Nixon White House Tapes ›Tape 87 › Conversation 087-007

White House tour group on White House and Cabinet Room

Monday, January 3, 1972 · 4:44 PM–2:45 PM ET · Cabinet Room

ParticipantsWhite House tour groupConversation087-007 onTape 87StartMonday, January 3, 1972 at 4:44 PMEndThursday, January 20, 1972 at 2:45 PMRecording deviceCabinet RoomSourceNixon Library record for 087-007 ↗

AI Summary

A White House tour group received an informational walkthrough of the Cabinet Room, guided by an unidentified staff member. The briefing covered the historical arrangement of seating by protocol, the significance of the presidential chair and its integrated service buttons, and the selection of portraits displayed in the room. The tour also highlighted the aesthetic and ceremonial history of the adjacent Rose Garden, including its use for wedding ceremonies.

Audio

Download MP3 (part 1) · 110.9 MB ·Download MP3 (part 2) · 111.6 MB ·Download MP3 (part 3) · 64.4 MB

This conversation has not yet been cut into its own clip, so the player above contains the full tape segment shared with neighbouring conversations.

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.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 · Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.

1:27:25President Johnson has a little story.
1:27:28President Johnson has a little story down there.
1:28:08Wow!
1:28:08Wow!
1:28:08Wow!
1:28:08Wow!
1:28:08Wow!
1:28:36And you'll notice that there are three teams in here, and these are traditionally picked by the president when he comes in to office, and he'll pick the people he particularly admires, so President Eisenhower, of course, appears to face the water, and President Wilson, and he goes to help, so he's bipartisan in my opinion.
1:28:55I don't think the Republican Party is going to be as good as the Republican Party.
1:29:05And the Rose Garden, you might get a clear view of it.
1:29:20Of course, this is where the wedding took place.
1:29:24They had the arbor set up right here on the stairs, right out the door here on the steps, and this is where the ceremony took place.
1:29:30No, it's a surprise to a lot of people.
1:29:34It was a crowd.
1:30:12Illinois, across the border in Illinois, a box of sunroofs.
1:30:19And that's been the first green thing I've seen on a box of sunroofs.
1:30:25You really appreciate things that you grew up with.
1:30:28It's just a cat in the room.
1:30:29The president sits here.
1:30:32The vice president right by the office.
1:30:37And, uh...
1:30:40The president is appointed past secretary of defense to the secretary of state.
1:30:45The vice president is appointed by the secretary of the treasury of the treasury in general.
1:30:49The other chairs are arranged along the way by protocols by his department.
1:30:59Who would sit back in these other chairs, secretaries, this sort of thing, or would anybody take the mic, please?
1:31:07Oh, a space for the cabinet secretary and presidential staff that might be called on to offer some technical expertise on the subject of cancer.
1:31:16Mr. Soros started it here.
1:31:20There's a serious order of attrition and attacks to change the violence.
1:31:25The president will use this in nice weather for greeting really large groups.
1:31:38It's a little bit colored, isn't it?
1:31:38This is the third world war.
1:31:39William Spurge, here at Rembrandt's, over here in the Stairway to Stairway to Stairway to Stairway to Stairway to Stairway to Stairway to Stairway to Stairway to Stairway
1:32:25We're at 22nd now, and he's on the phone right here.
1:32:27What?
1:32:27He's three years old.
1:32:28He's in prison.
1:32:28He's going to stay at the city.
1:32:30He's an anti-cone bastard, Lawrence.
1:32:32He's got two of them.
1:32:33That's that.
1:32:33That's the car.
1:32:54He was that, and now he's that.
1:33:22They vote, really.
1:33:23I thought they had to make an ambassador in order to have people represent the United States as a bench.
1:33:27One of them must be the Secretary of State.

NARA Description

a White House tour group met in the Cabinet Room of the White House on an unknown date, sometime between 4:44 pm on January 3, 1972 and 2:45 pm on January 20, 1972. The Cabinet Room taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 087-007 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 87-7

Date: Unknown between January 3 and January 20, 1972
Time: Unknown between 4:44 pm, January 3 and 2:45 pm, January 20, 1972
Location: Cabinet Room

Unknown people met

     Cabinet Room
          -Table
          -President
          -Seating arrangement
                -President
                -Secretaries
                      -Maurice H. Stans
                -Henry A. Kissinger
                -Ownership of chairs

           -President’s chair
                 -Lyndon B. Johnson
                      -Call buttons by his chair
                            -Soda
                            -Service request button
           -Cabinet Secretaries

     Portraits

     The White House Rose Garden
         -Wedding

The unknown people left at an unknown time before 2:45 pm, January 20, 1972

Also recorded on January 3, 1972

  • 018-013 4:44 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:44 pm and 5:15 pm.
  • 018-014 4:44 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon, William P. Rogers, unknown person(s), and John N. Mitchell talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:44 pm and 5:15 pm.
  • 087-002 4:44 PM — Unknown person(s) met in the Cabinet Room of the White House on an unknown date, sometime between 4:44 pm on January 3, 1972 and 2:45 pm on January 20, 1972.
  • 087-003 4:44 PM — a White House tour group met in the Cabinet Room of the White House on an unknown date, sometime between 4:44 pm on January 3, 1972 and 2:45 pm on January 20, 1972.
  • 087-004 4:44 PM — Unknown person(s) met in the Cabinet Room of the White House on an unknown date, sometime between 4:44 pm on January 3, 1972 and 2:45 pm on January 20, 1972.
  • 087-005 4:44 PM — a White House tour group met in the Cabinet Room of the White House on an unknown date, sometime between 4:44 pm on January 3, 1972 and 2:45 pm on January 20, 1972.
  • 087-006 4:44 PM — Unknown person(s) met in the Cabinet Room of the White House on an unknown date, sometime between 4:44 pm on January 3, 1972 and 2:45 pm on January 20, 1972.
  • 087-008 4:44 PM — Michael J. Farrell, David N. Parker, and unknown person(s) met in the Cabinet Room of the White House on an unknown date, sometime between 4:44 pm on January 3, 1972 and 2:45 pm on January 20, 1972.

All 105 conversations from January 3, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 087-007, January 3, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/087-007 (accessed September 18, 2026).