Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 015-098
Date: Monday, November 22, 1971 at 4:02 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); White House operator; Lewis, Hobart D.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/015-098

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Yeah.
[0:01] Mr. President, I have Mr. Hobart Lewis returning your call.
[0:05] All right.
[0:07] Hello.
[0:08] Mr. President.
[0:08] Well, how are you?
[0:09] I'm just fine.
[0:10] That was a great performance down in Miami.
[0:12] I wish you could have been there.
[0:13] It's been quite a day.
[0:16] I congratulate you on going down there and doing what you did.
[0:20] It's a very close question now, of course, as to whether these people will stay on the board.
[0:25] I know.
[0:25] If they don't, then we're going to have to go without them.
[0:28] The whole country will be against them.
[0:30] The problem there is, of course, is that
[0:33] They may go on some strikes, and that'll be tough, but we just can't back down now.
[0:39] Well, we cannot, and I think the country's with you.
[0:41] Oh, I'm sure they are, yeah.
[0:43] Well, I mean, the rank and file of labor's with you.
[0:45] Yep, we've even, yeah.
[0:48] And they've gone too far, and at least it...
[0:53] I think you've got them in a box.
[0:55] I don't think they dare walk off.
[0:56] That's my assumption.
[0:58] You know and I don't, but I think they'd be dead wrong to get off that payboard.
[1:04] Right, right.
[1:05] Well, they oughtn't to, but their media is so obstreperous and old now that... A little senile, I think, Mr. President.
[1:14] Yeah, senile and...
[1:15] I thought Fitzsimmons was great.
[1:18] Oh, sure.
[1:18] He's been great.
[1:19] He's been great throughout.
[1:20] Sure.
[1:21] Great.
[1:22] Right.
[1:23] Okay.
[1:23] Well, anyway, we can just keep our feet to the firehose.
[1:27] Thank you very much for that testimony you wrote for the Reader's Digest, too.
[1:31] Ah, well, it's nothing I enjoy doing more.
[1:34] So, Mr. President, I wrote you a letter the other day, and I talked to John Ehrlichman.
[1:38] Could you see your way clear to giving us an exclusive interview?
[1:44] on foreign policy.
[1:46] I talked to Ehrlichman.
[1:48] That would also be for our 50th anniversary issue.
[1:51] We'd like to see if we could do it.
[1:53] When would it be?
[1:54] We ought to lay it on before the 2nd or 3rd of December.
[2:01] It would take about three-quarters of an hour.
[2:04] And we could cut... Well, the interview is perhaps... Do you think that's the best format?
[2:13] Or maybe something I wrote for it?
[2:16] Or 150th anniversary?
[2:18] No, no, sir.
[2:19] We would like to ask you some questions about how you're going to achieve a generation of peace.
[2:23] Oh, I see.
[2:23] And about what you think you can get out of going to China.
[2:29] If you could spare the time or not.
[2:31] Yeah.
[2:32] I mean, I didn't mean that except that it's a question of being able perhaps to do it better if I have a chance to think about the things rather than just off the top of my head.
[2:43] Well, listen, it's in your head all, you know, it's all there.
[2:48] When do you have to have it by the... Well, I think we would need it by the 4th or 5th of December.
[2:53] Mm-hmm.
[2:54] And that's for your January issue?
[2:57] For the February issue, which comes out at the end of January.
[2:59] Oh, I see.
[3:00] As I put in a plug in my letter to you and mentioned to Ehrlichman, you know, this would go all over the world and would be a pretty darn good foreign policy platform.
[3:10] And I could send down some questions in advance.
[3:13] It would be a little less spontaneous if we were to do it.
[3:15] But we have about four or five key questions.
[3:18] Oh, that doesn't bother me, no.
[3:19] No.
[3:20] Well, let me check to see, Hope, if we can get it between now and the 3rd.
[3:24] And the 3rd or 4th of December, yes, sir.
[3:26] 3rd or 4th, right, right, right.
[3:29] Okay, okay.
[3:30] I don't like to do that, but I think it might be useful.
[3:34] I understand, I understand.
[3:35] All right.
[3:37] Good.
[3:39] I wrote your note just the other day.
[3:40] I got my Camp David jacket.
[3:42] I wear it on the morning walks.
[3:43] Did you get, right, and you don't play any golf anymore?
[3:49] I really don't.
[3:50] Too cold.
[3:51] Too cold, yeah.
[3:52] That's right.
[3:53] That's right.
[3:54] I'm going down to Hope Sound for Thanksgiving.
[3:57] How did you get along with...
[4:00] the Ehrlichman thing.
[4:01] As you know, we're backing you all the way on that.
[4:05] But I think what you ought to do is to just get the damn, we'll back the congressional thing.
[4:11] That's my view.
[4:12] And as soon as it gets to my desk, I'll back it.
[4:15] John was very receptive, and he said he would talk to George Schultz, and I think we put up a pretty good case there in a memorandum, which I don't think you'll have time to read, but John has read it.
[4:25] I don't need the memorandum.
[4:26] I know what it's all about.
[4:28] I know you do, and I'm sure you've got it in your mind.
[4:30] Right.
[4:30] Well, the point is that if you fellows have studied it through and feel you can do that, we want to help you.
[4:34] All right.
[4:34] Well, that's very kind of you, and I think it's going to work out.
[4:37] Good.
[4:37] Thank you for your efforts, and keep up the good fight.
[4:40] Okay.
[4:40] Thank you.
[4:40] Thank you so much.