On August 17, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone at Camp David from 10:32 pm to 10:51 pm. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 140-029 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Yeah.
Mr. Haldeman, sir.
Yeah.
Hello.
Who is Gergen?
Is that somebody that knows anything?
Yeah.
He's Ray Price's minister.
Must not be too bright then, because he's given Price a different figure from me.
Really?
Yes.
Price says in his speech that we have cut individual income taxes by $22 billion.
Now, I asked Gergen the question as to whether or not we have cut taxes.
whether we have provided.
I didn't give a shit whether it was 69 or what year, whether our tax cut was the biggest in history.
He said, no.
He refers to the 69 cut.
He said it was $8 billion.
And then he went into percentages and all that crap.
I'm not caring about percentages.
I'm caring about the gross number.
Understand?
Yep.
And so if he gave Price $22 billion and gives me $8 billion, find out what the hell the score is.
About that.
The question that you gave me, which I asked him, was the 69 tax cut.
Well, then fine.
Let's go further.
Okay.
Just say, how much have we cut taxes?
Have we not cut taxes in this administration?
We haven't provided the biggest tax cuts in this administration.
Right.
He knows what the hell the question is because that's what Price had in his document.
That's the point he was making, the $22 billion cut.
Okay.
And the other figure, the only other one, he was comparing corporate with this and that and the other thing.
But get somebody on it who's thinking politically.
You understand what I mean?
Yep.
And isn't just trying to, you know, to make the points.
See, what he says is that the largest, he goes back to 64.
He says the largest cut in individual income tax in 48 when they were reduced by 22%.
I don't give a shit about the percent.
Because the actual dollar then was only $4 billion.
Even by that, it was $8 billion in 1969.
Then he goes on to say that the largest individual tax was a cut, but then I can't tell whether it was individual and corporate, was $9.2.
I would think that was individual only.
And he said the 1969 figure is 11%.
I'm not caring about the percentage.
I'm caring only about the amount.
And it has to be a hell of a lot more than $8.3 in order to...
prove the other point i mean other than the other points i just want to know what was the tax cut that how much tax cuts of this administration provided okay we have we provided the biggest tax cuts of any administration in history just find out whether that is true or not true could you do that
I probably should talk to him because I don't think he really understands the goddamn thing.
Well, he... That's being terribly technical, you know.
Like, for example, I asked him about the CEA thing.
I know what it is at 31% of our national income.
Let me... Tell me that the...
It's about 31% of our national income was collected in taxes.
I understand that.
You see what I mean?
By all units of government.
Now, the question is, would the...
addition in taxes required by the $140 billion McGovern budget.
What does that make?
In other words, you get my point?
No.
Okay.
At the present time, with a budget of approximately $250 billion, 31% of our national income goes to taxes.
Correct.
McGovern's going to add $140 billion to the budget.
Get the point?
Yep.
All right.
What does that make, the percentage?
Okay.
See?
Yep.
Probably in the magnitude of 45 or so, my guess is, but... Well...
But he can figure it out.
Yeah, it wouldn't be proportionally above the 250 because it...
It doesn't include local.
This is only a... Yeah.
But you understand, the federal bite is about 80% of it.
Okay.
It's about 75 to 80% is my recollection.
Okay.
But at least he can find out.
Sure.
And, of course, with the, well, tell him to figure it out with the $1,000 thing in it, too.
Okay.
Get my point?
Yep.
With an increase, with the $1,000 thing, and then just with the increases in the budget.
See, both ways.
With the increases in the budget.
And use the $120, $130, whatever it was.
I don't know what figure they're finding to cost the budget out.
How much of a percent of our national income will have to be collected by taxes?
OK. And don't be cute about it.
Just say that raised by somebody.
Then with a $1,000 proposal, what is it, C?
And then he'll get to 50%, I'm sure.
All I need to do is to get to 50%.
OK. Well, I can check some of these figures so far.
Let me ask you this.
I probably can use one of the people up here to work on this god damn thing, I mean to do some of this checking and so forth.
And I'm debating between Andrews and who's the other fellow, Batskin?
The only problem is I've never worked with Batskin.
I don't know how fast he is.
Do you know him?
And I have no idea how that would work.
Well, the problem I have, Bob, is this.
Basically, Baxian's philosophical approach is much more in tune with what I'm trying to get across.
I have worked with the other fellow before, and it'll be a little hard to bring him around, you know what I mean, to some of the things.
might be useful now that we have a sensitive problem i don't want to bring price up because i don't want to get him you know mulling around with the goddamn thing what would you suggest just bring up andrews yep either one andrews if you if you want them for figures and stuff andrews may be better do some writing and and uh but i think either either one or we can bring both of them up
Why don't you bring both?
You explain the price.
I just want them here because they've got some things in their drafts.
See what I mean?
But I want to check out.
Just bring them up, and I'll see what the hell I can... No, let me see.
Actually, you're probably better off to bring one or the other and let him call on anything you want.
Well...
Let me read their damn drafts again and see whether I think Andrews can hack it.
If he can, it's easier to do it because he's worked before.
And, uh... Bakshian is apparently, you know, a very bright, sharp guy, so I don't think he'd have any trouble.
He's young also.
So I think either one of them could.
Well, why don't you bring...
I'll tell you, I'll give you a call in about five minutes.
Let me just read the thing over just once more to see whether he's sort of on track.
Okay.
Did you get to Ehrlichman by any chance?
Yes.
He was out to dinner, and I got him just a little while ago, and he got back.
Yes.
Yeah, he's got a lot of ideas.
I'm not sure they...
So you want to talk about the environment?
No, he boiled it down.
He likes the idea of reciting accomplishments and the things to be done.
Oh, God.
Rather than what he considers the essentially negative nature of the other approach, which he feels is thematically negative.
In other words, he wants the laundry list.
uh really what it gets down to yeah and i argued against that and then uh no way you can really do it he in the process says the key here is that it should be uplift not attack and then talk about how to do it and that uh he then he was trying to develop his argument he makes the point that mcgovern's that there's a basic thing which apparently he discussed with you that that he feels fits this which is that
McGovern's tactics and his approach are an attack on the institutions of this country, not on the administration.
I understand that.
And that the issue here, therefore, is not the incumbent versus the challenger, but the view of the nation and its institutions.
That's what I'm answering, though, in my three areas I've picked.
One is the uncharted sea with an unknown navigator, and the other is, you know, what we have.
Then he says, so the conflict is between McGovern and all that we as a nation hold dear, not between two men contending for the presidency.
I agree with that.
And he says, McGovern's done this to himself, so we can cement him into it.
We didn't do it to him.
We should force him to stay on the position of being in an assault against the institutions.
The whole economic one is easy that way, and I think, frankly, the foreign policy.
It is.
And, frankly, so is the law and order one.
And John makes the point that this forum, in other words, the convention with the TV audience you have, is, he feels, the ideal place to talk about what you've done and what's left to do and build the past as prologue concept.
Then he came up with...
I guess his thought, what's his done thing, though, is I've read every draft here.
There is no way you can do it.
We have done this.
We have had the largest tax cut.
We've cut inflation in half.
We have had the national legacy of the parks.
And I really think cataloguery, and this is one thing,
The only contribution Sapphire made, I just think it's deadly.
It's deadly as hell now.
John thinks maybe people want to hear it now.
Well, John, no, he understands the argument against that, too, and it bothers him.
Well, then he said maybe the approach is to, in a sense, divide this speech in half.
First, make the point that we're in the midpoint of a course started in 1969.
We're halfway through it that runs through to 76.
The direction of that course is clear.
And it leads to a point where we want to be and define that.
But now, the second part of the speech is we're met with the challenge to this course from an alien ideology, in effect, that says that these points that we're leading to should not be our endpoints.
So this whole thing is a question of goals.
I believe this is where we want to be.
We've come a ways towards this.
The opponent believes we should be somewhere else.
and uh play it that way now that's essentially the what what you have in the well in the one approach the only problem is that it really really gets back bob over and over again the fact that if anybody starts to write it it comes out as a catalog and i read it to you i mean i read the best catalog we have well i think that's terrible well that's the catalog i mean
I read Price's catalog.
No, John said he agrees with the concept of not going through all the catalog listing, but rather to just cover the three main things and where we are in those things.
He argues strongly that the net result needs to be leaving the flavor that we're just on the threshold of some great stuff and that McGovern's going to throw it away.
But most important, he thinks, is to say what we've accomplished.
Well, that I disagree with.
You see, when you say what we've accomplished, I think I agree with you that they're going to hit that over and over and over and over again, and I don't doubt people give one goddamn about that.
I don't either.
Well, no, but he's talking about just in those three areas, not in the whole, you know, not reciting what we've done for the Eskimos and the environment.
You mean that we've cut inflation in half, that we've added 4 million jobs?
Mm-hmm.
Big deal.
And that where we're going is in a...
You know, a domestic economic picture where there'll be the jobs in a growing economy, not based on war and, you know, the whole standard shot, I guess.
Well, I see his point.
But not based on giving it all, you know, taking it all away from everybody who has it and giving it to everybody who doesn't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, well, I just want to get his view.
Sort of hard for anybody to...
to come up with anything here because you know when they ever sat down to do it they'd come up just like ray and all the others they're virtually all with the catalog mcdonald's is all a catalog infections is pretty much well it's just it's the the in a sense the logical approach i know i know it's the easiest to well when you're up for reelection you go out and say here's what i've done so put me back in you think it's right no that's my problem i don't
I just don't think it is.
I don't know whether Connolly would agree with it, but I don't think Connolly thinks that's the right one.
I mean, we have accomplished all these great things, so put us back in.
Now, that's what John really thinks we should say, isn't it?
Yeah, I guess so.
And he argues that other people will be saying it, but that they won't have the audience that you will.
At the same point, you know, I mentioned tonight, which there's some validity to.
Regardless of how much is covered by others, it's not going to match what's covered by you.
Right.
the audience reached or the effectiveness.
And that's a basic fact.
But I still don't think that what you've accomplished on, you know, we're covering that litany in other things in the convention.
We're covering it in our advertising commercials.
We're covering it in, you know, the stuff that the speakers talked about.
The thing that sort of impressed me about your analysis is that we are going to be doing it.
We're going to be hitting it over and over and over again in the
campaign I don't feel very comfortable frankly standing up before the people bragging about what I've done that's what I don't like it's not my style I don't like the posture of you standing there saying I've done a hell of a job for you so send me back I'd much rather it seems to me you're a much better posture to be standing there saying this is what I think where I think we ought to be where I'm where we're heading and but the other guy thinks we ought to hit somewhere else that's right now you people have got to decide where you want to hit
then let other people make the case that you're the most competent guy to get us there and all that sort of thing and that's going to come through by you can't go up there and say most people aren't going to hear it and of course he's uh he's naturally right yeah that's right and he's naturally influenced i mean it's the part of the problem here really is is the other thing bob is the whole the whole thrust of our
Well, let's face it, the whole thrust of most of our people is hit the domestic issues.
Well, John's isn't, in that he said... Sure.
Yeah, his argument was on the foreign thing.
Well... And he felt that that... Well, the strongest...
The thing he was talking about ties right into China, for instance, and then he also said that it's terribly important, he thinks, in the foreign area, that to the degree you can, you give the feeling of the whole canvas and the interrelationship rather than taking any one segment.
I mean, how China relates to Russia, to Middle East, to Africa, to so on.
To show your grasp of the complexity, that's the thing that people don't understand that really sets you, I mean, that people are impressed by.
That would take one whole speech.
Well, sure, it would.
So we can't do that.
No, we can handle it.
His point is that that really sets you apart from McGovern, in that it's clear you know what you're talking about, you have a concept, and...
a workable plan within that concept, where McGovern has no idea at all in this area.
Of course, McGovern never mentions it.
Nope.
Well, he's smart.
He should.
They're all very, very, all of them, because they don't tackle us on China or Russia.
I mean, that's one that's, well, they all say, well, with all these trips, it don't mean anything, and why don't we cut military expenditures more and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, that's sort of sour grapes.
They're
He's going to stay away.
He's not really attacking on that basis.
Right.
Okay, fine, fine.
If you could just get this fellow, Gergen, to get the point.
Yep.
I want to know, isn't this the biggest, and I don't mean percentage, biggest dollar tax cut for individuals?
For individuals.
Those corporate taxes we raised by $4 billion and so forth.
But isn't this the biggest individual tax cut of any administration in history?
I'm sure it is.
If his figure of $22 billion is correct, if he has in Price's draft, I don't think Price would have it in unless he was correct.
No, I don't think so either.
See?
So it must be that Price has got another year in there.
Yep.
Okay.
What happens, you see, is this.
Does Price's draft say individual taxes?
Yep.
yeah because we didn't cut corporate in the corporate we're raised yeah no what has happened here is this that gergen is just looking at it in terms of the year 69 but he doesn't realize of course as you probably of course would realize the 69 cut provided for cuts the act provided for not just 16 right but for other years as well you're right yeah you know
It was the bite of the next year and the next year.
It reduced taxes.
You see, what they ought to do, what I'm really trying to get at is something far more fundamental.
When a question like this comes, the fellow getting it should think in terms of, what the hell is he trying to prove, and can I prove it?
You go between that way and see if you can prove it.
Okay, sure.
Fine.