Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 17 › Conversation 017-055

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Christmas at the White House

Friday, December 24, 1971 · 11:17 PM–11:22 PM ET · White House Telephone · 6 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")Conversation017-055 on Tape 17 (tape position 02:20:07–02:26:29)StartFriday, December 24, 1971 at 11:17 PMEndFriday, December 24, 1971 at 11:22 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 017-055 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417191873 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman discuss the successful reception of Julie Nixon Eisenhower’s television special, "Christmas at the White House," praising her poise and professional performance. The conversation transitions to the President’s upcoming schedule in Key Biscayne, including meetings with J. Edgar Hoover and various diplomatic appointees. Additionally, they touch upon the political optics surrounding the recent release of Jimmy Hoffa from prison, agreeing that the visual image of his release generates public sympathy.

Audio

Download MP3 · 8.7 MB

NARA Description

On December 24, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 11:17 pm to 11:22 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 017-055 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 17-55

Date: December 24, 1971
Time: 11:17 pm - 11:22 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with H. R. Haldeman

     Julie Nixon Eisenhower's television show
           -“Christmas at the White House”
           -Performance
                 -Presence
           -[Dwight] David Eisenhower, II
           -Edward R.F. Cox
           -Tricia Nixon Cox
           -Message for the season
                 -The President's statement
           -The President interview
                 -Grandmother
           -Young boy
           -Dogs
           -Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
           -David Eisenhower
                 -Train
                       -Past Christmases at the White House
           -Marya McLaughlin

     The President's call to Gen. Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
          -Spirit boosting

     The President's schedule
          -J. Edgar Hoover
                -Dinner
                -Key Biscayne
                      -William P. Rogers

          -Frederick M. Eaton
               -Ambassador to Japan
          -James Suffridge
          -Eaton
          -Hoover

     James R. (“Jimmy”) Hoffa
          -Release
                -Photograph
                     -Sympathy for Hoffa
          -Teamsters
          -Leonard Woodcock

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 1 minute of this recording (about 22% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.

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.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).

Hey, how did the Julie thing come out?
I didn't get to see it.
Well, I didn't frankly want to see it because I was on the phone.
But you felt it was good?
Very good.
Julie, I was amazed.
She was really terrific.
She's got...
a great, she had the same kind of coolness in a way that Trisha has, you know, that I didn't realize Julie did, but it's a complete command.
Yeah.
And, well, you get the contrast between the two of them, and then they get David and Ed talking, you know, and neither of them has anywhere near the presence that Julie and Trish both have.
But they all came off very well, and it's, I think, a total plus.
Very good.
Oh, yeah.
Did they use the Christmas thing at the end, some of that?
Yeah.
Yeah, they sure did.
They had Julie down in front of the big tree, and they said, you know, what's your Christmas message to the nation?
She said, I think what my father said when we were decorating the tree last week or something would express my thoughts, too.
And then they cut back to you at the upstairs thing and the point of the wars between Christian nations and
that hopefully that would actually, peace on earth and good will toward men, idea of Christmas.
And they had a long segment of the interview with you earlier in the thing, too, on the family Christmas.
Oh, I see.
You know, the background of the family Christmas.
Your own Christmases and your grandmother in a red velvet dress.
And...
Just very, very human family kind of thing all the way through.
And marvelous shot to the blind kids at the White House.
Good.
Peeling the gingerbread house.
Good.
Superb shot of one of the young boys, you know, putting his hands on the gingerbread house.
Ah, good.
Get the kids through the thing.
And they had the dogs coming in, did they get that?
They had the dogs, yeah.
They showed you and Pat coming in while the kids were at the tree.
And I don't know when you came in and brought the dogs.
And they had quite a long segment there with picking up from all of you.
And there was an interesting by-play.
They had interviewed David earlier and asked him about earlier Christmases in the White House.
And he talked about his most exciting one or something was when he got an electric train.
and then when they got you a little later in the thing they something about yours you said the best present you ever got or something was the train in those days it wasn't electric but uh mechanical train but it played off david's thing which is great i see worked out very well i'm sure without even from you knowing well i told you but you were worried about it oh gosh but she she shouldn't be worried about she was just
In the opening, she came on.
She's so much more professional than Mariah McLaughlin, you know?
Yeah.
She's got a lot of poise, hasn't she?
Oh, she really does.
And she, in the way she opened the show, started describing the fight-out script, and the way she handled every question, she couldn't have been better.
Good.
She did a terrific job.
Good, good, good.
She ought to be very good.
Did she watch it?
Oh, sure.
Yeah, good.
But she'll be pleased then, because she'll know she did a good job.
It's obvious.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Good.
I called Hig, you know, and I had a good talk with him.
Oh, good.
I thought he needed it, you know, a poor guy sitting there wondering what to do.
But he's, you know, he'd rather have to be the buffer in a lot of ways.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll get this thing turned around.
And then I make a note.
I've invited Edgar Hoover to have been with me.
He just came at 6 o'clock Monday night.
Monday night?
He's down there, yeah.
Okay.
And we've got... Roger's going down.
Yeah, I called him.
Yeah, we've got... Oh, the new ambassador to Japan.
He's at noon on Monday.
Yeah, I said that earlier.
And if it's okay, we'll run suffrage at 11 o'clock.
Sure.
And get that all cleaned up.
Sure.
And suffrage has to drive down somewhere else in Florida, which he wants to do.
Just as well to have... Yeah.
Yeah.
We'll get suffrage and eating and then Uber for dinner.
You know, getting back to the Hoffa thing, I have a feeling that the, uh, the name of the Balthasar people, I mean, we, we all remember Hoffa, and that's the, the, part of the picture of that poor bastard coming out of that jail, people just found to be sympathetic.
Yep.
I have that vision.
You know, we, uh, the written press is not as important as that picture, and that's the whole story of the movie.
Absolutely, but that, and I, the,
I think that's the way it's going to end up.
They're going to have a hard time trying to make a thing.
We want to remember that it works both ways.
Get those teamsters and their allies.
And Woodcock came out with a strong, sent us a wire.
Red Hawk.
Good.
Fine.
Thank you.
All right.

Also recorded on December 24, 1971

  • 017-051 9:32 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Hobart D. Lewis talked on the telephone from 9:32 pm to 9:35 pm.
  • 017-052 9:35 PM · 6 min — Julie Nixon Eisenhower and Ann Davis talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:35 pm and 11:17 pm.
  • 017-053 9:35 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:35 pm and 11:17 pm.
  • 017-054 9:35 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:35 pm and 11:17 pm.
  • 017-056 11:22 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 11:22 pm and 11:26 pm.
  • 017-057 11:26 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Rose Mary Woods talked on the telephone from 11:26 pm to 11:28 pm.
  • 017-058 11:28 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 11:28 pm and 11:30 pm.
  • 017-059 11:30 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone on an unknown date, sometime between 11:30 pm on December 24, 1971 and 8:43 am on December 25, 1971.

All 74 conversations from December 24, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 017-055, December 24, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417191873). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/017-055 (accessed November 2, 2026).