Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 12 › Conversation 012-030
Nixon phone call with Mitchell on Supreme Court appointments
Thursday, October 21, 1971 · 9:45 AM–9:51 AM ET · White House Telephone · 6 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and John Mitchell discuss the finalization and strategic rollout of two forthcoming Supreme Court appointments. Nixon emphasizes maintaining strict confidentiality—excluding even top staff—until a coordinated notification process begins to inform key Congressional leaders. They finalize communication plans, including how to address potential opposition from the American Bar Association and how to manage the media narrative surrounding the nominees, William Rehnquist and Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
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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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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Yep.
Hello.
Yeah.
Hello.
Hello, John.
Mr. President, I've talked to Howard, and he understands it fully and in good grace.
Well, you can see it.
He wasn't too enthusiastic anyway.
I think it was with some relief, actually, on his part, but very warm and very gracious.
Good.
All right, sir, we'll proceed.
Now, incidentally, for your information, I have held this, and incidentally, I haven't told anybody, incidentally, except anybody, believe me, except Moore, I haven't told Haldeman, Ehrlichman, anybody else about what we're doing here.
Sapphire, of course, I've ruled him out.
I'm going to do it myself.
I'm writing it myself right now, and so I'm not going to have any writer except myself.
And, uh, and, uh,
That's that.
And I think that's a good thing.
I just intend to keep this very closely held.
Ziegler doesn't know.
I just said, play it loose.
I says, I don't know what I'm going to do.
I might appoint him despite what the bar has done.
Okay?
Yes, sir.
Now, what I do think, though, I've told them that at 630, they're to get together the White House people that have to inform senators and congressmen and VIPs around the country and so forth and so on.
Just like we've done on
China and Russia, inform them and have them start making calls.
Now, in your case, of course, you shall have the responsibility to do Friday and to do Lilly, correct?
Yes, sir.
And you should take that, and you should be the responsibility to do Eastland, naturally, and get him lined up.
And I would think the two Virginia senators, both of them.
And could I suggest Bob Byrd?
Maybe you ought to do him?
Or shouldn't you?
I think that somebody should, and I guess I should do it.
Well, you haven't talked to him, have you?
No, I haven't.
Then you shouldn't.
I'd have... Dick Moore can do it.
Dick Moore, talk to him all the way down there.
And Dick can just say that... You see, Connolly's out of town.
He has talked to Connolly and said he didn't want it anyway.
And said, we'd appreciate your support of what we're giving.
He should call him at 6.30 so that Bob Bird would get him lined up strongly for it.
Okay?
Very good, sir.
Dick Morris over here and right right and I've I just feel that this is so important that I write it myself I've asked for 125 words maximum on each man that I can use in my brief remarks.
That's enough, you know, and I just want to say how mainly The whole line is going to be excellence excellence and character and that sort of thing and
And don't you think that's the best thing to do?
Yes, very much so.
Very much so.
And are you going to ignore the bar?
Well, I'm not even going to mention the bar.
That's good.
I'm not going to mention it either way.
Yes.
But on the other hand, through the day, Ziegler will get hit on it.
And he's simply going to say, well, the president, the bar does not have a veto power.
We're interested in their advice.
But naturally, the president will make his appointments.
on his own connoissances, so to speak.
Don't you think that's all right?
Yes, sir.
That's the line, of course, that's been...
In the meantime, I understand the woman's story is leaked.
It's out.
Both of them.
It's on the front page of the Washington Post, which couldn't have been better for us.
Right.
Now, on that, the only thing that hasn't leaked in the woman's story is that little squib to the effect that it was from within the bar that it was said that they...
There were 11 that they knew of no woman that was qualified.
Could we do that?
We will get that out.
I want that out.
Tell Moore that has to get out today.
Give it to Sapphire.
He'll leak anything.
Okay?
Yes, sir.
Not in the column, but I want to hit that hard.
One other point in order to get their support.
I think I'll call Leon Jaworski, who was the president of the American Bar.
Right.
And Ed Wall, so that they...
Right.
I would call, Jurorski and Wall should say, we just have appreciated enormously what they have done and what the president has done now.
He just said that we just can't submit these people to him and have them beaten down for non-legal reasons.
But that he has selected two men that he knows the bar, without even asking, will get well qualified from the bar in both cases.
and then tell them what it is.
Fair enough?
Yes, sir.
But don't tell either, don't particularly don't tell Walsh.
I don't know Jaworski, but don't tell him before 630 or so.
Reason being is that they have staffs and they may tell them and the staff will leak.
You know, they've got these Jews that Walsh has that work for him.
And the Jews leak, John, you know that.
I sure do.
Okay.
Now, I will talk to him just before the event.
I'm very pleased.
Have you told Renquist yet?
Not yet, but I'm sure that he will be more than pleased.
Pleased?
Christ, he'll probably drop his teeth.
I would expect so.
Yeah.
I don't want to see him.
I don't think I should.
There's no necessity for it.
And I haven't seen Powell.
I wouldn't know him if I saw him.
I may have met him, but I don't know him.
Well, he's a very distinguished-looking gentleman.
Yeah, and I think really it's a good move when we're going to knock the goddamn blocks off and fight it through.
You say that Powell made a speech against Martin Luther King.
That's the only thing you can find in his record that's bad.
That's correct.
What kind of a speech was it?
Was it a rabbit?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
It had to do with that argument that's...
prevailed here for the last four or five years in a civil disobedience situation.
That's all right.
That's a legitimate thing.
I've said many of the same things.
All right.
Yes.
Well, I think it's been a fine job, John.
And you and Moore work out whatever you want.
Okay?
Very good, sir.
NARA Description
On October 21, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and John N. Mitchell talked on the telephone from 9:45 am to 9:51 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 012-030 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 12-30
Date: October 21, 1971
Time: 9:45 am- 9:51 am
Location: White House Telephone
John N. Mitchell talked with the President.
[See Conversation No. 281-9]
Supreme Court appointments
-Howard H. Baker, Jr.
-The President’s decision
-Previous conversation with Mitchell
-The President's discussions
-Richard A. Moore
-H.R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
-John D. Ehrlichman
-William L. Safire
-Ronald L. Ziegler
-Timing for announcement
-Telephone calls to Congress
-People's Republic of China [PRC], Soviet Union
-Mitchell's responsibility
-Herschel H. Friday, Mildred L. Lillie
-James O. Eastland
-Virginia Senators
-Robert C. Byrd
-Moore
-John B. Connally
-Moore
18
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. 10/06)
-The President’s announcement
-American Bar Association [ABA]
-Ziegler
-Possible questions
-Mildred L. Lillie story
-Washington Post
-Moore
-Safire
-Leon Jaworski
-Lawrence E. Walsh
-Mitchell’s forthcoming conversation
-William H. Rehnquist
-Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
-Civil disobedience
-MooreAlso recorded on October 21, 1971
- 281-008 9:39 AM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:39 am and 9:45 am.
- 012-029 9:45 AM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 9:45 am.
- 281-009 9:45 AM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John N. Mitchell met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 9:45 am to 9:51 am.
- 012-031 9:51 AM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:51 am and 10:51 am.
- 012-032 9:51 AM · 20 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:51 am and 10:51 am.
- 281-010 9:51 AM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:51 am and 10:06 am.
- 281-011 9:51 AM · 35 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:51 am and 10:06 am.
- 281-012 9:51 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:51 am and 10:06 am.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 012-030, October 21, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/012-030 (accessed October 12, 2026).