        Supreme Court appointments
             -Warren E. Burger

 ******************************************************************************

 [Previous PRMPA Privacy (D) reviewed under PRMPA regulations 12/12/2017. Segment
 cleared for release.]

 [Privacy]
 [011-157-w002]
 [Duration: 24s]

        Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
             -Health

        Mitchell’s conversation with Howard H. Baker
             -Finances

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              -Baker
              -Sylvia Bacon
                    -Qualifications
              -Lawrence E. Walsh
                    -Mildred L. Lillie
              -Female appointees
                    -Circuit Court
                          -William H. Mulligan
                          -New York
                          -Washington
                                -Bacon
                                       -Superior Court
                                       -Federal District Court
                                       -Lillie
                                       -Court of Appeals

        Mitchell's schedule
             -Philadelphia

        Superior Court appointments
             -American Bar Association [ABA]

                      -Baker
                      -Powell

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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Hello.
Hello, John.
Good morning, Mr. President.
I want to give you an interim report because I had to leave to go up and talk to those AP editors in Philadelphia.
Oh, I see.
When will you leave?
9.30.
Warren talked to Powell last night and he said he had a good conversation with him.
and he was also to let me know this morning.
So somewhere through the day we ought to have the answers to those.
You got the feeling with regard to Howard that he'd like to do it?
Yes.
He would like to do it?
Yes, sir.
We can arrange something.
Well, I know loans are hard things, but hell, that shouldn't be any problem.
Well, I would hope not.
Anybody that's going to have a job to pay $60,000 for the rest of his life, even these days, John, ain't bad.
Well, particularly when you have all your pensions and everything else, you know, and your future's taken care of.
Sure.
He'll still get his, pick up his...
His senatorial pension, it won't be a hell of a lot, but it'll be $10,000 a year.
Well, I'll probably add it to his service and so forth.
It all adds up.
Right.
So hopefully that will... Could I ask you one other thing?
Yes, sir.
I wonder if we shouldn't, just as a back station, did you tell them not to look into Bacon or Sylvia Bacon or how we leave that?
Are they not checking her?
Well, that almost fell by its own weight because of her age, limited experience, and so forth.
You mean that you just think they would hold her not qualified?
Well, yes, this is the...
Inevitable?
This is the...
I'm just trying to think of the answers that we have when... Well, I think we can structure that all right.
When people say, well, why did you check a woman adequately and so forth and so on.
Okay.
I think we can posture that all right.
And Walsh is going to keep that group up there, as I think I mentioned last night, after he advises us of their conclusions so that we'll know how to structure them in connection with how you want to move on this.
Are you going to be available this afternoon?
Yes, sir, all day.
All right, sir.
It'll probably be...
late this afternoon because they're going to continue up there this morning on Friday and then get into Lilly.
So I guess it'll be late in the afternoon on this matter.
You ain't pretty sure that they're going to do what we want on the Lilly thing?
When I say what we want, I mean, I don't want to just say not qualified if they're going to give her a bum rap.
I mean, I don't want to say just, you know, no opinion, but they ought to say not qualified.
Is that what they're going to do?
This is Walsh's opinion as to how it's going to come out.
preliminary information.
He's aware of the fact that I'm going to have to, we're going to have to put it on them.
I told him that in no uncertain terms last night.
He anticipates it.
Right.
And let the bar, it's his big broad shoulders and they're going to be, they're going to have to have a stack jury.
They're going to take my, you know, let them take the wrath of the woman.
Yes, sir.
And we've got the program at the right way.
Another point that occurred to me, uh, uh,
Is there any way you could, we have any place that you could push a woman up to the circuit court at the same time we do this in the Supreme Court?
Is there anything open there?
I mean, not unless, let's suppose we open, let's suppose we went the way of the New York one.
You know what I mean?
Mulligan, toss a woman in there.
The idea that we're sort of preparing one for it.
You see what I'm getting at, John?
I think the idea that all this hullabaloo about women having been raised, we've got to indicate that we sure have that under consideration.
It's not never.
I quite agree.
Of course, if you took the Second Circuit, I think we'd be hard-pushed to find a woman.
That's in New York?
In New York, yes, sir.
How about here in Washington?
You could do it easily, couldn't you?
Do we have a woman on this circuit?
No, there's no woman on the circuit.
We could put Sylvia Bacon in there, couldn't we?
When we get an opening.
One of those bastards is going to retire or die, isn't he?
I would think so.
I think what we have to do, since we don't have any options to move, is to...
with language and statements that we're just going to have to pull these women through the court systems to prepare them and qualify them for it.
Right, right.
Incidentally, the Bacon thing still appeals to me very much.
I don't mean not now.
I see the point.
But how about now just having your eye on her, keeping her, you know what I mean, and telling her, look, keep your nose clean and be conservative as hell, you know.
and she can go up where God is.
I would think that this would probably do that.
Well, you're not talking about that many more years, but I mean, what court is she on?
The Superior Court?
The Superior Court is a trial court in the district, like the Superior Court in California.
Why don't you put her on the federal district court?
Could you do that?
It's quite possible, yeah.
I mean, I'd put her up there pretty fast and
I mean, I don't have any other in mind, John.
That's the point.
There's no damn conservative women that are on courts that I know of except Mildred.
I think that we may have an opening on the Court of Appeals here in the district, which is the same as the Supreme Court of a state.
Yeah.
And that, of course, would be a higher status.
When will that come?
Well, we've got some hangovers there that are talking about retiring.
And you hear all this talk about retiring, but some of these characters never do.
I know.
We could shove her up.
Okay.
You're leaving to go to Philadelphia, and you'll be gone?
I'll be back here by 3.30, I believe.
Right.
Well, I'll be here all day.
And first, as you analyze it at the moment, do you think Baker is considering it?
Yes, I would very strongly, and it would seem to me that with the problems he's talking about, there must be some way to work from that.
No, on the move on him, I'm not going to, not under any circumstances, going to submit it to the bar.
I mean, he's just going to go, okay.
Yes, sir, and Powell.
Same with Powell.
Right.
Very good, sir.
We just can't be bothered with that.
Okay, John.
I'm preparing a draft of a letter that would go to the bar telling them why this is going to be so.
Yeah, well, we could simply say that because of his being a senator and all that thing that we didn't think, and Powell being a former president of the ABA, you know, you've got plenty of reasons, haven't you?
I would believe so, but I think also we're going to point out that this system hasn't worked.
Yeah.
and the reasons, and of course it becomes a popularity content, etc., etc.
Yeah, we cannot have that.
Okay.
Very good.

Also recorded on October 20, 1971

  • 011-156 9:05 AM · 44 sec — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Frederic V. Malek, Alexander P. Butterfield, and the White House operator talked on the telephone from 9:05 am to 9:19 am.
  • 597-001 9:05 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:05 am and 9:17 am.
  • 597-002 9:17 AM · 9 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Frederic V. Malek, and John N. Mitchell met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:17 am to 9:25 am.
  • 011-158 9:25 AM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:25 am and 10:23 am.
  • 597-003 9:28 AM · 2 hr 41 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, White House operator, Bryce N. Harlow, Ronald L. Ziegler, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, unknown person(s), Stephen B. Bull, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:28 am to 12:20 pm.
  • 011-159 10:23 AM · 12 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Bryce N. Harlow talked on the telephone from 10:23 am to 10:35 am.
  • 011-160 10:35 AM · 18 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 10:35 am and 2:23 pm.
  • 011-161 10:35 AM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 10:35 am and 2:23 pm.

All 81 conversations from October 20, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 011-157, October 20, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417190201). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/011-157 (accessed November 12, 2026).