Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 145-003
Date: Saturday, September 30, 1972 at 2:32 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Ehrlichman, John D.
Recording device: Camp David Study Table
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/145-003

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello.
[0:01] Yes, sir.
[0:03] I've got Ray Price coming up, and I thought that I probably won't get to see him this afternoon.
[0:09] Are you up here yet?
[0:10] No, I'll be up about 5.
[0:12] Oh, fine, fine.
[0:13] No, no problem, no problem.
[0:14] But you can talk to him.
[0:17] You had a chance to talk to him about the radio thing.
[0:19] Right, I have.
[0:22] I'll talk to him then.
[0:23] I think he's got some stuff fairly nearly done.
[0:26] Well, I was just meaning to want to just give him some.
[0:29] want him to you know he has to give me he wants I know he'll want to get some feel of things and also general things so but you've already done your talking with him right we talked this last week I had another idea that just occurred to me that's maybe pretty outlandish but knowing that you're always the dog and pony guy I thought probably I'd submit it to you the you know we've been thinking about what you about doing revenue sharing in another place
[0:57] Right.
[0:58] I wonder if we could get Constitution Hall to do it in.
[1:02] We're not going to Philadelphia on any other plans.
[1:06] You know what I mean.
[1:07] You go to Philadelphia, you go to Constitution Hall, it's a significant place.
[1:10] It's Rizzo, a mayor that's favorable.
[1:13] You just have to cart the damn Congress up there in a plane.
[1:16] In fact, I'll go with them.
[1:19] What about it?
[1:20] Not bad.
[1:21] Just to do something entirely different, you know, than the East.
[1:23] Now, there are two halls there.
[1:26] The other one is Carpenters.
[1:29] That's the one where the Declaration of Independence was actually written, as I understand it.
[1:35] Or, excuse me, not the Declaration of Independence, the other one, the Articles of Confederacy, which is right down the street from Independence Hall.
[1:42] Well, that probably doesn't have quite the feel.
[1:45] It may not.
[1:46] It should be the place where the Constitutional Convention was held.
[1:49] That's what I'm thinking.
[1:50] If it could be used for such a purpose.
[1:52] Now, of course, it's a national...
[1:54] monument, I guess, and all that sort of thing.
[1:56] Well, it's a national park.
[1:58] National park.
[1:58] Yeah, Park Service runs it.
[1:59] But what I was thinking was, I haven't seen it for years.
[2:03] I don't even remember.
[2:04] Well, I had my kids up there a couple of months ago.
[2:06] Oh, you did?
[2:07] Yeah, and there's the famous room that shows in the painting, you know, where Benjamin Franklin presided.
[2:14] Then there's another room where the first House of Representatives sat, which is a good deal larger.
[2:20] and has the Congressman's desks in a semicircle, and it's a good-sized room, bigger than the other room.
[2:28] Yeah, well, you might, it really wouldn't make a hell of a lot of difference which room it was in.
[2:33] That's right.
[2:33] If it were in basically what we call Constitution...
[2:37] In the Independence Hall complex.
[2:39] Independence Hall.
[2:41] That's right.
[2:42] In this place where the first Congress met and the Constitution was written.
[2:46] Pretty interesting.
[2:47] Decoration.
[2:48] Why don't you give it a little thought?
[2:50] Sure.
[2:50] I've just been over the guest list this morning.
[2:53] It runs about 550 people.
[2:56] Oh, Jesus Christ.
[2:56] Well, of course, they won't all come.
[2:58] Some of them are in Alaska and Hawaii and so forth.
[3:01] But it's a good list.
[3:03] We've got people on there, chairman of the boards of companies and so on, who are on the Citizens Committee.
[3:09] The difficulty, of course, with having something there is that then the bus or you have the reception and so forth is... No, I think there's a good place for it there.
[3:19] You could have a place to give them some coffee.
[3:21] Sure, sure.
[3:22] Shake hands.
[3:22] Have a receiving line.
[3:23] You bet.
[3:24] Right.
[3:24] But I'm just thinking something to sort of pull her out of the White House.
[3:29] Of course, to them, to the people who come, it means more to come to the White House.
[3:34] On the other hand, to the country, it might be more interesting to go to a different place, you know, which has really historical significance.
[3:44] And, of course, that, if you're talking about an historical, you know, a revolutionary change in all of our business, the new American Revolution, all that sort of thing, certainly this
[3:54] This tells it better than any words would tell it.
[3:56] Right.
[3:57] Yeah.
[3:58] Let me fool with that a little.
[3:59] Well, you can fool with it.
[4:00] Okay.
[4:00] Run it by others, see what they think.
[4:02] Okay, John.
[4:02] And as I say, I'll be up there between 5 and 6.
[4:04] Don't hurry.
[4:05] Don't hurry.
[4:05] I won't see you today.
[4:06] Okay.
[4:06] Bye.