Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 017-059
Date: Friday, December 24, 1971 at 11:30 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/017-059

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Hello?
[0:02] President, I wish you could break your rule.
[0:04] Are you at the...
[0:05] I thought you'd be at Midnight Mass.
[0:10] No, my wife does that for me.
[0:14] I wanted to get your view on the Julie show.
[0:20] I didn't see it, of course, but... Well, as I say, I wish you would break your rule and watch yourself on television, because I think that was by far as good, but I've never seen anything that moved me so much.
[0:28] I'm kind of a hard-boiled, hard-fitting old politician, and I just... And that brought you... That ended with...
[0:31] The whole show was absolutely spectacular.
[0:51] I'm glad it was good.
[0:52] Julie was...
[0:52] I thought she didn't feel it was quite as good as it should be, but... Well, I wanted to call her.
[0:54] She's somewhat of a...
[0:54] I'll tell her that you liked it.
[0:55] Oh, well, it was the whole thing.
[0:56] How'd your wife like it?
[0:56] Well, she was just like I was.
[0:57] We were both sitting there just...
[0:57] It finally got me in the Christian spirit.
[0:58] In fact, like, really, both of us were choking up at that...
[1:00] What did they use at the end?
[1:18] I had quite a long interview.
[1:18] I don't know what part they used.
[1:19] Well, they had the first 15 minutes was largely Julie talking to Terrell and Russell about the Christmas tree and the decorations and all that.
[1:22] And previous Christmas, they showed Christmas cards that you had used in other years, talking a little bit about that.
[1:25] You came in and began talking to me, and I showed that I was adorable, and I needed that in the world.
[1:43] Couldn't have been done better.
[1:58] And then, at the end, what Coral said, he was up to it.
[1:59] Have a good journey next year, and I hope your journey will...
[2:00] I hope a good journey for you.
[2:01] I know we'll meet again.
[2:01] And you sort of looked into the camera and said,
[2:04] If we're successful, it'll be many happy things to do for many, many people.
[2:21] And if we're not, we'll just be trying.
[2:22] And then they went back to Julian and the rest of them came to you again and talked about, and you talked about the meaning of Christmas with Jesus.
[2:29] I would have to say that in terms of the emotional content of that program, it was far up.
[2:53] The emotional content was way beyond the day in the life of the president.
[2:54] And Julie is absolutely, the use of her hands and voice and the way in which she handles herself, I'm telling you, is something to be really, really thankful for.
[2:58] I think the combination of the two programs is probably pretty good.
[3:26] The one gave it a feeling of...
[3:27] a massive amount of work, you know, I guess, a broad scope of the presence, et cetera.
[3:50] And tonight was a family that every American could identify with.
[3:51] Julie referred to it as what she was buying you for Christmas.
[3:52] It was kind of a, it was a down-to-earth, you know, kind of a touch that people couldn't understand.
[3:54] She kind of just looked up at that and said,
[3:56] It was bringing the first family into kind of everyone's life in a way that people... Well, I think anybody watching it would immediately identify with you as family.
[4:20] That's good.
[4:20] That's the first.
[4:21] You talked about the one train going to Whittier, the Riverside.
[4:22] Your answers were sharp and crisp.
[4:23] But there was a great deal of feeling to it.
[4:23] It was a very emotional, very emotional person.
[4:24] Oh, that's good.
[4:25] Good.
[4:25] I just think it was a second accident.
[4:44] Well, we hope we, uh, hope a few people saw it.
[4:45] Well, I'll be anxious.
[4:45] 10-30.
[4:45] Well, it, it, it depends.
[4:46] I don't know if they had a movie or something like that.
[4:47] I think they might have had a ticket, aren't they?
[4:48] They ran it in advance.
[4:49] They ran it in the, uh, I think the best subset of it.
[4:50] For about two minutes on the network A and the X-775.
[4:51] Oh, good.
[4:51] They also ran about three minutes on the local TV, and they had to go right over the network B and the X-775.
[4:53] I took a lot of people to it.
[5:03] We'll have the ratings tomorrow.
[5:03] But I congratulate you and your family.
[5:05] Okay.
[5:05] Well, take a rest.