Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 025-097
Date: Wednesday, June 21, 1972 at 9:23 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Welch, Louie
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/025-097

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello?
[0:01] Mr. President, Mayor Welsh for you.
[0:03] Yeah, hello?
[0:05] Hello?
[0:06] Hello?
[0:07] Mr. Mayor?
[0:08] Yes, Mr. President.
[0:08] I just wanted to congratulate you on your assignment as the head of the Conference of Mayors.
[0:15] Well, the election is just an hour or so away, Mr. President.
[0:18] Well, I think this is one I can predict.
[0:19] Well, thank you.
[0:21] Yeah, from everything I hear.
[0:22] And I just wish you the very best.
[0:24] And also, I want to tell you that I'm very appreciative of the way that...
[0:28] You and you, taking the leadership, and many of your colleagues have supported our policy in Southeast Asia, and I can assure you it's going to come out all right.
[0:37] Well, yes, sir, we're aware of that because it's in good hands.
[0:40] Right, and you can be sure we're...
[0:42] The worst thing we could do, of course, is to basically do what some well-intentioned people say, is just to...
[0:52] Abandon our boys.
[0:53] Well, abandon our boys, abandon our POWs, and...
[0:57] and give this enormous encouragement to the communists to take over any place else.
[1:01] So this is the real way to have peace, is to stop aggression when it rears its head.
[1:07] Mr. President, you don't know how much I appreciate this and your call, your thoughtfulness, and any way that I can serve you, I will.
[1:15] Well, I appreciate it very much.
[1:16] And we're still working, as you know, Mr. Mayor, on revenue sharing.
[1:20] They're doing some...
[1:22] It's the floor today, isn't it?
[1:23] Yeah, the House, the House.
[1:25] The real problem there is going to be the Senate, you know, whether they'll start to hang a lot of gobbledygook on it, you know.
[1:31] But if we can, if it gets through the House and then if the Senate is responsible...
[1:36] Senator Long has told us if you ask him to, he will give it priority.
[1:40] Yeah.
[1:40] I'm sure he would, Russell would.
[1:43] And I will be talking to him after we get through with the house.
[1:45] And the difficulty that he has is that once he gets it to the floor, you see, the house, you know, Wilbur Mills and others have given it a closed rule, which makes it work.
[1:57] But they go over to the Senate, and they have that open rule, and they can put on non-germane stuff.
[2:02] They can hang all sorts of silly amendments on.
[2:04] That's the problem they got there.
[2:05] But he promised us that he would try to get it through as is.
[2:08] Right.
[2:08] Well, he's a very shrewd and able leader, I can assure you.
[2:12] And he's got a lot of help on the other side, too.
[2:15] We wish you the very best, and I hope the...
[2:48] Thank you.