Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 102 › Conversation 102-002

White House tour group on White House tour and Cabinet Room

Tuesday, May 30, 1972 · 12:01 AM–8:01 AM ET · Cabinet Room · 3 min

ParticipantsWhite House tour groupConversation102-002 on Tape 102StartTuesday, May 30, 1972 at 12:01 AMEndTuesday, May 30, 1972 at 8:01 AMRecording deviceCabinet RoomSourceNixon Library record for 102-002 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 648452373 ↗

AI Summary

A White House tour group explored the Cabinet Room to observe its architecture, artwork, and operational facilities. The discussion focused on the room’s functional aspects, including its projection capabilities, lighting maintenance, fire safety systems, and the preservation of displayed artwork and crystal. This informal session served as an educational walkthrough for visitors regarding the daily management and physical maintenance of executive office spaces.

Audio

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This clip was extracted from the full tape recording by Easy Nixon.

Listen to the full tape segment

part A, 38:06

102a.mp3
102b.mp3
102c.mp3
102d.mp3

NARA Description

On May 30, 1972, a White House tour group met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 12:01 am and 8:01 am. The Cabinet Room taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 102-002 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 102-2

Date: Unknown between May 30 and June 13, 1972
Time: Unknown between 12:01 am, May 30 and 8:01 am, June 13, 1972
Location: Cabinet Room

A tour group met

[Recording begins while the conversation is in progress]

     Cabinet Room
          -Uses
          -Art work
          -Use of Projection Room
          -Fire alarm system
                -Effectiveness
          -Architecture
          -Lights
                -Electricians’ duties
          -Crystal
                -Cleaning
                     -Effort
          -Art Work
                -Bolshoi Ballet School
                -Bolshoi Theater

The tour group left at an unknown time before 8:01 am, June 13, 1972

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.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

Can I come in here?
Eh?
One of these closets.
That closet here is a projection booth.
You can open that door and project.
There's a projector.
Projectors set up in it.
A man comes in from the other side and projects out of the screen they set up here.
All the units you see on the ceiling up there.
Maybe you've seen some of those, Larry.
These brown things right above your head.
No.
Fire detectors.
Pyro alarms.
Pyrotronics.
Yeah, I've heard of fire detectors.
They're extremely sensitive.
But you need smoke or fire to have them set it off.
They're all over this room here.
And when that unit goes off, when that unit set off the fire alarm, the little neon light light makes sure it would light up.
None of the other ones would light up.
You get a fire alarm again, and you come in here, you see where it was, and you know, of course, in here, you know where it was.
But say in a large area, where it's all under one circuit, one great big room in a warehouse, you get a fire, it says, it says a north building...
You go out and run around the building, and you just start looking, and you can see one of the, what do you see?
That little neon light glowing, or one of them.
You know the fire is in that little area.
Oh, yeah.
That thing's extremely sensitive.
If you lit a sunbeam torch in here, that thing would go off.
It didn't unhand at times.
They didn't.
It just didn't work.
Come on, last year.
But this crawl space is all through this place.
You can crawl over any place in this building.
Come through different trap doors and get up in it.
Anywhere you see one, you can crawl through and put your wiring in.
Can I go down this way?
All the way?
All the way around there.
It's a lot of work.
One electrician will take care of that tonight when he comes in.
One electrician's duty is first thing in the morning to check all lights and make sure that everything is ready to go.
Make sure that everything is ready.
That's a pretty thing, isn't it?
You have to go around and scrub that crystal.
And wash that crystal with only water.
No, the guy sits up in a little rag and very full of the top of the waist, all the way down.
He goes around that thing, it takes him a half an hour, an hour.
They steal him from those great big gigantic...
It's huge.
The guy sits up there and he washes it down the thing.
It takes hours of a scaffolding.
And they tell him to leave it there.
Oh, they don't tell him to leave it there.

Also recorded on May 30, 1972

  • 102-001 12:01 AM · 37 min — Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Robert J. McCloskey, Charles N. Brower, Reggie Thompson, Joseph Hancock, Ralph T. Smith, William L. Gifford, Charles D. Ablard, Thomas C. Korologos, Fred F. Fielding, Dr. James R. Schlesinger, and unknown person(s) met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 12:01 am and 8:01 am.
  • 102-003 12:01 AM · 2 min — United States Secret Service agents met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 12:01 am and 8:01 am.
  • 102-004 12:01 AM · 8 min — unknown person(s) met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 12:01 am and 8:01 am.
  • 102-005 12:01 AM · 14 min — Kenneth R. Cole, Jr. and unknown person(s) met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 12:01 am and 8:01 am.
  • 102-007 12:01 AM · 15 min — unknown person(s) met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 12:01 am and 8:01 am.

Cite this conversation

Conversation 102-002, May 30, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 648452373). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/102-002 (accessed November 2, 2026).