Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 019-112
Date: Wednesday, January 26, 1972 at 3:58 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Stanton, Frank
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/019-112

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.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] Frank Stanton.
[0:05] Hello, Frank.
[0:05] Yes, Mr. President.
[0:07] You know, you probably think that sometimes when we call you from down here that we're always bitching about something, but I wanted you to know that I mentioned it to your crews, but I don't know whether they get it to the others, and I know a lot of people work on it, but...
[0:22] I thought that the cruise, the production of the Christmas night thing that we did, the Julie show, what I call Julie's show on Christmas night, and of the Dan Rather thing, and
[0:33] and the crew that did the thing last night, that it just was about the best we've had.
[0:39] So I wondered if you would pass that to your production people and tell them that there's a guy down here that appreciates CBS's fine technical crews.
[0:48] Would you do that?
[0:49] I certainly shall do that.
[0:50] You know, those guys, sometimes they work their butts off and they wonder if anybody appreciates it.
[0:54] But I really thought, first, they made me feel comfortable, which was good.
[0:58] The second thing was that they appreciated
[1:00] They're just damned highly professional.
[1:02] Well, thank you very much for telling, and I'll pass it along.
[1:04] And I thought you did a hell of a job last night yourself.
[1:07] Well, thank you.
[1:08] Well, we had a lot to say, of course.
[1:10] It was, as you know, a very important speech, very important speech.
[1:14] I passed along to Chuck Colson this morning the ratings in New York, which ran along the order of 60% of all the families here were looking.
[1:22] Boy, that's 60% of all families in New York.
[1:25] Wow.
[1:25] That's a tremendous turnout.
[1:27] Right.
[1:27] That's really high, is it?
[1:28] It certainly is.
[1:29] Yeah, yeah.
[1:32] Very interesting.
[1:33] Fine, fine.
[1:34] How have you been?
[1:35] You feel good?
[1:36] I've been fine, but how have you been?
[1:38] Me?
[1:39] Yeah.
[1:39] Well, you know, I'm the only president in history who's been in three years and never missed a day.
[1:45] I mean, I should have missed some.
[1:48] But I feel fine.
[1:50] Oh, that's wonderful.
[1:51] Of course, this is, as you know, I...
[1:54] I probably spend more time working on my speeches.
[1:58] They aren't pieces of alkyl.
[2:01] But all the time I was working in the last two weeks on writing the State of the Union, nobody knew, but I was also writing this one.
[2:09] So it was a very hard two weeks for me.
[2:13] i'm glad it's over now you have to get ready for your trip to the east yeah the trip to the east and in between i'll do a press conference or so well is there any if there's anything i can do please don't hesitate to pick up the phone i appreciate it frank but if you look past that
[2:28] you know i don't know how you do in your shop but put a little memo in their in their what you call their uh their rating file i mean the files of the people the producer the cameraman the director etc that that i called that and said this so that they can next time you give a pay raise they'll know it i'll do it i'll do it immediately but the pay rate should be only five and five tenths percent
[2:52] Fair enough?
[2:53] Okay.
[2:54] Okay.
[2:54] And also, pass it to Bill Paley, too, will you?
[2:57] Certainly, sir.
[2:58] Thank you very much.