Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 017-091
Date: Saturday, December 25, 1971 at 11:45 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Laird, Melvin R.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/017-091

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Hello.
[0:03] Merry Christmas, Mr. President.
[0:04] You beat me to it.
[0:05] Yeah.
[0:06] Well, I just wanted to wish you the best and hope you have a good day.
[0:10] Are you home?
[0:11] I'm at home.
[0:11] I've got the family here.
[0:13] Great.
[0:13] We're in the midst of unwrapping presents.
[0:16] Yeah, I'll be doing that in about a few minutes with everybody.
[0:19] And we just hope that everything goes well and that you appreciate all you're doing and everything.
[0:27] And we'll...
[0:28] get a little rest and get girded for next year.
[0:31] Well, very good.
[0:32] And thank you for calling, Mr. President.
[0:34] Well, just everything.
[0:36] Oh, incidentally, on that matter that you're familiar with, I think it's very important, and I've given the orders around to everybody, that we not allow this thing to hurt the military.
[0:48] You know, we know what's wrong, but we like about it.
[0:51] So we've got to
[0:53] clean it up, but we've got to stand by more of these fellows because they are good guys.
[0:57] They just got trapped in a system that was bad.
[1:01] Bad, right.
[1:01] Don't you agree?
[1:02] I agree, Mr. President.
[1:03] That's my view, at least.
[1:05] It's disappointing, and I know it is to you and it is to me, but you've got to just...
[1:10] But what happened is that, as you pointed out to Mitchell, apparently, you knew about this years ago.
[1:17] This has been going on for years, and it's just surprising that they had it now, and I just think it's the way the system works.
[1:23] But now that it's done, we'll... And I'm not going to go back down and read over all those things from Good Pastor and the rest of that stuff.
[1:29] I'm just going to stay out of it now.
[1:31] Absolutely.
[1:32] Leave it, stay out of it, and let Mitchell do whatever has to be done.
[1:35] That way we can stay sort of apart from it, because we've got to work with these fellows, you know.
[1:40] It's important.
[1:40] Particularly with Tom Moore.
[1:42] Right, and he's fine.
[1:42] It's just too bad.
[1:44] He's a good man.
[1:45] Good man.
[1:46] Okay, Mel.
[1:46] Fine.
[1:47] Merry Christmas to you and your family.
[1:49] Thank you.