Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 031-148
Date: Thursday, October 19, 1972 at 5:14 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Ziegler, Ronald L.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/031-148

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Yes, sir.
[0:02] You gave them quite a bit of news today, didn't you?
[0:06] Sir, the SALT thing and— Yeah.
[0:09] Early men went out and raided the Congress.
[0:11] And Schultz—well, that was not at your place, but Schultz did.
[0:14] No, but Schultz did, well, yeah.
[0:16] And you got your line across, too, now.
[0:19] Well, John had taught that, which is good.
[0:21] Did he what?
[0:22] John taught that in the three o'clock briefing, buddy.
[0:25] Well, sure, but I mean, that's—he bought out the same thing.
[0:28] Then we took a picture of the working group in the Brooklyn room.
[0:31] in the Roosevelt Room with all spread out.
[0:35] We said that—pointed out that you had been meeting throughout the day with early men.
[0:38] This working group is in the Roosevelt Room.
[0:40] Yeah.
[0:41] They don't meet until tomorrow.
[0:42] Right.
[0:43] But you've been—we made the point you've been meeting with them today.
[0:45] But what they do is go back there and develop the options review and then present, you know, details.
[0:51] They can't meet tomorrow for that purpose.
[0:53] So I'm holding that until tomorrow.
[0:55] Right.
[0:56] What'll happen is if you want up there, you can have a picture taken by Ollie.
[1:01] Why don't we do it in Laurel this time rather than Aspen?
[1:07] Or do you think we should do it in Aspen?
[1:09] Aspen's, I think, better.
[1:10] Yeah, that's right, Richard.
[1:11] We took everything else where we had the new economic policy and so forth.
[1:17] Okay, we'll have that at approximately, say, 4.30.
[1:25] We'll have the picture at 4.30.
[1:29] Friday?
[1:31] And I want them to come back down and have a briefing Saturday morning— Saturday, right.
[1:36] —and kill out of it again.
[1:38] Mm-hm.
[1:38] Good.
[1:40] Assaulting, you handled or you— No, I handled assaulting.
[1:44] Yeah.
[1:45] Well, you do just low-key it, but it's a hell of an important announcement I have, of course.
[1:50] No, it's plain big.
[1:51] It's a crusade to the start.
[1:53] Well, you just say that on November— I announced that on November 21st, the second phase would start in Geneva.
[1:59] At Geneva.
[1:59] At Geneva, and I pointed out one, and I spelled out the accomplishments of salt one.
[2:05] said the date of November 21st had been decided when Gromyko met with you.
[2:10] And, you know, he talked about the comprehensive act.
[2:15] You know, you really come down to it.
[2:17] I mean, leaving out the Kissinger thing, which of course we cannot depend upon one way or another, but think of this and the agreement and all the other things.
[2:28] We've given them really a pretty good plate this week, haven't we?
[2:32] We sure have.
[2:34] They understand that, too.
[2:37] I think it's been a good— What we do tomorrow, of course, will be simply a picture story, but it'll be a nice picture up there.
[2:44] Well, I think it'll be more than that.
[2:46] Sure.
[2:48] That even— What you say, absolutely.
[2:51] Isn't that steady?
[2:54] Well, I hope the weather's good.
[2:57] Okay.
[2:58] Okay, sir.
[2:58] Oh, I'm going to drive—I'm not saying anything to anybody about it, I told Haldeman,
[3:04] down F-3rd, so I'm going just—going by helicopter immediately back.
[3:10] I'm going to drive halfway to Camp David for about an hour and a half, and I might stop on the way to, you know, buy a pumpkin or whatever I may do.
[3:20] The point is, a press pool can follow.
[3:22] Well, yeah, we'll just—the press pool that was scheduled to go in the chopper, we'll just go in the cars.
[3:28] And they can go wherever they want, fine, because I don't know that I will stop, but I'm going to go through the small towns.
[3:36] Desire, I will.
[3:37] Okay, good, sir.