On March 12, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman talked on the telephone from 8:05 pm to 8:35 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 021-047 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Hello.
Mr. President, Mr. Ehrlichman returning your call.
Yeah.
Okay, fine.
President, sir.
Right.
Well, I didn't want to bother you, but I guess you got my message on the Constitutional Amendment.
Right.
I had read the first draft, and I had been through the second, but I apparently had dropped off the last five pages, which had the Constitutional Amendment, of course, discussed.
I have some ideas about cutting down the...
the length of the discussion and so forth, because I don't want to protest too much.
I mean, I don't want to make the case too strongly against it.
which I think the prison draft does.
I think it does, too.
It precludes it, the way he's developed it.
The way it's developed.
We simply state it the way I did.
When I say the way they just say it, but this time it's not the right remedy.
It seems to me that fits better right before he starts his conclusion.
Right.
You could stick it in right at the last part of the discussion of page 36 there.
I went through the whole thing again after I talked to you, and I've...
And I don't know what he's going to come up with in the next draft, but I've got a number of editorial changes that will help.
But the main thing is that I'm thinking that what may need to be done from an editorial standpoint is to move almost the entire conclusion, or at least the major things, up front.
In other words, start right out with...
The purpose of this is to do this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.
And then you can put in the conclusion again.
The point is that just doing it in an orderly way, he's got a pretty good start.
But, you know, when you do it in an orderly...
responsible way, you don't write the story for the guys well enough.
And my inclination is that.
But I'm willing to be convinced that that's wrong.
Well, I've got a lot of things I want to talk to him about in the morning.
We can cut great quantities of this out.
I guess eight or ten pages.
Well, certainly, the way that you can do all the stuff about Title I is simply to say in Los Angeles,
in New York and Kansas City, etc., etc., there, this and that, and the other thing, and you cut out eight pages right there.
I don't think we need to even get into the references.
But you see, I think all of that business about, which of course is a tortured way of saying that, you know, I mean, proving something that I don't really believe, I just don't think we ought to do it.
I mean, this is apparently from HEW, isn't it?
I think it must be.
And I would prefer to have just a very brief, maybe half a page, in which you say, on the one hand, a lot of people think Title I's failed.
On the other hand, there's some scattered evidence, the fact that... That it did succeed.
Yeah.
But the one thing we're sure of.
Then the other thing I was going to say is that I really want to beef up where he says that there's been a...
you know about the fact that there have been a number of court decisions going and this and that and the other you can you can put that in a much more dramatic and
effective way by saying that it's a chaotic situation in the courts.
It's a maze of contradiction, confusion, and frustration, you know, something like that, and that it's time for the Congress to step in and do this and that.
I mean, I really think the courts have to be kicked in the ass.
Well, he says he's trying to develop some material on some of that.
Well, I'm not sure we have to give a lot of...
This court did that.
That court did that.
What do you think?
Well, it seems to me we ought to see what there is, and maybe you can pick out a couple and say... One court does this.
...the decision stemmed all the way from... That's all right.
That's all right.
Yes, if you can get one, but I wouldn't put in 10 pages of it.
Oh, no.
The difficulty is that...
This statement, I think, shouldn't go to such great length and such tortured business about this and that because, really, it doesn't prove all that.
All it proves is confusion to me.
I'll tell you what I'd like to do is spend some time with him first thing in the morning and give him this guidance.
And I've made a number of notes on my copy.
Well, just a second.
Let me give you a couple.
I think it's very important to make this point more strongly that if we can make it legitimately about the lost generation, how many blacks would never benefit from busing.
Do you know what I mean?
Right.
And that therefore, if we're really interested in education, the thing to do is to put the money
where to do the most good in terms of quality education and that isn't in more buses but it's in frankly improving education where the blacks live now that's uh that's just something we just have to say I think too that the line that is used that there shall be no retreat from racial equality
That's a bad phrase.
It isn't racial equality that this is all about.
That isn't the goal.
It's equality of opportunity.
Racial equality is something that, well, it's a small matter, but you see the point.
And where I talk on page two is when he talks about the courts.
I could just simply say it's a chaotic maze of confusion, contradiction.
and frustration with unequal treatment between districts, between states, and between regions of the country.
That ought to be made.
Let's give the South a little problem there.
And the victims are those we are supposed to help, the children.
The victims, in other words, of the racial tension, the emotional stress, etc., are those we are supposed to help.
the imperative need of action now by the Congress.
It can't wait for the courts.
Also, I think we ought to make the point, I mean, I think this is a little bit too much aimed at the South, and I think the point that we may well be entering a period when the primary problem may be the North rather than the South.
that has more problems than the South.
You know, we know the figures there, don't we?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
The, you know, and when he gets over to page 35, the point that some actions are going to be taken, and if it is taken in a supercharged emotional context, it will be the wrong action.
So let the Congress deliberately, calmly, responsibly act and let us provide the time for that kind of action.
I mean, if you can put it a little more directly that way, it will make it so it isn't quite done as softly.
You know, Ray's stuff is very good, but it tends to be a little fuzzy and soft.
And sometimes you've got to say it a little more directly.
Also, the necessity of avoiding another argument for the moratorium, the unfairness
for any period of time of some, because they happen to be the victims of certain court decisions, I mean on an individual basis, of some being subjected to busing and some not.
And that's not right.
What we need is something that applies to all areas of the country
all states, all districts, as much as possible, equally.
I mean, equal treatment of races is, of course, a constitutional principle, but equal treatment of all children in all states and all regions is also a constitutional principle.
Another point is that with regard to this business of the moratorium, we can say one year of, say, transportation, which is excessive and which is detrimental to a child's education,
is wrong because one year out of a child's life may be too important to be lost or something like that.
I think very strongly too that to nail the point on Brown as I said earlier that Brown addressed itself to education
and that legally segregated education is inferior.
Now the question is, how can we achieve the goal of Brown?
In other words, no legally segregated, without means, which produce inferior education.
He makes the point, but it isn't made quite strongly enough.
And just as a small logistical point on page three of his second draft,
Specifically, I propose that the Congress enact two measures which together would shift the focus from transportation to education.
I put in shift the focus from more transportation to better education.
Now that puts it across.
And page four on the areas of greatest educational need rather than transportation.
I see.
Now, another thing is that he's used rather loosely all through here the word progress, progress.
It would undo all the progress so painfully achieved on page five, bottom of the page.
Some fear it would go further and that it would set a motion, a chain of reversals that wasn't to do all the progress so painfully achieved in the past generation.
What kind of progress?
Well, progress toward equality of educational opportunity.
Maybe that's what we're talking about.
Yeah, I see.
I see.
Now, I think it's very important to really get across the fact that there are a hell of a lot of blacks as well as whites that oppose busing.
Right.
There's a good place for that in here.
On page six, you could say there are right reasons for opposing busing, and there are wrong reasons.
And most people oppose it for reasons that have little or nothing to do with race.
I would put it there.
And most people
including many blacks as well as whites, oppose it for reasons that have little to do with race.
Always stick it in there so that now the establishment blacks aren't going to like that, but we've got to talk to whatever our constituency is.
Now there's an awful lot of good stuff in here.
As I said, I'm... Let me give you another couple of other...
modest points that you might have in mind.
On page 22, where he talks about equal opportunity, broadening the scope, I'd make it much more blunt, you know.
If we were to simply place curbs, unbussing, and do nothing more, then we would have kept face with the hopes of each sort.
I think that gives you the guidance you need.
Right on that page, I think you could put in the business about the lost generation.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
That's right.
And the point is we've got money.
What are we going to do with it?
What's going to help our objective of better education for blacks most?
More busing or more money where 75% of the blacks, the lost generation, who will never be affected by busing.
And by God, we're going to put it there.
I think it ought to be said.
With regard to policy questions, I noticed that on 24 he says that whether impacted districts would be included.
I don't know anything about that.
That can come out.
That's something that I just assume you work out.
Right.
I'm not going to get into that.
But when you get down to page 27, California has reported that.
New York State reported that.
Kansas City reported that.
Ohio reported that.
27, 28, half of 27.
All of that.
All that 30, half of 31, all can come out.
And a sample of some 10,000 disadvantaged students and so forth.
That doesn't prove a damn thing.
None of them prove anything for sure, do they?
No, they really don't.
And then let's just say that there is disagreement about $300 is what we have decided is the right thing to do, and that's that.
That can all come out without losing anything in the development.
That's right, and also it moves it along a little better.
Let's see here, just a second.
Well, coming to the other point, oh, on page 37, just in terms of how to write, writing a little strongly, middle of the page, therefore, whatever relief is provided would be only in the future, not now.
What is needed is action now.
The constitutional amendment route completely fails to meet this need.
Mm-hmm.
See?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And then you don't need to beat it to death and beyond that.
If you want to talk about, oh, another thing about, or he talks about at the end, it's a small matter about I'm proud of this and that and the other thing.
That really jabbed me.
What I would say is this.
This administration means what it says about dismantling racial barriers, about opening up jobs and housing and schools and opportunity to all Americans.
It is our record, not our record, not our rhetoric, which demonstrates our commitment.
That's a good line, see?
It is our record, not our rhetoric.
And then I would just go on to say, we have achieved more school segregation in the last three years than we achieved in the previous 14.
We have taken the lead in opening up high-trade to minority workers.
We have taken unprecedented measures for our businesses.
We have brought more members of minorities in the federal service.
We have provided more support.
See what I mean?
Rather than this, the commas and this and that and the other thing.
It's very weak the way it is, but if you're going to make the damn point, it is our record rather than our rhetoric that demonstrates our commitment.
Don't you think that's...
Right, I see.
And every place it says we, we can start another... New sentence.
New sentence.
Not a semicolon, but a new sentence.
Or even...
I put each one a paragraph, bing, bing, bing, you know, and then it sticks out further.
The rest will pick it up.
But all in all, I think it's, but I'm not sure that it would be very much strengthened if like almost any speech, and that's what this is, I think you might put, rather than going through all the analysis and so forth and then coming sort of in a,
in a lame way to the end about the rest.
I would say that in this message that I believe, you know, this, this, this, this, I am calling for a moratorium.
I'm calling for that.
I'm calling for that.
I'm calling for that.
Now, let me tell you why.
I'm inclined to put the conclusion at the beginning, but maybe you don't agree with that.
Well, let me try it on for size.
I mean, I'm inclined to think you have to write it for them.
but uh but and and that it makes it a stronger uh i see the point i would take his i think you can put all the general stuff in at the beginning but then around page two or three and uh the uh specifically is on page three is where i would do it i propose now i propose the congress now accept responsibility use the authority given on the 14th amendment
And then, rather than say, I propose that the Congress enact measures, the purpose of my recommendations are as follows.
One, two, three, four, put the conclusion in.
And then go on to say, well, the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1972, this would do that.
The emergency school, yeah.
See, he's got it up there already, but I'm inclined to think that maybe it's adequate.
I don't know.
And maybe it's...
Let me reread the conclusion.
Well, it may be that, except that I think that without discussing the acts and so forth, if you could just state
The goals of what I'm recommending are bing, bing, bing, and then put the conclusion in.
And then say, now, here are the acts and so forth.
And then go into all the yackety-yack about bussing and its concerns.
But all in all, it's... Now, with regard to the general trust, I am inclined to think, John, that you're right about the fact that we... And it's going to be hard, I guess, but that we...
that we really have to have the hard line moratorium and also the hard line on this up to the sixth grade are those the two points really a major major issue well those two and the uh uh and the question of whether we would recite a lot of of new civil rights that we were going to create
Like what?
Well, see, in the original Wright draft, there was a sort of a, it was almost a window dressing kind of a device where a number of new civil rights... What Garment calls the trade-offs.
Yeah, exactly.
Mm-hmm.
And the thought there was that you would define a sort of de jure segregation in certain terms that were fairly broad.
And you have the option of...
So that it would slop over in the de facto?
I don't want to do that.
I know you don't.
The lawyers and the committee frankly laid that aside.
as being a bit much and really pretty doubtful.
But Ray and Len have hung pretty tough on it and have thought that this would be viewed as a bold new move into the civil rights area.
What's your view on it, or do you have one yet?
Well, my view is that it would be badly misunderstood as a kind of an insincere gesture.
That's my feeling.
I don't think it's believable.
People would argue, well, what he's really doing here is emasculating, buffing.
as a civil rights remedy, and what has he done?
Well, he's very callously advanced a lot of window dressing new rights.
which he argues for as a matter of form.
Well, I see no reason why you can't say that every child is entitled to equality of opportunity.
Oh, you do that.
Yeah, but when you go into this business of new rights and... See, what you'd be doing really is creating some new causes of action.
That's right, and also the right of each plaintiff to do that, I don't like that, and I don't like the right of the Justice Department to get into these damn cases.
You know, I think that's bad business.
Well, this is where this all ends up.
As a matter of fact, what got the committee off of this was that, for instance, it gave some rights with regard to the location of schools.
I saw that.
That the location of a school, it's on page 7 or 8, I don't know, but anyway, there's a whole litany there.
The school district would be violating people's constitutional rights if they so located a school that it added to segregation or didn't trend toward desegregation.
Well, then we pointed out that we've got all our power plants hung up in the United States right now because there's similar language in this environmental statute.
And you can't build a damn power plant anymore.
And every school that was about to be built in the country would be the subject of a lawsuit.
So the committee backed off that whole thing after it had been talked through.
Yeah.
Well, that was in...
It's in the act that you're talking about, isn't it?
That's right.
It's one of the options in the bill.
Yeah, where it says that a student could not be assigned to a school...
Some of them are all right.
A student cannot be assigned to a school other than one nearest his home.
If so, doing would result in a greater degree of racial segregation.
That's a card of reverse.
I'm not sure of that either.
That's the hard line.
That's the hard line one.
I know, I know.
But then he goes on to say here that...
Some of this stuff is all right in there.
Wait a minute, I'll get to the page here.
Oh, it's where the remedies, that's what we're talking about, isn't it?
No, we're talking about rights and denial of equal educational opportunity.
It comes under the heading Title II, Unlawful Practices.
Well, where he says construction of new schools or the...
In such a manner as to perpetuate... Or the closing of inferior schools and...
creation or revision of attendance zones or growth structures without necessarily... No, it's this kind of thing.
I don't know where the hell it is.
It's an unlawful denial of equal educational opportunity in the construction or addition of capacity to a school subsequent to the effective date of this act in such a manner as to perpetuate or to increase segregation among students of a local educational agency.
if they're a reasonable alternative.
That's the building of new schools.
Yeah.
You see, later on, they give a cause of action to individuals and so on, and so everybody would sue every time an addition was made to a school building.
Yeah.
And so it's that kind of creation of new rights that the committee, I think, feels is a doubtful situation.
Now, that's the third bone of contention is whether to create those new rights or not.
Right.
Well, now, what is your suggestion as to what the plan of action you'll talk to Ray in the morning?
I will.
And we'll get you another draft early on.
Well, don't rush it because... No, but we want to be in shape to go, you know, give you a little flexibility toward the end of the week.
We have to go either... We have to go Friday...
for sure and uh right right and thursday maybe in case it comes up friday but um but i think generally speaking uh you have the trustor and any incidentally as far as
changing the conclusion to the beginning and the rest.
Don't worry too much about that.
I'll get at that myself.
When I see it finally, I'll just move the stuff around.
Well, we'll try and get as decent a draft for it as we can next time out.
But he can... We might try both ways and see if we can toughen it up a little bit, give it a little better hit.
It doesn't change anything.
It just makes it read...
a little better, but it may be that he feels he's got it this way, and if he has, he'll... Well, I'll talk with him about it.
I don't think he's really terribly satisfied with this draft.
No, but the reason he isn't is that he isn't satisfied with the substantive decisions.
You know, he thinks that we ought to go back to a soft moratorium, and I think he wants more tradeoffs, as we say.
And I hadn't realized what you've just now said, that those damn tradeoffs may...
create a damn pandora's box of new problems well it creates six as i recall it's six or seven new constitutional rights new causes of action i don't see that in the draft do you uh no it's in your it's in your option paper yeah well and uh i'll knock the hell out of that i'm not sure that well we don't want that i think i think you'd be getting uh but all in all but we don't want to bite off more than we need to now maybe that has to come later
But I think that creating that is, first, I don't, let's face it, except for a very few, you know, professional liberals, it isn't going to make much difference as far as the... Well, then they will impugn your motives.
You and our motives is right.
We're doing that.
Let's put it right out there the way it is.
God damn it, we don't believe in busing, do we?
That's it.
Isn't that it?
And that's what you're trying to get at.
We don't believe busing gets at the problem, so we'll put a hell of a lot of money into improving schools for people where they are.
I didn't see the... Did I see the...
The Mexican-American thing in this draft, I don't believe I did in this one.
Oh, on the bilingual?
No, it isn't mentioned.
It isn't mentioned.
It was in the first draft.
It's in the first draft.
I'll see what became of that.
But, hell, if we're going to do this, I mean, as you know, I said I haven't to you, but if we think it means anything, why not put it in?
What do you think?
Right.
As a matter of fact, he's got everything oriented to blacks.
I've made a number of notes through here that we want to broaden that out.
uh i don't think that we ought to be talking about equal educational opportunity just for blacks all the way through yeah which is basically what this does yeah well it's a hell of a lot of work i don't think you can have a draft i mean i know how ray works he'll never get one so what do you want to say shall we say uh seven o'clock tomorrow night all right good or is that is that enough time sure sure i mean just uh
start of the morning and I'll try to do some other things tomorrow.
Okay, good.
But I'll be ready any time for advice.
Well, we'll get it to you.
Now, oh, one thing.
I think it's very important so that I don't have Elliot and
Len and others start to, you know, to, first, I don't want any leaks.
Don't tell them I made any decision.
But second, I don't want them to lobby me on this damn thing.
You know, I've heard all the arguments.
Do you agree?
Yes.
I'm going to set up a little channel tomorrow so that everything comes through me.
Right.
And then just say, well, these are things I want to see options both, you know, and this and that.
But
But I don't want to throw it out in the newspaper, Sean, before I decide.
And we'll just decide it and throw it out there.
Okay.
Now, I know the concern expressed that lawyers will resign civil rights and HEW.
In my view, nothing better could happen.
I'll tell you why.
If anybody ever asks me about it, I say, I understand.
I appreciate their conviction.
But they were not elected, and I was.
That's that.
I think that's the way to handle that.
Don't you agree?
They weren't elected, and I was.
And then people have a right.
They can
They don't like this.
They can move in another direction.
But this idea that we have to be really hostage to a group of lawyers or experts in the HEW and Civil Rights Division, to hell with it.
I mean, they give their advice, and then we do what we want, right?
Good.
Okay.
Very fine, sir.
Fine.
Bye.
Bye.