On June 13, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. talked on the telephone from 11:22 am to 11:26 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 040-064 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Hello?
Yes, Mr. Pyle.
Did you hear from Scranton yet?
He called DeBona and indicated that he was going to do it, but he still hasn't given me his final answer yet.
Well, the reason that I ask is that I'm going to put it in the speech that we're going to do it Saturday if he'll agree to do it.
See what I mean?
Right, sir.
I've announced it.
Do you see what I mean?
Are you going to announce his name?
No, no, no, no, no.
Oh, goodness, I wouldn't throw the story away.
No, but I meant that I'm going to send the...
I want to put in the speech they said I will soon send, the way I've got it now, I'm saying I will soon send a new energy message to the Congress.
I want to say that on Saturday he'll announce or, you know, or something like that.
Do you see what I mean?
Yes, sir.
I'd like to be able to know if he's going to go Saturday.
If he isn't going to go Saturday, well, it's important to know.
Right, sir.
Well...
He's promised me a call back.
He's done the check he said he was going to make with the boner and spoke as though he was going to do it.
Okay.
If I could wait about 30 minutes.
You not only can wait that, but because I can change this one line up until 4 o'clock when we've got to start running this thing off.
Right, sir.
Well, he assured me he'd have an answer.
I've just been working with Ray, and we've made a few changes, and I think it's got a good tone.
How do you feel?
Oh, I thought it was excellent.
I really did, and...
i think incidentally the more i look to scranton uh option here it's good it is good you got you know you got some staff people because they had problems with them that won't like this i don't care about that of course i mean scranton and the see scranton was all hung up on the war and on student riots and uh uh you know and uh you know
marijuana and a few other things but he'll do this well i think he's ideal and i don't care about the staff people get the man in here right he isn't gonna give the store away no and i think we're all lined up well for this afternoon the way uh uh for the cabinet meeting uh cabinet george for you to you would just say a few words and leave right sir and then leave uh
Then for the congressional bipartisanship at 5.30, it'll take a little longer because...
I'll have to stay through the whole thing.
That's right.
We'll hold it until no more than 30 minutes in any event.
We'll try.
That's all right.
Make it an hour.
They'll want to get out of there.
That's right.
And we've got all the briefings lined on and the handouts, and I think we're going to have a good platform for this tonight.
And we're working very intensely on the package to exploit that.
Yes, sir.
I think we're going to have a briefing and so forth.
That's right.
So we've got these two damn good things, and then we'll let them ride tomorrow, and I'm going to call in to Bryce, and I'm sure we can announce him tomorrow.
Yeah, we must announce him tomorrow.
I think we should in any event because we won't get Scranton or Toad by tomorrow.
That's right.
And I don't think we're ready on the message yet, are we?
On the... On the energy thing.
Well, it's almost ready.
Yeah.
It'd be better to do it Saturday.
Let's do it Saturday and not kill this story.
No, that's the reason.
See, the Bryce story is sort of a sidebar.
The Scranton thing is a big story and should be for Sunday papers.
Right, exactly.
All right.
All right.
Bye.