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.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
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.