Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 100-005
Date: Friday, May 5, 1972 at 11:37 AM
Participants: White House tour group
Recording device: Cabinet Room
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/100-005

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] This part of the building was known as the West Wing.
[0:02] This was added in 1902 to the Fittlerosa administration.
[0:06] Now before then, the president's office was on the second floor of the residence.
[0:10] But Fittlerosa had quite a large family and his business began picking up, so he decided to move the office out of the second floor so he had more privacy.
[0:16] And it was moved down a hallway where it would cover a few minutes, and this was finished in 1909 by President Taft.
[0:23] And at West Wing, you have the president's top staff.
[0:25] You have the press office, which we just passed on the colonnade there.
[0:29] To the right, as we were coming around, will be the press secretary's office, Ron Zema.
[0:35] And his office here is right on the assistant's president, which leads from this office right into the president's office, the side door.
[0:42] Now, the cabinet room is used primarily for the cabinet, but it is also used for several staff meetings.
[0:49] On the back of each chair, you have
[0:53] the cabinet office along with the day that the cabinet member took office.
[0:59] These chairs are all bought by the different cabinet secretaries, so when they leave, the chairs go with them.
[1:04] Now President Nixon donated this table when he took office.
[1:08] It's a little larger than the old table.
[1:11] Now the President's chair is the one you see here, slightly elevated above the others.
[1:18] and the vice president or president sit directly across.
[1:21] Then the other cabinet members turn to the left, be sitting according to the age of the cabinet office.
[1:26] Now the portraits in here are selected by the president, and these are usually presidents on the present field, most related to an entire career.
[1:41] Mr. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, then President Eisenhower.
[1:48] And you also have the National Security Council that meets in here and every other staff organization.
[1:53] This telephone, I guess, connects the president to any agent he's aware of.
[2:03] Well, I don't know how extensive this telephone might be, but I'm sure that if he needed to get out, he has the proper telephone at all.
[2:07] He has restrictions taking pictures of him all the time.
[2:09] Thank you.