Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 023-143
Date: Wednesday, May 3, 1972 at 3:49 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Burger, Warren E.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/023-143

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Hello, Mr. President.
[0:03] I thought you'd be pleased to know I was just talking to John Connolly.
[0:06] He said he'd been up to the memorial service and that you made a very eloquent tribute to
[0:14] to Edgar Hoover, so I have to do one tomorrow.
[0:20] So, boy, they're hard to work out, aren't they?
[0:22] You know, without getting too muddled, you know what I mean?
[0:25] And everything has been set.
[0:27] They didn't call me until about 8.30 last night.
[0:30] I know.
[0:31] The chief merit of it, I think, was that it was about three and a half or four minutes long.
[0:34] And the one point, Mr. President, that I wanted to make was that Edgar Hoover carried out the difficult task of law enforcement without impinging on the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, which
[0:45] accused of doing, and I wanted the record to be clear, but I stopped that very strongly.
[0:54] Well, I'm going to be there, of course, in the morning.
[0:56] Right.
[0:57] Well, I'll try to pick up a couple of different themes.
[0:59] I won't do the same thing, because I've told our fellows to look at your thing, so that I should, you know, we'll all try to get a little bit of it.
[1:05] Did they get a copy of it?
[1:07] I'll tell you what you do, of course.
[1:09] I'll get somebody down with it if you want.
[1:11] Yes.
[1:11] Send it.
[1:12] Would you mind sending it to John Andrews in the EOB?
[1:17] John Andrews.
[1:18] He's working on the speech right now.
[1:20] I just worked out the second copy.
[1:22] All right.
[1:23] And I'll tell him it's coming.
[1:24] Good.
[1:24] I'll send it down.
[1:26] At least see where we're tracking.
[1:29] It was a very nice ceremony in the sense that it was short.
[1:33] Right.
[1:34] Only about 12 minutes all told.
[1:36] Great.
[1:37] Well, I'm certainly nice of you to call.
[1:39] Good.
[1:39] How are you feeling?
[1:40] How's your back?
[1:41] Well, back's doing pretty well.
[1:42] Yeah, am I?
[1:43] I'm not so proud as to say I've got to skip Dr. Ryland.
[1:45] Oh, that's too bad.
[1:46] Too bad.
[1:47] I'll catch him next week.
[1:48] All right.
[1:49] Good.
[1:49] Well, he's always there for you whenever you want him.
[1:51] Well, and it's a great help to me.
[1:52] I try to get in at least every other week, and this fellow's the greatest I've ever met.
[1:56] No question.
[1:57] No question.
[1:57] You know...
[2:13] Well, it certainly does.
[2:14] And then in between, almost every other day, I use the Whirlpool bath down there, which is a great, great relaxer.
[2:21] Do you have a Whirlpool in your bedding?
[2:23] I put in when I got up here.
[2:24] They only cost about $500 to put in.
[2:26] Good.
[2:26] And it's the greatest relaxer.
[2:28] Do any of the other judges use them or not?
[2:31] Hugo Black used to use it once in a while, but nobody else uses it here.
[2:34] That way it's nice and clean.
[2:35] It is.
[2:35] And it's always available.
[2:38] Okay.
[2:39] Good to talk to you.
[2:40] Thank you.