Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 011-157
Date: Wednesday, October 20, 1971 at 9:19 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Mitchell, John N.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/011-157

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.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] Hello, John.
[0:02] Good morning, Mr. President.
[0:09] I want to give you an interim report because I had to leave to go up and talk to those AP editors in Philadelphia.
[0:15] Oh, I see.
[0:16] When will you leave?
[0:18] 9.30.
[0:18] Warren talked to Powell last night and he said he had a good conversation with him.
[0:51] and he was also to let me know this morning.
[0:53] So somewhere through the day we ought to have the answers to those.
[0:59] You got the feeling with regard to Howard that he'd like to do it?
[1:02] Yes.
[1:02] He would like to do it?
[1:06] Yes, sir.
[1:07] We can arrange something.
[1:09] Well, I know loans are hard things, but hell, that shouldn't be any problem.
[1:13] Well, I would hope not.
[1:14] 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.
[1:20] Well, particularly when you have all your pensions and everything else, you know, and your future's taken care of.
[1:25] Sure.
[1:26] He'll still get his, pick up his...
[1:30] His senatorial pension, it won't be a hell of a lot, but it'll be $10,000 a year.
[1:33] Well, I'll probably add it to his service and so forth.
[1:36] It all adds up.
[1:38] Right.
[1:39] So hopefully that will... Could I ask you one other thing?
[1:42] Yes, sir.
[1:45] 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?
[1:54] Are they not checking her?
[1:56] Well, that almost fell by its own weight because of her age, limited experience, and so forth.
[2:05] You mean that you just think they would hold her not qualified?
[2:07] Well, yes, this is the...
[2:09] Inevitable?
[2:09] This is the...
[2:13] I'm just trying to think of the answers that we have when... Well, I think we can structure that all right.
[2:18] When people say, well, why did you check a woman adequately and so forth and so on.
[2:23] Okay.
[2:24] I think we can posture that all right.
[2:27] 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.
[2:47] Are you going to be available this afternoon?
[2:49] Yes, sir, all day.
[2:50] All right, sir.
[2:51] It'll probably be...
[2:52] late this afternoon because they're going to continue up there this morning on Friday and then get into Lilly.
[2:58] So I guess it'll be late in the afternoon on this matter.
[3:01] You ain't pretty sure that they're going to do what we want on the Lilly thing?
[3:06] 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.
[3:13] I mean, I don't want to say just, you know, no opinion, but they ought to say not qualified.
[3:17] Is that what they're going to do?
[3:19] This is Walsh's opinion as to how it's going to come out.
[3:22] preliminary information.
[3:24] He's aware of the fact that I'm going to have to, we're going to have to put it on them.
[3:27] I told him that in no uncertain terms last night.
[3:30] He anticipates it.
[3:32] Right.
[3:33] 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.
[3:38] They're going to take my, you know, let them take the wrath of the woman.
[3:42] Yes, sir.
[3:42] And we've got the program at the right way.
[3:45] Another point that occurred to me, uh, uh,
[3:51] 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?
[4:00] Is there anything open there?
[4:01] I mean, not unless, let's suppose we open, let's suppose we went the way of the New York one.
[4:11] You know what I mean?
[4:14] Mulligan, toss a woman in there.
[4:17] The idea that we're sort of preparing one for it.
[4:20] You see what I'm getting at, John?
[4:23] 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.
[4:31] It's not never.
[4:32] I quite agree.
[4:33] Of course, if you took the Second Circuit, I think we'd be hard-pushed to find a woman.
[4:40] That's in New York?
[4:41] In New York, yes, sir.
[4:42] How about here in Washington?
[4:44] You could do it easily, couldn't you?
[4:46] Do we have a woman on this circuit?
[4:48] No, there's no woman on the circuit.
[4:50] We could put Sylvia Bacon in there, couldn't we?
[4:52] When we get an opening.
[4:55] One of those bastards is going to retire or die, isn't he?
[4:58] I would think so.
[4:58] I think what we have to do, since we don't have any options to move, is to...
[5:05] 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.
[5:17] Right, right.
[5:18] Incidentally, the Bacon thing still appeals to me very much.
[5:22] I don't mean not now.
[5:23] I see the point.
[5:24] 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.
[5:33] and she can go up where God is.
[5:35] I would think that this would probably do that.
[5:38] Well, you're not talking about that many more years, but I mean, what court is she on?
[5:45] The Superior Court?
[5:46] The Superior Court is a trial court in the district, like the Superior Court in California.
[5:51] Why don't you put her on the federal district court?
[5:53] Could you do that?
[5:54] It's quite possible, yeah.
[5:58] I mean, I'd put her up there pretty fast and
[6:01] I mean, I don't have any other in mind, John.
[6:03] That's the point.
[6:03] There's no damn conservative women that are on courts that I know of except Mildred.
[6:08] 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.
[6:16] Yeah.
[6:16] And that, of course, would be a higher status.
[6:21] When will that come?
[6:22] Well, we've got some hangovers there that are talking about retiring.
[6:26] And you hear all this talk about retiring, but some of these characters never do.
[6:30] I know.
[6:31] We could shove her up.
[6:32] Okay.
[6:32] You're leaving to go to Philadelphia, and you'll be gone?
[6:37] I'll be back here by 3.30, I believe.
[6:39] Right.
[6:39] Well, I'll be here all day.
[6:40] And first, as you analyze it at the moment, do you think Baker is considering it?
[6:46] 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.
[6:55] No, on the move on him, I'm not going to, not under any circumstances, going to submit it to the bar.
[7:00] I mean, he's just going to go, okay.
[7:03] Yes, sir, and Powell.
[7:04] Same with Powell.
[7:04] Right.
[7:05] Very good, sir.
[7:06] We just can't be bothered with that.
[7:08] Okay, John.
[7:08] I'm preparing a draft of a letter that would go to the bar telling them why this is going to be so.
[7:17] 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?
[7:26] I would believe so, but I think also we're going to point out that this system hasn't worked.
[7:33] Yeah.
[7:34] and the reasons, and of course it becomes a popularity content, etc., etc.
[7:40] Yeah, we cannot have that.
[7:41] Okay.
[7:42] Very good.