On April 20, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and George H. Mahon talked on the telephone from 4:04 pm to 4:07 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 002-012 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Hello.
Yes, I have Congressman George Mahon.
Yeah.
Hello.
Hi, George.
How are you?
Fine.
Fine.
I don't want to bother you.
I'm sitting here talking to Cliff Harden and Abe Lincoln.
They're going down tomorrow to your country.
Yeah.
And they've got all the authority.
They're going over now to talk to John Connolly to see what further thing he has to report.
They told me they'd invited you.
You couldn't go.
But I want you to know they're going to look at the thing, and anything the law allows, we're going to do.
I think, I appreciate your call, Mr. President.
We are so involved that I didn't plan to go down.
Right.
In particular since they don't feel it necessary to stop in my area at Lubbock, and I don't either.
But they're not going to stop at Lubbock, huh?
No, no, they're going to stop at Amarillo.
Amarillo, I see.
And I saw prices going with them, which I think is very good.
Prices, yeah, that's the other, fine.
And here is the thing.
I don't think we ought to let my Texas friends stampede us on these matters.
We have not had rain for a long time, but we've had a pretty general rain, and this may be the beginning of more rain.
And I don't want to be talking against doing anything properly.
Well, what we're not doing here, we cannot declare it a disaster area.
declared a major disaster here, that's just going a little too far.
Well, what will happen then, we'll have to declare Southern California, Florida, and perhaps Arizona.
And you see, and then you're triggering, of course, unemployment insurance and a lot of other things that are very, very serious.
Well, I think that, I believe that Cliff and Abe ought to be interested and show concern and all that, but not over-commit us because...
They're going to commit for everything short of a major disaster.
I think that's fine.
In other words, loans and grain and all that sort of thing.
Hay to the extent we can find it.
There's no hay in the country, though, I understand.
That's a real problem.
But if we have a little more rain, what we haven't wanted to do is see the cattle market break.
And this drought is going to help postpone any break in the cattle market.
And some feed can be found.
Not enough, I'm sure.
Mr. President, I appreciate your call, man.
I'm grateful that you're here.
They say, incidentally, they could stop at Lubbock if you want them to.
I just don't think it's necessary.
It would be very inconvenient for me to try to go when I want them to go.
All right, swell.
Well, anyway, I just wanted you to know we were thinking about you.
You're always most kind.
All right, thank you.
Goodbye.