Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 37 › Conversation 037-083

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Radio addresses and Press relations

Sunday, March 11, 1973 · 1:49 PM–1:58 PM ET · White House Telephone · 9 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")Conversation037-083 on Tape 37StartSunday, March 11, 1973 at 1:49 PMEndSunday, March 11, 1973 at 1:58 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 037-083 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman discuss the successful reception of the President's recent radio address on crime, agreeing that the medium effectively bypassed hostile press coverage by forcing reporters to focus on the substance of the speech rather than extraneous side issues. They conclude that radio addresses provide a superior platform for conveying direct messages to the public compared to live local events, which are often marred by protesters or distracting peripheral stories. Moving forward, Nixon directs his staff to use this direct radio strategy for future policy initiatives, specifically aiming to clarify the administration’s position on Vietnam veterans and distinguish them from those labeled as 'freeloaders.'

Audio

Download MP3 · 3.8 MB

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

· Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).
Yeah.
Mr. Hollerman, sir?
Yeah.
Hello.
I thought you'd be interested about a considerable number of the congressmen that came to the line today were very enthusiastic about the crime message.
Good.
Which shows that we, you see, at least temporarily, make a breakthrough in the public consciousness on this.
It also shows...
how the use of... Of course, you've got to have something that's newsworthy, but the Sunday thing is so much better than the Monday thing.
Well, that just totally dominated the Sunday papers.
Well, the papers certainly were dominated, right.
But you're too... And, of course, we had something to say.
We have to realize that it wasn't just a... Yeah, there was meat in it.
It was a hell of a meaty thing, but, you know, when you look at the Sunday papers, there's nothing else in them.
I mean, that's right.
There was no competition, basically.
That's right.
There was no news yesterday.
But fortunately, we had a...
And it was good to slap it right out there in terms of getting the public... Yeah, although it wouldn't have done it if you hadn't changed the whole approach on it and gone to the... Well, I frankly think that if we had just put out the namby-pamby crime message, and it wasn't that bad, but it was pretty namby-pamby, you know, you know.
vacillating and talking about two or three pages about how much the Jaffe office was doing to rehabilitate drug addicts.
I cut all that out, you know, except for one paragraph.
But if we had gone on that route, we just wouldn't have done it.
I mean, you've either got to, on this, you're either fish or fowl.
And you just had to bang it right out of the park in order to jolt them into a recognition of the fact that this is a problem on which we have strong views.
Part of our whole problem on this crime thing is that we have too often expressed it in compromising terms.
Well, basically, the compromising terms are, from a strictly legal standpoint, the best position.
But on the other hand, we have to realize that with all the congressional thing, you've got to get to the right in order to get those bastards to go to the center.
And the same is true of the establishment.
But I really was pleased that we finally got some.
And, you know, the securities, too, you know, the kind of thing that gets the lead, you notice that they use the term the soft-headed judges and soft-headed probation officers.
Well, that had to be written in.
I mean, that's really what the country's concerned about.
Well, but that's also what they'll make a play out of.
I mean, that's where you can get some attention.
That's right.
And, of course, the death penalty, which is... Well, the death penalty was the real lead, but, I mean, as far as rhetoric is concerned, you can crack the judges a bit and it puts the blame on them rather than on us for the damn thing.
Yep.
Well, anyway, it may be that we can use this device more effectively.
I mean, after doing it, I am more and more convinced, though, that...
except for perhaps going to the country just for sort of the esoteric effect, you know, I mean, that we all get sort of a boot out of and hitting the local people so that we just don't look at the country through the eyes of Washington.
In terms of a forum, next to doing something on nationwide televised TV, basically,
at night, the radio talk is basically as good or better than anything we can do.
Yeah.
Don't you think so?
Oh, sure.
Now, suppose I had gone out to Chicago, you know, the Ray Price Theory, and made this to the Chicago Better Government League.
It wouldn't have gotten this much play, would it?
No.
Or would it?
No, it wouldn't.
No?
In the first place, it would have been muddied because outside the hall there would have been 17 Jews demanding that you get the... That's right.
...out of the... That's right.
...or something, and they would have gotten at least equal play.
That's right, that President demonstrated against.
And there would have been some little by-play type thing.
Yeah, where I talked to somebody or... You talked to some lady and...
So they make a little thing about that.
But you see, this story wouldn't die.
That I hadn't thought of, but the point is that just looking at devices, people sort of smear at our use of radio in 68 and also 72, but God damn it, it's been effective.
I really think it's been damn good.
Don't you think so?
Yeah, and you see some of the survey stuff, these things like...
Oh, you know, Evans & Novak with their quail business where they go into an area and talk to people and all, where they get a playback where some garage mechanic said, you know, I'm worried about this spending thing.
I heard the president give a speech on it on the radio.
Really?
Yeah, where they actually got a playback from.
All right.
Interesting.
And there have to be, well, we know there are millions of people who do hear the radio speeches.
That's right.
Plus all the pickup beyond that.
That's why no statement that is worth anything should ever be done unless I at least radio it.
And then you can always do the 45 seconds for TV in case we think we want to break through there.
And that's it.
This is as good an example to convert the skeptics as we could possibly have because
If I had done this, for example, the way they wanted it, well, first, the normal way would be to send a message to the Congress, and the normal way, too, would have done it in perhaps a compromising way.
But either way, if we had sent a message to Congress, it would have made a play only in Washington.
Believe me, only in Washington.
Now, having done the radio thing, when you do the message next week, it gets another story that plays back.
The radio thing builds it up.
true it gets a bigger play than it would have gotten alone plus it gives you the second ride true it's this has been a good move they don't i don't think that folks like it very well the news type you know the reporters you know don't like the i think they see what we're getting out of it and they don't like that yeah the thing is that the reporters like a live event that they can cover and then piss on it for extraneous reasons right
Now, when you give them a radio thing, Bob, you give them a lean, clear text, and the bastards have to write that and not the extraneous stories.
That's the point.
Plus, it totally becomes the thing that he didn't talk about substance.
Pardon?
They try to make the he didn't say anything substantive or didn't talk about substance.
Well, this way, that's all you are doing.
Sure.
On the radio thing.
We're talking substance until it runs out of our damn ears.
But I think the point that I had not realized is that, as distinguished from going to the country, you here get a clean, lean appearance with what you're trying to say getting across.
And they have to write it.
And they may not like it.
They prefer to write the side issues and the bitching and all that sort of thing.
But if they've got no choice, they've got to write this, right?
Yep.
Because it's the news.
Well, plus when you get out in the country, you really don't want the substance to get across.
What you want there is the story of the people's reaction to the president, the color.
The color, that's right.
So we're really better off not to do the stuff out there.
Do something that's highly substantive out there.
That's right, that's right.
Well, I think I'm going to, I want to be sure that they get a damn good veteran's one.
That's one that we really pissed away here
due to some unfortunate statements by everybody concerned, you know, where they put us in the position of not being for Vietnam veterans when we're really talking about the freeloaders, you know, and the goldbreakers who want all this crap, you know, and we just got to separate them.
And this is where OMB has been really crappy.
I just don't understand it.
I mean, they never have.
Okay.
Very good.

NARA Description

On March 11, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:49 pm and 1:58 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 037-083 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 37-83

Date: March 11, 1973
Time: 1:49 pm-1:58 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.

       President's crime radio address
                                      - 57 -

                     NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

       -Congressional reaction
       -Press coverage
               -Tactics in press release
       -Speech revisions
               -Strength
               -Dr. Jerome H. Jaffe
                       -Drug rehabilitation
               -Legal position
               -Congress
               -Lead press stories
                       -“Soft headed judges”
                       -Probation officers
                       -Death penalty

Public relations [PR]
        -Reaching local communities
        -Television [TV] announcements
        -Radio addresses
               -Compared to Chicago
                        -Raymond K. Price, Jr.
                        -Better Government League
                                -Jewish demonstrators
               -President’s 1968 and 1972 campaigns
                        -Effectiveness
                                -Haldeman’s view
                                        -Rowland Evans
                                        -Robert D. Novak
        -Presidential statements
               -Radio
               -TV
               -Example
                        -President’s crime radio address
        -Message to Congress
               -Press coverage in Washington, DC
               -Radio
                        -Additional impact
                        -Press criticism
                                            - 58 -

                           NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

                             -Benefit
                             -Compared to live event
                             -Substance of address
                             -National reception
                             -Color stories

       Veterans
              -Vietnam
              -“Freeloaders”
              -Office of Management and Budget [OMB]

Also recorded on March 11, 1973

  • 037-084 1:55 PM · 17 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:55 pm and 2:17 pm.
  • 037-085 2:17 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 2:17 pm to 2:18 pm.
  • 037-086 2:27 PM · 16 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 2:27 pm.
  • 037-087 2:27 PM · 19 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 2:27 pm.
  • 037-088 2:27 PM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:27 pm and 2:33 pm.
  • 037-089 2:33 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Peter J. Brennan talked on the telephone from 2:33 pm to 2:39 pm.
  • 037-090 2:46 PM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:46 pm and 2:56 pm.
  • 037-091 2:46 PM · 18 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:46 pm and 2:56 pm.

All 18 conversations from March 11, 1973 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 037-083, March 11, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/037-083 (accessed October 12, 2026).