Nixon White House Tapes ›Tape 32 › Conversation 032-075

Nixon phone call with Butz on 1972 Presidential Election and Farm Policy

Friday, October 27, 1972 · 1:01 PM–1:04 PM ET · White House Telephone ·2 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Butz, Earl L.Conversation032-075 onTape 32StartFriday, October 27, 1972 at 1:01 PMEndFriday, October 27, 1972 at 1:04 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 032-075 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Secretary of Agriculture Earl L. Butz discuss the favorable reception of the President's recent farm radio address and coordinate plans to distribute the recording to key electoral battleground states. Butz confirms that the Committee to Re-elect the President is actively mobilizing farm support in states like Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin, while focusing on California's Central Valley. The two men also observe that the political impact of the Watergate scandal is significantly less pronounced in the Western states than in the Eastern media.

Audio

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Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Hello?

Secretary Butts, Mr. President.

Yeah.

Hello?

Mr. President, I just want to say you came through beautifully in that broadcast.

Well, I hope a few people listened.

Oh, they did.

I built up that bully boy Butts, didn't I?

That was beside the point, but your delivery was good, and you came through with great sincerity.

I want you to know that I personally appreciate it very much.

Great.

I'm sitting here, I was having lunch with Clayton Geider, who heads the farm committee, or the committee to re-elect.

Oh, yeah.

We listened together, and he said they had personally called the farm chairman in every state and asked him to get in touch with the county people.

We had a good audience, and our people likewise.

Well, if you could take the tape, Earl, and ship it around, you know, I guess they will do that to all the local stations, and they're going to have reruns and so forth, because that's what we did it for, you see.

Well,

Be sure to hit, in addition to all the other states, be sure to hit heavily the Central Valley and California.

I just came from there, Mr. President.

I've worked that whole Central Valley.

I've been out there twice in the last three weeks.

The fine part of it looks awfully good out there.

And Ohio and Illinois and Pennsylvania, central Pennsylvania.

and upper Michigan isn't bad, and Wisconsin.

Be sure you hit it heavy in Wisconsin.

Well, we'll do that.

We'll play it for the very best.

Fine.

And I just wanted to say, a lot of this flack we're getting in this eastern press doesn't appear in that western press.

I know that.

In California, they think Watergate has something to do with irrigation.

That's right.

Okay.

Thanks a lot.

All right.

Thank you.

Good luck to you.

Thank you.

NARA Description

On October 27, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Earl L. Butz talked on the telephone from 1:01 pm to 1:04 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 032-075 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 32-75

Date: October 27, 1972
Time: 1:01 pm -1:04 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with Earl L. Butz.

[See Conversation No. 808-8B]

        The President's farm radio speech
            -Butz’s view
            -References to Butz
            -Butz's meeting with Committee to Reelect the President [CRP], Farm Committee
            leader, Clayton Yeutter
                -Response to speech
                                             58

                      NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF

                                      Tape Subject Log
                                        (rev. Oct-06)

                 -Distribution of speech
                 -Central Valley of California
                 -Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin
             -1972 election
                 -Watergate
                      -Reactions in Western states

Also recorded on October 27, 1972

808-006 11:41 AM · 40 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:41 am to 11:42 am.
808-007 11:42 AM · 21 min — President Richard M. Nixon and members of the Committee on the Health Services Industry, including Barbara Dunn, J. Alexander McMahon, Samuel J. Tibbitts, and James W. Haviland, as well as Herbert Stein, Donald H. Rumsfeld, James H. Cavanaugh, the White House photographer, and Stephen B. Bull, met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:42 am to 12:03 pm.
032-074 12:59 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 12:59 pm and 1:01 pm.
808-008 12:59 PM · 20 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Gilroy Roberts, Clement C. Conger, unknown person(s), White House operator, Alexander P. Butterfield, Earl L. Butz, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and John D. Ehrlichman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:59 pm to 1:29 pm.
374-017 1:34 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:34 pm and 2:40 pm.
374-018 1:34 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:34 pm and 2:40 pm.
808-009 1:34 PM · 2 min — Michael J. Farrell and United States Secret Service agents met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:34 pm and 2:54 pm.
374-019 2:30 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 2:30 pm and 2:40 pm.

All 51 conversations from October 27, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 032-075, October 27, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/032-075 (accessed September 18, 2026).